Thin Blue Line Quotes

But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get." I know what she's talking about. The something deeper and more secret. It's like cracks inside of you. Like there are these fault lines where things don't meet up right.

If we go that way, it seems less like we’ll be shot for trespassing. We can’t be low profile because of your shirt.” “Aquamarine is a wonderful color, and I won’t be made to feel bad for wearing it,” Gansey said. But his voice was a bit thin, and he glanced back at the church again. Just then he looked younger than she’d ever seen him, his eyes narrowed, hair messed up, features unstudied. Young and, strangely enough, afraid. Blue thought: I can’t tell him. I can never tell him. I have to just try to stop it from happening. Then Gansey, suddenly charming again, flipped a hand in the direct of her purple tunic dress. “Lead the way, Eggplant.” She found a stick to poke at the ground for snakes before they set off through the grass. The wind smelled like rain, and the ground rumbled with thunder, but the weather held. The machine in Gansey’s hands blinked red constantly, only flickering to orange when they stepped too far away from the invisible line. “Thanks for coming, Jane,” Gansey said. Blue shot him a dirty look. “You’re welcome, Dick.” He looked pained. “Please don’t.

Nothing has changed. The body is susceptible to pain, It must eat and breath air and sleep, It has thin skin and blood right underneath, An adequate stock of teeth and nails, Its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable. In tortures all this is taken into account. Nothing has changed. The body shudders as it is shuddered Before the founding of Rome and after, In the twentieth century before and after Christ. Tortures are as they were, it’s just the earth that’s grown smaller, And whatever happens seems on the other side of the wall. Nothing has changed. It’s just that there are more people, Besides the old offenses, new ones have appeared, Real, imaginary, temporary, and none, But the howl with which the body responds to them, Was, and is, and ever will be a howl of innocence According to the time-honored scale and tonality. Nothing has changed. Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances, Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same. The body writhes, jerks, and tries to pull away Its legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up, It turns blue, swells, salivates, and bleeds. Nothing has changed. Except of course for the course of boundaries, The lines of forests, coasts, deserts, and glaciers. Amid these landscapes traipses the soul, Disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away, Alien to itself, elusive At times certain, at others uncertain of its own existence, While the body is and is and is And has no place of its own.

I need you, Jess, with everything in me I need you, not just now or tonight, but forever. You're my North Star and Safe Harbor and all those other sappy clichés, but above all else, you are my dragon slayer. I need you tonight. I need you in my arms where I can feel your heart beating in time with mine. Just hold me and… and let me hold you in return.

You wouldn't find it funny if you had zipper tracks permanently pressed into your dick.

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

The 'thin blue line' is nothing more than the no snitching policy found in any other criminal gang.

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.”                                                    ~ Washington Irving

I designed this and had it made especially for you. The trefoil is the symbol of immortality: a beginning without an end, like our life together. The hearts represent my love for you. Forever love. Unending like the knot they form. I chose opals instead of diamonds, because opals are warm living stones, each color a birth stone, yours being the center of this ring just like you are the center of our family. “I know the inscription isn’t original, but the meaning behind the words is. I wrote those words for the wife I dreamed of. And here you are. With My Last Breath.

[...] because there comes a point where greed and madness can no longer be told apart. This dividing line is very thin, just like a belt of film surrounding the earth's sphere. It's a delicate blue, and this transition from the blue to the black is very gradual and lovely.

There are two dedications. The first is Jessica’s. To my precious children, Madalina, Ashur, Isabelle, and Grace, No mother could love her children more than I love you. Each of you is truly a gift from God that I cherish more than anything else in this world. And to Amy Sarah, my Beloved Princess. I only held you once, but you live on forever in my heart. Even you have a story.” Kayne paused and bussed her temple before continuing. “The second dedication is from Darcy’s kids. I may call you Mom, Grandma, Aunt, or some other name, the title doesn’t matter to my heart. It only knows that it loves you. Happy Mother’s Day.

Pressure does two things – bursts pipes and creates diamonds. Which one are you?

I’m not talking about some guy. I’m talking about the Force, the Thin Blue Line, the fraternity of police I’ve been barred from.

Rhonda looped, as unmitigated suffering descended on her; one wave of thought crashed over another without sensible demarcation; bamboo leaves swayed in maddening winds; jaded wetness danced upon purpled drizzles on towering trapeze; grapefruit vines bottled in brine; dewdrops on her eyes. All this, as though, a nonsensical midsummer’s night dream had occurred in an enchanted forest under the influence of Puck’s flower juices, wavering in the moonlight like many of her dreams. A thin line separated reality from dream; like being on a continuum, further up, cross over to another reality; an illusory realisation of a past hollered. Our roles played, but in innate imperfection, to the tune of some charm thrust upon as disposition in this enchanted forest of life.

