Stranded Travel Quotes

Adventure works in any strand—it calls to those who care more for living than for their lives.

When did the body first set out on its own adventures? Snowman thinks; after having ditched its old travelling companions, the mind and the soul, for whom it had once been considered a mere corrupt vessel or else a puppet acting out their dramas for them, or else bad company, leading the other two astray. it must have got tired of the soul’s constant nagging and whining and the anxiety-driven intellectual web-spinning of the mind, distracting it whenever it was getting its teeth into something juicy or its fingers into something good. It had dumped the other two back there somewhere, leaving them stranded in some damp sanctuary or stuffy lecture hall while it made a beeline for the topless bars, and it had dumped culture along with them: music and painting and poetry and plays. Sublimation, all of it; nothing but sublimation, according to the body. Why not cut to the chase? But the body had its own cultural forms. It had its own art. Executions were its tragedies, pornography was its romance.

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.*

London’s dramatic and hugely expensive sewer system—still in use today—was constructed for entirely the wrong reasons and only happened to improve public health by accident.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. —You (also, Martin Luther King Jr.)

Globetrotting destroys ethnocentricity, helping us understand and appreciate other cultures. Rather than fear the diversity on this planet, celebrate it. Among your most prized souvenirs will be the strands of different cultures you choose to knit into your own character. The world is a cultural yarn shop, and Back Door travelers are weaving the ultimate tapestry.

Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine. —You (also, Nikola Tesla)

Europeans—who generally like to think of themselves as being a pretty savvy lot—managed to forget and then rediscover this fact about vitamin C at least seven more times over the next five hundred years, including rediscoveries in 1593 CE, 1614 CE, 1707 CE, 1734 CE, 1747 CE, and 1794 CE, until the idea finally stuck in 1907.

Cats are useful for killing vermin (mice, rats) but beyond that provide very little use to humans, except companionship, and even then only according to their capricious whims.

Scientists are often seen as turbonerds, but the philosophical foundations of science are actually those of pure punk-rock anarchy: never respect authority, never take anyone’s word on anything, and test all the things you think you know to confirm or deny them for yourself.

Trenton raked the strands of hair away from my face and out of my eyes, My entire body was overwhelmed by the most wonderful intensity. It enveloped me, and I cried out as it traveled like electricity throughout my body. "Goddamn, keep making that sound," he said, breathless.

I’ve fought dragons, attended balls and chased a whale. I’ve won wars, lost court cases, travelled India, ridden broomsticks and stranded myself on numerous islands. I’ve died a dozen times. Because here’s the thing about a book: when you pick up a story, you put down your own.

Yet this faint sound was enough to wake the witcher – or maybe it only tore him from the half-slumber in which he rocked monotonously, as though travelling though fathomless depths, suspended between the sea bed and its calm surface amidst gently undulating strands of seaweed. He

can see back to very early days indeed, when my bad dreams—they were frightful, though my more mature understanding has never made out why—were of an interminable sort of ropemaking, with long minute filaments for strands, which, when they were spun home together close to my eyes, occasioned screaming. 

Own nothing! Possess nothing! Buddha and Christ taught us this, and the Stoics and the Cynics. Greedy though we are, why can't we seem to grasp that simple teaching? Can't we understand that with property we destroy our soul? So let the herring keep warm in your pocket until you get to the transit prison rather than beg for something to drink here. And did they give us a two-day supply of bread and sugar? In that case, eat it in one sitting. Then no one will steal it from you, and you won't have to worry about it. And you'll be free as a bird in heaven! Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. Use your memory! Use your memory! It is those bitter seeds alone which might sprout and grow someday. Look around you-there are people around you. Maybe you will remember one of them all your life and later eat your heartout because you didn't make use of the opportunity to ask him questions. And the less you talk, the more you'll hear. Thin strands of human lives stretch from island to island of the Archipelago. They intertwine, touch one another for one night only in just such a clickety-clacking half-dark car as this and then separate once and for all. Put your ear to their quiet humming and the steady clickety-clack beneath the car. After all, it is the spinning wheel of life that is clicking and clacking away there. What strange stories you can hear! What things you will laugh at!

Fishing poles. The weapon of choice for the traveler in distress. We also had lots and lots of marshmallows. Maybe we could immobilize these guys with sticky gooey goodness.

Dualism: There are good and bad forces in this world: for every high-five, there is a corresponding anti-high-five that is both down low and, sadly, too slow.

Babylonians used 60 as their base (which remains with us today when we talk about each hour having 60 minutes and each circle having 360 degrees; see Section 4) and

Boil them, mash them, stick them in a stew,

It’s brought you from the Stone Age, through the Bronze Age, and all the way into the Iron Age, which is pretty good for some weird dirt that you found down by the river.

What do you say that we forget the past, forget all that we have been before, forget the future even, and we simply look to the here and now? Isn't that all we ever have in the end?

Can be selectively bred into kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and more. All are descended from the same ancestor, making this plant very versatile for selective breeding!

Each of the arts has its own particular leprosy, its mortal ignominy that eats its face away. Painting has the family group, music the ballad, literature the criticism, and architecture the architect.

I wanted to go on an immense journey, to travel night and day into the unknown until, forgetting my old self, I came into possession of a new self, one that I might have missed on my previous travels. But the first step was beyond me. I lay in bed, unable to move, pondering, as one does at my age, the ways of melancholy—how it seeps into the spirit, how it disincarnates the will, how it banishes the senses to the chill of twilight, how even the best and worst intentions wither in its keep. I kept staring at the ceiling, then suddenly felt a blast of cold air, and I was gone. — Mark Strand, “When I turned A Hundred,” Collected Poems. ( Knopf, 2014)

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition there. —You (also, Indira Gandhi)

This is a painting that is at best one-third “I love religion so I’m gonna paint my favorite religious figures enjoying a meal” and at least two-thirds “Bro, my vanishing point is off the hook, seriously, check out my wall rectangles, you don’t even know.

Her hair is troublesome and curly ... It falls in long, black strands, but each strand has a gentle, complicated undulation travelling through it, like a mild electric shock or a thrill, hat gives it a life of its own; it is visually analogous to a tremolo on a musical note.

Here is the thing about human teeth: they’re the only tissue we’ve got that doesn’t self-regenerate. You cut your skin, it heals, but your teeth just sit there getting covered in plaque (food particles, which are unavoidable if you eat food, which you have to do to live) until they decay. Ridiculous!

According to Architectural Digest, big mansions surrounded by vast estate gardens and thoroughbred horse farms are really good places to live. According to Town & Country, strands of fat pearls are lustrous. According to Travel & Leisure, a private yacht anchored in the sunny Mediterranean is relaxing.

I was reminded of my first journey as a child in France, traveling by sleeper overnight, throwing open the carriage window in the morning to see foreign fields fly by, villages, towns, figures laboring the land humped like the plowman now, and thinking, with childish wonder, “Are they alive like me, or just pretending?

bikes have also been fundamental to early women’s liberation. While this will hopefully not be an issue in your civilization—you’re starting on a better foot than we ever did, seeing as you don’t have to labor under the hangover of thousands of years of patriarchy—it’s worth noting how something as simple as giving people the ability to cheaply transport themselves under their own power changed European society in the late 1800s CE. This newfound mobility not only allowed women to participate in civilization in ways they couldn’t before, but actually changed the way women saw themselves. They were no longer observers moved around by society: instead, they were active participants who could—and would—move themselves. The clothing women wore also changed in response to the bicycle, as demands for a new “rational dress” that allowed for a modicum of physical activity meant the end of the restrictive corsets, starched petticoats, and ankle-length skirts that had previously been worn.

Atlantis sinks. Serves it right. Red hates the place. For one thing, there are so many Atlantises, always sinking, in so many strands: an island off Greece, a mid-Atlantic continent, an advanced pre-Minoan civilization on Crete, a spaceship floating north of Egypt, on and on. Most strands lack Atlantis altogether, know the place only through dreams and mad poets’ madder whispers.

When Olsson inserted the microelectrodes into Armillaria’s hyphal strands, he detected regular action potential–like impulses, firing at a rate very close to that of animals’ sensory neurons—around four impulses per second, which traveled along hyphae at a speed of at least half a millimeter per second, some ten times faster than the fastest rate of fluid flow measured in a fungal hypha.

He and Dolores had been married thirty-one months before parting. There had been an extramarital kiss, entrepreneurial disaster, a miscarried baby, sexual malaise, and then very soon they had been forced to confront the failure of an expedition for which they had set out remarkably ill-equipped, like a couple of trans-Arctic travelers who through lack of preparation find themselves stranded and are forced to eat their dogs.

This greeting of one man to another seemed natural, and the sense of shock that had been part of me since I first saw the horseman at the ford gave place to wonder, then acceptance. I was reminded of my first journey as a child in France, traveling by sleeper overnight, throwing open the carriage window in the morning to see foreign fields fly by, villages, towns, figures laboring the land humped like the plowman now, and thinking, with childish wonder, “Are they alive like me, or just pretending?

He felt a quiet pride about the road he had traveled with this old pack - from Glipwood forest, over Miller's Bridge, past the Stranders, to Dugtown, then back along the Strand, over the Barrier, up through the Stony Mountains, over Mog Balgrik, to the Ice Prairies, then across the Dark Sea of Darkness. His anxiousness about another day at school shrank when he thought about how far the Maker had carried him. He may be scarred and worn in places, but like his pack, he believed he was the better for it.

If I were stranded on a desert island and could bring only one instrument to keep me company, I’d take a guitar. It’s versatile, and it gives you such a huge repertoire to draw from. I’d be able to play so many more types of songs than I could with a mandolin or a fiddle or a banjo. A guitar is handy to sing along with, too, and I’d have a lot of singing to do to keep from getting too lonesome. Praising God fights depression and loneliness like nothing else can. When you’re praising Him, you’re not thinking about yourself.

What days! I took a bicycle to the edge of the world! Takes much for my memory to coax out these strands of thought. The secret? That is why I cut the hair. It made me remember. Made me remember how it is like to love. Especially when the songbirds come. The heat of summer, it’s elusive promise. I’d much rather be in a woolen shawl, much more like me. Hair grey. Eyes gentle. A giant hound to look after. My herbs and plants. A well-read, well-traveled grandmother with a published book and a fellowship or two. Aha, one can dream, that is all.

Among the worst is the Australian stinging bush, also known as the “suicide plant” after stories of both humans and animals killing themselves to escape the pain it produces. When you touch this plant, the neurotoxin-coated hollow hairs covering it pierce your skin, causing an unbearable pain described as similar to being burnt with acid and electrocuted at the same time, and the only treatment is to soak the affected area of your body in hydrochloric acid and then remove the plant hairs with tweezers—carefully, because if they break off inside the skin, that only increases the pain.

YOU CAN ALWAYS GET THERE FROM HERE A traveler returned to the country from which he had started many years before. When he stepped from the boat, he noticed how different everything was. There were once many buildings, but now there were few and each of them needed repair. In the park where he played as a child, dust-filled shafts of sunlight struck the tawny leaves of trees and withered hedges. Empty trash bags littered the grass. The air was heavy. He sat on one of the benches and explained to the woman next to him that he’d been away a long time, then asked her what season had he come back to. She replied that it was the only one left, the one they all had agreed on.

When modern humans first invented computer ray tracing, they generated thousands if not millions of images of reflective chrome spheres hovering above checkerboard tiles, just to show off how gorgeously ray tracing rendered those reflections. When they invented lens flares in Photoshop, we all had to endure years of lens flares being added to everything, because the artists involved were super excited about a new tool they’d just figured out how to use. The invention of perspective was no different, and since it coincided with the Renaissance going on in Europe at the same time, some of the greatest art in the European canon is dripping with the 1400s CE equivalent of lens flares and hovering chrome spheres.

Mystery is good." He drummed his fingertips on my thigh. "Maybe.Maybe not. But I'll let it go. How about this: If I were to open the top drawer of your dresser, what would I find?" "Are we back to discussing my underwear again?" "Only in graphic detail..." He flicked my sore knee, but not where the bruise was. "I keep loose change and my oldest comic books in mine. Some people have journals or photographs or awards..." "Okay,okay." I sighed. "Underwear," I said. "Two ancient swimsuits, and a magazine file." "Of...?" "Pictures I've pulled out of magazines." "Yes,thank you. I gathered that. What's in it?" I squirmed a little and contemplated lying. Travel pix, shoes, hints on getting glue off of Ultrasuede... "Mostly pictures of models with short hair," I confessed finally. "It's sort of a goal of mine." Alex reached up and wrapped a strand around his finger. "I like your hair," he said quietly, "but I think you'd look great whatever you did with it.

When did the body first set out on its own adventures? Snowman thinks; after having ditched its old travelling companions, the mind and the soul, for whom it had once been considered a mere corrupt vessel or else a puppet acting out their dramas for them, or else bad company, leading the other two astray. It must have got tired of the soul’s constant nagging and whining and the anxiety-driven intellectual web-spinning of the mind, distracting it whenever it was getting its teeth into something juicy or its fingers into something good. It had dumped the other two back there somewhere, leaving them stranded in some damp sanctuary or stuffy lecture hall while it made a beeline for the topless bars, and it had dumped culture along with them: music and painting and poetry and plays. Sublimation, all of it; nothing but sublimation, according to the body. Why not cut to the chase? But the body had its own cultural forms. It had its own art. Executions were its tragedies, pornography was its romance.

After a lineup of stellar secondi- braised tripe, fried lamb chops, veal braciola simmered in tomato sauce- Andrea and I wander into the kitchen to talk with Leonardo Vignoli, the man behind the near-perfect meal. Cesare al Casaletto had been a neighborhood anchor since the 1950's, but when Leonardo and his wife, Maria Pia Cicconi, bought it in 2009, they began implementing small changes to modernize the food. Eleven years working in Michelin-starred restaurants in France gave Leonardo a perspective and a set of skills to bring back to Rome. "I wanted to bring my technical base to the flavors and aromas I grew up on." From the look of the menu, Cesare could be any other trattoria in Rome; it's not until you twirl that otherworldly cacio e pepe (which Leonardo makes using ice in the pan to form a thicker, more stable emulsion) and attack his antipasti- polpette di bollito, crunchy croquettes made from luscious strands of long-simmered veal; a paper cone filled with fried squid, sweet and supple, light and greaseless- that you understand what makes this place special.

The reason was not hard to discern. The head of the body was also shaven with the tonsure of Columba. What remained of his clothing proclaimed it to have once consisted of the habit of a religieux, though there was no sign of the crucifix, leather belt and satchel that a peregrinus pro Christo would have carried. The leading traveller had drawn near on his mule and gazed up with a terrified expression on his white features. Another of the party, one of the two women, urged her mount nearer and gazed up at the corpse with a steady eye. She rode a horse, a fact that signified that she was no ordinary religieuse but a woman of rank. There was no fear on her pale features, just a slight expression of repulsion and curiosity. She was a young woman, tall but well proportioned, a fact scarcely concealed by her sombre dress. Rebellious strands of red hair streaked from beneath her headdress. Her pale-skinned features were attractive and her eyes were bright and it was difficult to discern whether they were blue or green, so changeable with emotion were they. ‘Come away, Sister Fidelma,’ muttered her male companion in agitation. ‘This is not a sight for your eyes.

You have made your request, what about mine?” “I am not the one withholding secrets.” He smiled and I stared at him for a moment. When he smiled, his severe face softened into something beautiful. I wanted to see it again. “On the contrary, I am the one who has no choice. You, on the other hand, do.” “What do you want from me?” He reached out, fingers sliding across the length of my hair. “Some strands of your hair.” Some of the courtiers in Bharata used to tie their wives’ hair around their wrists when they traveled. It was a sign of love and faith. To remain connected to the person you love, even if it was just by a circlet of hair. “May I?” asked Amar. I nodded. With a small knife, Amar deftly clipped a number of strands. Quickly, he twirled them into a bracelet and slipped it onto his wrist. There was another bracelet on his hand that I had not noticed until now. A simple strap of black leather tied into an elegant knot. “Thank you for this,” he said, pulling his sleeve over the other strap. “It’s nothing,” I said, trying for lightness. “And yet I would trade everything for it,” he said. There was no tease in his voice. Nothing but a strange straightforwardness, like he’d never said anything more honest in his entire life.

You travel to a place because you have this picture of it and you want to couple with the whole country. Then you find that you and its natives haven’t a thing in common. You don’t understand the basic signals which you’d always assumed all humanity shared. You decide it was all a mistake, that it was all in your head. Then you dig a bit deeper and you find that, despite your reasonable suspicions, you still desire them all, but you don’t know what it is exactly you want from them, or what they seem to want from you, because they too, it turns out, are all looking at you with what could only be one thing on their mind. But you tell yourself you’re imagining things. And you’re ready to pack up and go back to Rome because all of these touch-and-go signals are driving you mad. But then something suddenly clicks, like a secret underground passageway, and you realize that, just like you, they are desperate and aching for you as well. And the worst thing is that, with all your experience and your sense of irony and your ability to overcome shyness wherever it threatens to crop up, you feel totally stranded. I didn’t know their language, didn’t know the language of their hearts, didn’t even know my own. I saw veils everywhere: what I wanted, what I didn’t know I wanted, what I didn’t want to know I wanted, what I’d always known I wanted. This is either a miracle. Or it is hell.

Zane awakened them both early. By the time Chase stirred, he had both their tents down and was on his third cup of coffee. Phoebe had promised she could act completely normal, but looking at her from across the fire, he wasn’t so sure. There was no way anyone could see her dreamy expression and not know something was different. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What? You keep looking at me. I know my makeup can’t be smudged. I’m not wearing any.” It didn’t matter; she was still beautiful. “You look different,” he told her. “Satisfied?” Color flared on her cheeks. “You’re only saying that because you know the truth.” “Uh-huh.” He doubted that, but maybe she was right. Or maybe the weather would be enough of a distraction to keep everyone from figuring out the truth. “How long is it going to rain?” she asked as she fingered a pole holding up the canvas sheet they put up to protect the fire and the seating area around it. “It sure got cold and damp in a hurry.” Zane shrugged. “No way to tell. The storm is supposed to hang around for a few days, but maybe it will blow over.” He hoped it would. Traveling in the rain wouldn’t be fun for anyone. And he couldn’t simply turn them around, head to the ranch and be there in time for lunch. They were at the farthest point from his house. It was a full two-day ride back. Phoebe finished her coffee. “I’m going to check and see if my things are dry,” she said as she stood. He nodded, then watched her go. Cookie had started a second campfire on the far side of camp. Phoebe’s clothes and sleeping bag were getting a dose of smoky warm air in an attempt to get them dry before they headed out. Zane knew the old man wouldn’t tease Phoebe. Instead he would save his comments for Zane.

When I looked at him, something stirred inside me. It felt like recognition sifted through dreams; like the moment before waking--when sleep blurred the true world, when beasts with sharp teeth and beautiful, winged things flew along the edges of your mind. Amar met my gaze and his eyes were raw. Burning. “Well?” he asked. There was no rebuke in his voice, only curiosity. “I see no secrets in your gaze,” I said. I see only night and smoke, dreams and glass, embers and wings. And I would not have you any other way. “You have made your request, what about mine?” “I am not the one withholding secrets.” He smiled and I stared at him for a moment. When he smiled, his severe face softened into something beautiful. I wanted to see it again. “On the contrary, I am the one who has no choice. You, on the other hand, do.” “What do you want from me?” He reached out, fingers sliding across the length of my hair. “Some strands of your hair.” Some of the courtiers in Bharata used to tie their wives’ hair around their wrists when they traveled. It was a sign of love and faith. To remain connected to the person you love, even if it was just by a circlet of hair. “May I?” asked Amar. I nodded. With a small knife, Amar deftly clipped a number of strands. Quickly, he twirled them into a bracelet and slipped it onto his wrist. There was another bracelet on his hand that I had not noticed until now. A simple strap of black leather tied into an elegant knot. “Thank you for this,” he said, pulling his sleeve over the other strap. “It’s nothing,” I said, trying for lightness. “And yet I would trade everything for it,” he said. There was no tease in his voice. Nothing but a strange straightforwardness, like he’d never said anything more honest in his entire life. “Then you must be relieved I gave it willingly.” “Astounded,” he murmured, still tracing the circlet. He looked at me and something light fluttered in my stomach. “Not relieved. Relief is when you want something to stop.

You still want me?” she murmured, a seductive husk to her voice. Gods, this woman could do me in with a single question. My gaze drifted down to my very proud, very erect cock and back to her face. “I think you know I’ll always want you. But right now? I want you more than I want air.” Lust bloomed through our connection, nearly knocking me for a loop. “That’s good. You know, I almost touched myself in the shower without you,” she admitted, opening her towel and showing me her perfect skin. “Almost made myself come all over my fingers just thinking about you tied up out here.” She threw a leg over mine, straddling me, my cock mere inches from Heaven. But did Wren even graze my aching, leaking head? No. No, she did not. Instead, she held herself from me as she grazed her own skin, palming her breasts, plucking her already-tight nipples.    “Fuuuuccccckkkkk,” I groaned, shifting restlessly on the sheets, trying for just a brush of her sex against mine. The pleasure she was giving herself threaded through me—enough that I was ready to rip out of these cuffs and take her over my knee. Her hands traveled down her stomach, her fingers threading through her auburn curls. “Just like this,” she said. “But I thought you’d want to see me. And you want to, don’t you? Watch me fuck myself?” My mouth was as dry as the Sahara. “Yes,” I croaked. “I want to see everything.” She whimpered as she grazed her clit with her thumb, fucking that sweet pussy with her fingers, her delicious heat so far out of reach. “Let me taste you,” I ordered, the thread of command thick in my voice. Wren raised an eyebrow, not giving an inch. “Good boys say please, Nico. Everyone knows that.” “Please,” I whispered, needing her taste on my tongue. Needing it, craving it. If she was going to torture me this way, I wanted something, anything of hers. Wren’s smile widened as she crawled up my body, grazing her luscious tits up my belly and chest. I tried capturing a nipple in my mouth, but she kept it just out of reach. She straddled my chest, her wet, slick heat so close and so far—all at the same time. I wanted her to sit on my face, wanted to lap her up, and drink her down. Wanted her pleasure for my own. But instead of letting me taste her, she went back to work, milking herself of pleasure just out of reach. Her scent filled my nose so much I could almost savor her sweetness, and as her pleasure ramped up, it got thicker in the air. She let her hair down, the wet strands curling over her gorgeous tits as she writhed. She plucked at her nipples, making herself hiss in desire. “That’s it, beautiful,” I growled. “Make yourself come all over my chest. Fuck that gorgeous pussy.” My words must have done the trick because Wren went off like a bomb, her orgasm slamming into both of us, nearly taking me over with it. But she didn’t come to me, didn’t press her body against mine, and that’s when I decided I’d had about enough of this shit. A flick of my wrists later, and Wren was on her back in my bed, her eyes wide. I nearly hissed at her warm skin against mine, but I was too preoccupied with her surprise. It was fucking adorable. “Yo-you just broke out of… How did you… How strong are you?” Like a pair of steel cuffs were a match for any shifter, let alone an Alpha. “Sweetheart, I’m an Acosta Alpha, next in line to take my father’s place if he ever decides to step down. A shifter is strong. I am stronger. Now, you’ve had your fun. It’s my turn.” Her wide green-gold eyes flared as her mouth parted, and even though she’d just had an orgasm, Wren’s desire blazed through us. As reluctant as I was to move,

Papa, what is it?” Alice in her humble Cinderella costume—a costume close enough to her mother’s all those years ago to revive fond memories in Lyle—ran lightly down the stairs at the side of the stage. “Travelers in need, chicken,” he said, smiling at her. “Mr. Black, Mr. Plum, this is my family. My wife, Lady Lyle. You’ve met Michael. These are my older sons Angus and Hamish. And this ragamuffin is my daughter Alice.” “You’ve caught us in the middle of putting on a play, Mr. Black,” Charlotte said. “I apologize for our odd appearance.” Lyle waited for some response, then caught the dazed expression on young Black’s face as he stared at Alice. “Mr. Black?” he prompted. “I’m…I’m sorry, my lord,” Black said without shifting his gaze from Alice. “Please don’t let us inconvenience you.” “We’re used to taking in travelers in trouble,” Lyle said, not sure what he thought about his daughter making such a fast conquest. Except it was worse than that, damn it. “I’ll…I’ll show you back to the house. You’ll want dry clothes,” Alice said, returning Black’s interest with a readiness that made every hair on Lyle’s neck bristle with warning. He caught his wife’s eye and stifled his immediate veto of Alice’s offer. “The play’s about to start, Alice,” Angus said. “A short delay won’t matter,” she said, without looking at her brother. Her attention was all for the tall young man with the burning gray eyes and wet blond hair. “You’re too kind, Lady Alice,” Black said. “Come with me.” A brilliant smile curled Alice’s lips. “To the ends of the earth,” the young man said, smiling back with untrammeled delight. They turned toward the door, and Lyle instinctively started to follow until his wife’s hand curled around his arm. “Let them go.” She drew Lyle away from the crowd. “I don’t like the way he was looking at her,” he grumbled, shooting the oblivious Julian Black a glower over his shoulder. Charlotte

She came to him toward morning. She entered very carefully, moving silently, floating through the chamber like a phantom; the only sound was that of her mantle brushing her naked skin. Yet this faint sound was enough to wake the witcher—or maybe it only tore him from the half-slumber in which he rocked monotonously, as though traveling through fathomless depths, suspended between the seabed and its calm surface amid gently undulating strands of seaweed. He did not move, did not stir. The girl flitted closer, threw off her mantle and slowly, hesitantly, rested her knee on the edge of the large bed. He observed her through lowered lashes, still not betraying his wakefulness. The girl carefully climbed onto the bedclothes, and onto him, wrapping her thighs around him. Leaning forward on straining arms, she brushed his face with hair which smelled of chamomile. Determined, and as if impatient, she leaned over and touched his eyelids, cheeks, lips with the tips of her breasts. He smiled, very slowly, delicately, grasping her by the shoulders, and she straightened, escaping his fingers. She was radiant, luminous in the misty brilliance of dawn. He moved, but with pressure from both hands, she forbade him to change position and, with a light but decisive movement of her hips, demanded a response. He responded. She no longer backed away from his hands; she threw her head back, shook her hair. Her skin was cool and surprisingly smooth. Her eyes, glimpsed when her face came close to his, were huge and dark as the eyes of a water nymph. Rocked, he sank into a sea of chamomile as it grew agitated and seethed.

I was not only free but also financially solvent, but I did not let that get to my head. Too much had happened in the near past to allow myself such a luxury. Indeed, recent experiences had made me extremely cautious and lot more intentional. The fact that I had some money on me did not get to my head. If anything, it humbled me and instilled a sense of community and "give back" that I did not have prior. Several people had been there for me along the journey, and I felt obligated to do likewise. I paid the transport fares for some young men who were traveling back to Tamanrasset. I also bought food for a group of stranded boys. I figured if we hustlers did not look out for each other, no one would. Besides, at some level, we were all looking for the same thing.

fees. Tourists and traveling salesmen around the country found themselves stranded.

Never Doubt His Plan A cargo helicopter flying over Alaska had some engine trouble. The pilot did excellent work to get the aircraft down, but electrics had been damaged, meaning he couldn't radio for help. He knew a search party would be looking for him, but there was such a vast area to cover. Being from a family of deep faith, he started to pray for God to send the rescuers in the right direction. Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse. One day while out getting freshwater, there was an electrical fire in the helicopter. He stood at a safe distance and watched it going up in flames. Then the gas tank exploded. He fell to his knees as it did. Watching his pride and joy go up in smoke felt like pouring salt on his wounds. He cried out to God, "I give up, I ask you to help me, and this happens. A few hours later he heard a distance sound, he perked up, he couldn't see anything, but it kept getting closer. Next thing he saw a helicopter in the distance, it was the coast guard coming to rescue him. When they landed, he ran over and gave them a big hug—asking how in the world did they find him. It turned out the smoke from the wreckage had travelled over 300 miles with the wind. The rescue team had followed the smoke. Sometimes what looks like a disappointment is God positioning us for a new level. If your helicopter is on fire today, so to speak, instead of being bitter, complaining, being upset. Have a new perspective, trust in God's plan. It may not make sense now. Being stranded is tough; being in the pits of life will feel uncomfortable. The setbacks, the closed doors can be discouraging, but you have to remind yourself. It's not working against you; it's working for you. Now you only see in part, but one day you will see in full.

On Earth, there was a man and his camel.” I laugh. She keeps going. “They were traveling across this grand desert full of all sorts of nasties. One day, as the man prepared camp, the camel kicked him for no reason. So the man whipped the camel. The camel’s wounds grew infected. It died and left the man stranded.

his hair messy at the top, but one strand hangs down in front of his face. Good lord. That one hair is one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.

SENSUALITY   Her hands push upward gathering the material from my shirt until it reaches over my head. Brushing her hair with my hand I stare deep into the lambent ecru of her eyes as hints of russet and jade glimmer across them both. She gives into me reaching for me while moving her lips down my torso. Carefully removing each layer that is slowly loosened we now find each other completely unguarded as our arms do wrap tightly around one another. Her arms and hands glide and slide naturally in such a graceful performance that her movement does seduce every part of me. Here and now we have become bare as we embrace this method of nearness that unfolds one another’s secrets. Holding her inside of my gentle embrace I marvel every elegant strand from her karakul-like ringlets that fall down beside her face and shoulders. The splendor of her darling features give charm to that undulating delirium that she induces. The edges of my fingertips find their way down the muscles of her back in the way that a drop of rain finds itself traveling across the wet colocasia leaf. Looking into her eyes they do manifest to me again that she is the one whom I’ve been searching for all this time. She is the one I have waited for to whom I do give the great pleasure of showing me how. I’ve wanted every part of me to belong to her and no one else, knowing here and now that all of me will truly become her very own.

My glance slowly and wearily travels over my forehead, my cheeks: it finds nothing firm, it is stranded. Obviously there are a nose, two eyes and a mouth, but none of it makes sense, there is not even a human expression.

It was not like her to lose her senses. The ability to drift was beaten from her long ago. But Sorasa drifted now, pacing the beach. She did not hear the shift of sand, or the heavy scuff of boots over the loose stones. There was only the wind. Until a strand of gold blew across her vision, joined by a warm unyielding palm against her shoulder. Her body jolted as she turned, nose to nose with Domacridhan of Iona. His green eyes glittered, his mouth open as he shouted something again, his voice swallowed up by the droning in her own head. “Sorasa.” It came to her slowly, as if through deep water. Her own name, over and over again. She could only stare back into the verdant green, lost in the fields of his eyes. In her chest, her heart stumbled. She expected her body to follow. Instead, her fist closed and her knuckles met cheekbone. Dom was good enough to turn his head, letting the blow glance off. Begrudgingly, Sorasa knew he had spared her a broken hand on top of everything else. “How dare you,” she forced out, trembling. Whatever concern he wore burned away in an instant. “How dare I what? Save your life?” he snarled, letting her go Sorasa swayed without his support. She clenched her own jaw, fighting to maintain her balance lest she fall to pieces entirely. “Is that another Amhara lesson?” he raged on, throwing up both arms. “When given the choice between death or indignity, choose death?!” Hissing, Sorasa looked back to the spot where she woke up. Heat crept up her face as she realized her body left a trail through the sand when he dragged her up from the tide line. A blind man would have noticed it. But not Sorasa in her fury and grief. “Oh,” was all she could manage. Her mouth flapped open, her mind spinning. Only the truth came, and that was far too embarrassing. “I did not see. I—” Her head throbbed again and she pressed a hand to her temple, wincing away from his stern glare. “I will feel better if you sit,” Dom said stiffly. Despite the pain, Sorasa loosed a growl. She wanted to stand just to spite him, but thought better of it. With a huff, she sank, cross-legged on the cool sand. Dom was quick to follow, almost blurring. It made her head spin again. “So you saved me from the shipwreck just to abandon me here?” Sorasa muttered as Dom opened his mouth to protest. “I don’t blame you. Time is of the essence now. A wounded mortal will only slow you down.” She expected him to bluster and lie. Instead, his brow furrowed, lines creasing between his still vivid eyes. The light off the ocean suited him. “Are you? Wounded?” he asked gently, his gaze raking over her. His focus snagged on her temple, and the gash there. “Anywhere else, I mean?” For the first time since she woke, Sorasa tried to still herself. Her breath slowed as she assessed herself, feeling her own body from toes to scalp. As her awareness traveled, she noted every blooming bruise and cut, every dull ache and shooting pain. Bruises ribs. A sprained wrist. Her tongue flicked in her mouth. Scowling, she spit out a broken tooth. “No, I’m not wounded,” she said aloud. Dom’s desperate smile broke wide. He went slack against the sand for an instant, falling back on his elbows to tip his face to the sky. His eyes fluttered shut only for a moment. Sorasa knew his gods were too far. He had said so himself. The gods of Glorian could not hear their children in this realm. Even so, Sorasa saw it on his face. Dom prayed anyway. In his gratitude or anger, she did not know. “Good,” he finally said, sitting back up.

In 1920 Hans Reiter was born. He seemed less like a child than like a strand of seaweed. Canetti, and Borges, too, I think—two very different men—said that just as the sea was the symbol or mirror of the English, the forest was the metaphor the Germans inhabited. Hans Reiter defied this rule from the moment he was born. He didn’t like the earth, much less forests. He didn’t like the sea either, or what ordinary mortals call the sea, which is really only the surface of the sea, waves kicked up by the wind that have gradually become the metaphor for defeat and madness. What he liked was the seabed, that other earth, with its plains that weren’t plains and valleys that weren’t valleys and cliffs that weren’t cliffs. • When his one-eyed mother bathed him in a washtub, the child Hans Reiter always slipped from her soapy hands and sank to the bottom, with his eyes open, and if her hands hadn’t lifted him back up to the surface he would have stayed there, contemplating the black wood and the black water where little particles of his own filth floated, tiny bits of skin that traveled like submarines toward an inlet the size of an eye, a calm, dark cove, although there was no calm, and all that existed was movement, which is the mask of many things, calm among them. • Once, his one-legged father, who sometimes watched as his one-eyed mother bathed him, told her not to lift him out, to see what he would do. From the bottom of the washtub Hans Reiter’s blue eyes gazed up at his mother’s blue eye, and then he turned on his side and remained very still, watching the fragments of his body drift away in all directions, like space probes launched at random across the universe. When he ran out of breath he stopped watching the tiny particles as they were lost in the distance and set out after them. He turned red and understood that he was passing through a region very like hell. But he didn’t open his mouth or make the slightest attempt to come up, although his head was only four inches below the surface and the seas of oxygen. Finally his mother’s arms lifted him out and he began to cry. His father, wrapped in an old military cloak, looked down at the floor and spat into the center of the hearth.

Christmas 2022 was a time where stranded air travelers were living at airports and checked bags were going missing in large numbers!

Each strand of corn silk is actually a hollow tube connected to the undeveloped mother cob. The pollen travels down the silk to the cob, where it forms a single kernel. Each kernel has its own silk attached to it. Someone up there thought of everything, because they even made it so the silk is covered with a sticky substance that catches the pollen. To make sure it doesn’t just blow away.

Hair fall - The two words that make up for the shortest yet the scariest horror story that no woman would ever want to witness. However, many women suffer from it and get stuck in a loop of trying various solutions to take control of hair fall. It’s important to understand to what amount the hair fall is normal and to what is abnormal. We lose about 100 strands every day but anything more than that is excessive and alarming. HAIR FALL PROBLEM Hair is a big part of our identity and appearance. It adds confidence and resembles our style in ways more than one. When one loses hair, they lose self-esteem and self-confidence. Therefore, it is necessary to find an answer to the question of ‘How to control hair fall?’ Hair Fall Problem For most of us, a good hair day instantly puts us in a good mood. Such is the importance associated with the appearance of our hair. When even an occasional bad hair day can seriously put a damper on our mood, imagine how dreadful it’s to deal with your precious hair locks beginning to fall off. If you're looking for a basic brush that gets rid of tangles with no discomfort or pain, look no moreoverthan the Patented Venting hairbrush DoubleC. This universal brush is made to detangle wet hair of all kinds and forms with ease. Each brush is made with light, soft, and strong bristles that can painlessly get rid of despite the most serious knots. The points also highlight SofTips at the top that massage the scalp and help improve follicle stimulation. Patented Venting hairbrushes work best on women with long, thick hair for they're usually too large and unwieldy on short or thin hair. Most maximum paddle brushes are created for dry hair, as a regular detangler, and smoother. Hair Fall Problem Different Types of Hair Brush Our wide collection of Nuway4haiHair Brushes covers DoubleC Brush, C Brush, Travel C Brush, Traveler Brush, MagicSpell Combo Brush, and many more. Available in various forms and sizes, these hair brushes for women have two hair types namely. Specially created to serve, appearance, and smoothen up the hair of all dimensions and arrangements, all the hairbrushes come following three distinct ranges, that is, Basic, Premium, and Specialist. Nuway4hair Top Sellers to Choose From 1. Patented Venting hairbrush DoubleC - Purple 2. Patented Venting hairbrush DoubleC - Blue 3. DoubleC Brush- Black 4. Patented Venting hairbrush DoubleC PRO - Gray

How did you come to live in Amsterdam?” I ask her. “Did you study there?” She twists a strand of hair around her fingers, staring out over the rail and across the water. “No, I studied medicine in Algiers, then earned my doctoral degree in Italy. Then spent several years as a ship’s surgeon because I couldn’t find professional work on the continent.” She squints, counting the years backward in her head. “Then I was hired to assist at the Hortus Medicus—the botanical garden in Amsterdam that cultivates medicinal plants from around the world. They’re funded by the university, and most of the physicians do at least some of their training there. I started teaching as a substitute when the male professors were traveling or unwell, and eventually they gave me my own classes and let me do my own research.” “Do you speak Dutch?” I ask. She nods. “And Italian. And Arabic, and some of the Berber dialects, though not fluently.” “And you’re a doctor,” I say, trying to make it a statement rather than a question though the concept still seems outlandish, not because women don’t have the capacity for medical professions, but because I’ve simply never heard of any reaching such a recognized level of achievement. “A real doctor.” She gives me a half smile. “Improbable as it may seem, I am.” “Felicity Primrose Montague!” I exclaim. Monty throws back his head and laughs. Felicity rolls her eyes. “Oh good, now there are two of you.” “You’re incredible,” I say to her. She looks down at her hands, color rising in her cheeks. “That’s very kind, thank you.” “You are!” I say. “You’re a doctor! And a professor! At a university!” “It really is bloody impressive, Fel,” Monty adds. “And a pirate!” I say. “You’re like an adventure-novel heroine! I wish I could introduce you to my fiancée. She’d go mad over you.” “Is she interested in medicine or piracy?” Felicity asks. “Neither in particular,” I say. “But she’s very interested in women who cast off societal expectations and work for change despite the men who endeavor to stand in their way.

In 2012, Google Maps had become the premier provider of mapping services and location data for mobile phone users. It was a popular feature on Apple’s iPhone. However, with more consumer activity moving to mobile devices and becoming increasingly integrated with location data, Apple realized that Google Maps was becoming a significant threat to the long-term profitability of its mobile platform. There was a real possibility that Google could make its mapping technology into a separate platform, offering valuable customer connections and geographic data to merchants, and siphoning this potential revenue source away from Apple. Apple’s decision to create its own mapping app to compete with Google Maps made sound strategic sense—despite the fact that the initial service was so poorly designed that it caused Apple significant public embarrassment. The new app misclassified nurseries as airports and cities as hospitals, suggested driving routes that passed over open water (your car had better float!), and even stranded unwary travelers in an Australian desert a full seventy kilometers from the town they expected to find there. iPhone users erupted in howls of protest, the media had a field day lampooning Apple’s misstep, and CEO Tim Cook had to issue a public apology.19 Apple accepted the bad publicity, likely reasoning that it could quickly improve its mapping service to an acceptable quality level—and this is essentially what has happened. The iPhone platform is no longer dependent on Google for mapping technology, and Apple has control over the mapping application as a source of significant value.

For the first time since she opened the door, concern blanketed her face. “Locate him? What do you mean?” Josie said, “Mrs. Calvert, at approximately seven this morning, my colleague and I were traveling on Widow’s Ridge Road. It was foggy. We were attempting to pull over. We came upon your husband attacking a teenage girl on the shoulder of the road.” Tori stared at them for a long moment, several emotions trying themselves on her face: bewilderment, skepticism, fear, confusion, shock, and then incredulity. She laughed. The baby laughed in response, waving the slimy strand of hair clutched in her tiny hand through the air, as if in victory. “Now I know you have the wrong person,” said Tori. “That’s absurd. My husband would never do something like that. Also, as I said, he’s been at work all day.” They said nothing. Rolling her eyes, she shifted the baby again and turned away from them. “Fine. I’ll just call him and you’ll see.

Bee was quietly disdainful of wisecracks, sarcasm and other family business. A year older than Denise, she was taller, thinner, paler, both worldly and ethereal, as though in her heart she was not a travel writer at all, as her mother had said she wished to be, but simply a traveler, the purer form, someone who collects impressions, dense anatomies of feeling, but does not care to record them. She was self-possessed and thoughtful, had brought us hand-carved gifts from the jungles. She took taxis to school and dance class, spoke a little Chinese, had once wired money to a stranded friend. I admired her in a distant and uneasy way, sensing a nameless threat, as if she were not my child at all but the sophisticated and self-reliant friend of one of my children. Was Murray right? Were we a fragile unit surrounded by hostile facts? Would I promote ignorance, prejudice and superstition to protect my family from the world?

These potential advantages of DNA computing over the traditional approach and the seminal experimental work of Adleman, demonstrating the practical in vitro implementation of a DNA algorithm for solving an instance of the Hamiltonian path problem, caused a strong increase of interest in DNA computing over the past years. Although the set of “bio-operations” that can be executed on DNA strands in a laboratory (including operators such as synthesizing, mixing, annealing, melting, amplifying, separating, extracting, cutting, and ligating DNA strands) seems fundamentally different from traditional programming languages, theoretical work on the computational power of various models of DNA computing demonstrates that certain subsets of these operators are computationally complete. In other words, everything that is Turing-computable can also be computed by these DNA models of computation. Furthermore, it has also been shown that universal systems exist, so that the programmable DNA computer is theoretically possible. The algorithms for DNA computing that have been presented in the literature use an approach that will not work for NP-complete problems of realistic size, because these algorithms are all based on extracting an existing solution from a sufficiently large initial population of solutions. Although a huge number (≈ 1012) of DNA molecules (i.e., potential solutions to a given problem) can be manipulated in parallel, this so-called filtering approach (i.e., generate and test) quickly becomes infeasible as problem sizes grow (e.g., a 500-node instance of the traveling salesman problem has > 101000 potential solutions).

the mystic portal has been thrown open, and the mob has rushed in, dispering all these fairy visions, and polluting everything with its unhallowed touch. Barouches and gigs, cockneys and fishermen and poets, Glasgow weavers and travelling haberdashers, now swarm in every resting place, and meet us at every avenue. As Rob Roy now blusters at Covent Garden and the Lyceum, and as Aberfoyle is gone to Wapping, so Wapping and the Strand must come to Aberfoyle. The green-coated fairies have packed up their alls and quitted the premises, and the Uriskins only caper now in your verse... the circle of pollution is spreading fast, to the far north and the remote west.

Be Healed From Depression, a book by Stellah Mupanduki breathed by the Holy Spirit of A Sovereign God for your peace and salvation, creates and recreates your life from complete brokenness to salvation and flourishing life. Whether you are a single person seeking stability and establishment, whether you are an adult carrying heavy burdens, whether you are a parent broken, whether you are surrounded by trials and tribulations, whether you feel condemned with bloodline diseases and struggles and troubles, whether you are travelling your journey of life with heavy burdens, on a road that feels like no one else can travel on it, it has obstacles and difficulties that feels like it is yours alone; if you feel this kind of brokenness, then this book is your salvation, your triumph because of the presence of the Holy Spirit of a Sovereign God who knows you and who speaks living and active words of salvation, healing, peace, relief and blessings to you and removes all troubles, illnesses and struggles…This freeing book is living and active, it eradicates strongholds and abolishes the spirit of depression and suffering. If you feel stranded and stuck in life, afflicted with injustice, in the midst of life challenges, struggling with mental health and all illnesses, unhappy, depressed and hopeless; this book removes all these strongholds in the name of Jesus Christ…

Caves are simply wonderful for giving shelter to weary and stranded travelers. But in a strategic sense, they’re equally terrible. They are the worst fatal funnels in the history of fatal funnels,

In the coming decades, smart people will realize that international travel will end and they will settle onto continents that they are comfortable with being stranded on.

Sestina" For a week now our bodies have whispered together, telling each other secrets you and I would keep. Their language, harder and more tender than this, wakes us suddenly in the half dawn, tangled dragons on their map. They have a plan. We are stranded travelers who plan to ditch our bags and walk. The hill wind whispers danger and rain. We are going different ways. That tangled thornbush is where the road forks. The secrets we told on the station bench to keep awake were lies. I suspect from your choice of language that you are not speaking your native language. You will not know about the city plan tattooed behind my knee. But the skin wakes up in humming networks, audibly whispers over the dead wind. Everybody’s secrets jam the wires. Syllables get tangled with bus tickets and matchbooks. You tangled my hair in your fingers and language split like a black fig. I suck the secrets off your skin. This isn’t in the plan, the subcutaneous transmitter whispers. Be circumspect. What sort of person wakes up twice in a wrecked car? And we wake in wary seconds of each other, tangled damply together. Your cock whispers inside my thigh that there is language without memory. Your fingers plan wet symphonies in my garrulous secret places. There is nothing secret in people crying at weddings and singing at wakes; and when you pack a duffel bag and plan on the gratuitous, you will still tangle purpose and habit, more baggage, more language. It is not accidental what they whisper. Our bodies whispered under the sheet. Their secret language will not elude us when we wake into the tangled light without a plan.

WHAT IS QUANTUM? Quantum literally means "how great" or "how much," but in fact it represents the smallest discrete unit of the consciousness fluid area. The perception of the subatomic waves of light, sound, and energy gives us the most amazing experience of wholeness, of being completely connected to at-one –atoned with the whole sacred web of life. Light waves called photons are quanta, brilliant light strands, the string theory "strings." Sound, energy and all life travel in waves as well. The electron spin and wave structure of the quantum waves makes a change as we set a goal. We are sending out reverberations all over the field. There is an intrinsic strength in our life when we are mindful of this realm of wholeness and are grateful for it; there is a profound spiritual liberation open to all.

Malachi Constant is one of the richest men on Earth, but otherwise he is a soulless, purposeless individual. Thinking he might learn something to his benefit, he arranges to meet Winston Niles Rumfoord. Rumfoord, a New England aristocrat, while traveling in his private spaceship with his dog, Kazak, encountered a temporal anomaly called a “chrono-synclastic infundibulum.” This wrinkle in time allows him to travel both back to the past and forward to the future. Mostly, he and Kazak (a palindromic name) appear only as a wave spiral between the sun and Betelgeuse, materializing on Earth for a short while every fifty-nine days. He prophesizes that Constant will travel to Mars and father a child with Rumfoord’s disdainful wife, Beatrice—certainly not the news Constant wishes to hear, but that is indeed what happens, no matter what else intervenes. There is no avoiding destiny. Likewise, a parallel, humorous subplot is that Earth’s history has been manipulated by extraterrestrials from the planet Tralfamadore. They need a replacement part for a stranded spaceship, and all of human endeavor has been directed toward producing a rounded metal strip with two holes in it. The greatest of humankind’s architectural and engineering achievements—Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, and the Kremlin—are really only messages in the Tralfamadorian mathematical language, informing the spaceship’s robot commander of how much longer he has to wait for the part. To underscore the universe’s ultimate determinism, Constant returns to Earth and makes a remark that he thinks is profound and original—“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all”—only to find that it has already been carved on a wooden scroll.59

Where were you going at nearly three in the morning, anyway?’ Max asked, standing up and holding out his hand, so he could tug Neve up too. She flushed a little. ‘Well, I was going to the all-night shop on Seven Sisters Road to get some food because I haven’t eaten in weeks,’ she admitted, and she didn’t want to ruin this before it had even started again, the same way she’d ruined it last time. ‘This is just a one-off. I’m done with detox cleansing, I swear, but I’m also done with eating crap at weird hours because we can’t get out of bed. Except for right now, because I am seriously contemplating cutting off my own hand and lightly sautée-ing my fingers in extra-virgin olive oil.’ Max stood poised on the step above her, brow furrowed as if he was trying to reach a decision about something. Probably that he didn’t want to be with her enough to deal with her dietary restrictions any more. ‘OK, then. If that’s the way you want it,’ he said, as if he was done deciding. He jumped down the steps, picked up Keith’s lead and headed for the gate, while Neve stood there watching in disbelief. It didn’t hurt any less having your heart broken for the second time. In fact, it hurt more, and … ‘You coming, or what?’ Max called, already walking down the street. ‘We’d better get a move on or they might have sold out of that disgusting bread that’s all seeds and nothing else.’ With a hand clutched to her heart, which had had more than enough shocks in the last twenty-four hours, Neve hurried after Max and Keith. ‘You’re such a drama queen,’ Max complained when she caught up with him. ‘No one could be that hungry unless they’d survived a plane crash and been stranded on a desolate mountain-top for days and the only thing standing between them and death was gnawing on one of their dead travelling companions.’ Neve punched him on the arm. ‘Are you joking? If the shop turns out to be closed after all, I expect you to sacrifice a couple of fingers for the cause,’ she said, as she slipped her hand into his.

The philosophy they had lived for starts to die itself. Some strands of ancient philosophy live on, preserved by the hands of some Christian philosophers – but it is not the same. Works that have to agree with the pre-ordained doctrines of a church are theology, not philosophy. Free philosophy has gone. The great destruction of classical texts gathers pace. The writings of the Greeks ‘have all perished and are obliterated’: that was what John Chrysostom had said. He hadn’t been quite right, then: but time would bring greater truth to his boast. Undefended by pagan philosophers or institutions, and disliked by many of the monks who were copying them out, these texts start to disappear. Monasteries start to erase the works of Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca and Archimedes. ‘Heretical’ – and brilliant – ideas crumble into dust. Pliny is scraped from the page. Cicero and Seneca are overwritten. Archimedes is covered over. Every single work of Democritus and his heretical ‘atomism’ vanishes. Ninety per cent of all classical literature fades away. Centuries later, an Arab traveller would visit a town on the edge of Europe and reflect on what had happened in the Roman Empire. ‘During the early days of the empire of the Rum,’ he wrote – meaning the Roman and Byzantine Empire – ‘the sciences were honoured and enjoyed universal respect. From an already solid and grandiose foundation, they were raised to greater heights every day, until the Christian religion made its appearance among the Rum; this was a fatal blow to the edifice of learning; its traces disappeared and its pathways were effaced.

When these weary travelers arrived at an icy river, they expected to find it frozen solid. Instead, a large section of icy water swirled in the middle of the river. With “one poor hatchet,” Washington remembered, he and Gist devoted an entire day to hacking out a rude raft to float them across. Midway across the river, it became wedged in an ice floe, stuck so fast that Washington “expected every moment our raft would sink and we perish.” He tried to free the craft by pushing a pole against the river bottom: “I put out my setting pole to try to stop the raft that the ice might pass by, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with so much violence against the pole that it jerked me into ten feet [of ] water.” Bobbing breathlessly in the current, Washington latched onto one log of the raft and heaved himself onto its surface. Unable to get ashore, he and Gist lay stranded on an island in the river. Although Washington had been submerged in the icy water, it was Gist who suffered frostbite in his toes and fingers. The pair withstood the elements on the island all night. By the next morning, the river having congealed into a sheet of ice, they were able to scramble across to safety. Clearly, to have survived these mishaps, Washington must have been a physical prodigy, made of seemingly indestructible stuff.

Time travel is like knitting. You have to build on what’s come before, and weave the strands together until it becomes something beautiful.

Word has traveled quickly that just because you're on island doesn't mean you have to be stranded---as long as you have cash.