Everything surrounding the ship is gray or dark blue and nothing is particularly hip, and once or maybe twice a day this thin strip of white appears at the horizon line but its so far in the distance you cant be sure whether its land or more sky. Its impossible to believe that any kind of life sustains itself beneath this flat, slate-gray sky or in an ocean so calm and vast, that anything breathing could exist in such limbo, and any movement that occurs below the surface is so faint its like some kind of small accident, a tiny indifferent moment, a minor incident that shouldnt have happened, and in the sky there's never any trace of sun - the air seems vaguely transparent and disposable, with the texture of Kleenex - yet its always bright in a dull way, the wind usually constant as we drift through it, weightless, and below us the trail the ship leaves behind is a Jacuzzi blue that fades within minutes into the same boring gray sheet that blankets everything else surrounding the ship. One day a normal looking rainbow appears and you vaguely notice it, thinking about the enormous sums of money the Kiss reunion tour made over the summer, or maybe a whale swims along the starboard side, waving its fin, showing off. It's easy to feel safe, for people to look at you and think someone's going somewhere. Surrounded by so much boring space, five days is a long time to stay unimpressed.

Evening Concert, Sainte-Chapelle" The celebrated windows flamed with light directly pouring north across the Seine; we rustled into place. Then violins vaunting Vivaldi's strident strength, then Brahms, seemed to suck with their passionate sweetness, bit by bit, the vigor from the red, the blazing blue, so that the listening eye saw suddenly the thick black lines, in shapes of shield and cross and strut and brace, that held the holy glowing fantasy together. The music surged; the glow became a milk, a whisper to the eye, a glimmer ebbed until our beating hearts, our violins were cased in thin but solid sheets of lead.

We’re almost there, Gabriel,” he whispered, feeling quite certain without knowing why. “I remember this place, Gabe.” And it was true. But it was not a grasping of a thin and burdensome recollection; this was different. This was something that he could keep. It was a memory of his own. He hugged Gabriel and rubbed him briskly, warming him, to keep him alive. The wind was bitterly cold. The snow swirled, blurring his vision. But somewhere ahead, through the blinding storm, he knew there was warmth and light. Using his final strength, and a special knowledge that was deep inside him, Jonas found the sled that was waiting for them at the top of the hill. Numbly his hands fumbled for the rope. He settled himself on the sled and hugged Gabe close. The hill was steep but the snow was powdery and soft, and he knew that this time there would be no ice, no fall, no pain. Inside his freezing body, his heart surged with hope. They started down. Jonas felt himself losing consciousness and with his whole being willed himself to stay upright atop the sled, clutching Gabriel, keeping him safe. The runners sliced through the snow and the wind whipped at his face as they sped in a straight line through an incision that seemed to lead to the final destination, the place that he had always felt was waiting, the Elsewhere that held their future and their past. He forced his eyes open as they went downward, downward, sliding, and all at once he could see lights, and he recognized them now. He knew they were shining through the windows of rooms, that they were the red, blue, and yellow lights that twinkled from trees in places where families created and kept memories, where they celebrated love. Downward, downward, faster and faster. Suddenly he was aware with certainty and joy that below, ahead, they were waiting for him; and that they were waiting, too, for the baby. For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.

Old would have been an inaccurate word to describe him. He was ancient, his face gouged with wrinkles, a few sparse hairs stubbornly attached to his skull. He was very pale too, like an underground creature. A slug, perhaps. His veins contrasted with his pallor, thin, spidery lines of purple and blue.

The police body camera system of transparency is heavily corrupted by the armed and dangerous blue brotherhood.

I walk the straight lines. I walk through the summer nights. I walk the silver rope of dreams. I walk through dawns of dawns. There’s not a lot that isn’t dying. I see people parading in front of each other like insects in a killing jar, watching each other die. I walk the straight lines through the Christ machines. Through the eyes of the throwaway people. Through the wards and the shores and the cracks in the skulls of the sidewalks. Through love’s howling vacancy. I am the freedom soil. I dig my own grave. I resurrect myself every night. I am all things to myself. I walk the straight lines. I walk the spider’s jailhouse. I walk the think line, the thin line, the white line and all the lines in between. I wish I could trade in my eyes.

Police Sonnet Police is not a profession, But a promise of protection. So long as you carry the badge, You must discard self-preservation. The thin blue line of service, Is not for self-serving narcissists. When your sole concern is society, Only then can you uphold justice. You mustn't become manikins of politics, Nor of bureaucratic brutality. Your allegiance is only to the people, Their welfare will rescue your humanity. In the sea of selfishness be the selfless drop, Taking care of people you become a real cop.

Her eyebrows were plucked into thin arched lines, which gave her a permanent look of surprise, or outrage, or inquisitiveness, such as you might see on a startled child, but below them her eyelids were tired-looking. Not so her eyes, which were the flat hostile blue of a midsummer sky in bright sunlight, a blue that shuts you out. Her nose must once have been what was called cute but now was too small for her face. Her face was not fat but it was large. Two lines led downward from the corners of her mouth; between them was her chin, clenched like a fist.

The death of George Floyd has been used as a catalyst. It was the kind of “event” for which the aforesaid revolutionary formation (Black Lives Matter) was created. Now, Black Lives Matter has become a power in its own right. It is only the ignorance of the many, and the “fog of war,” that makes the casual observer dubious as to authorship of the present insurrection. For those who have not studied communist tactics, further shocks are in store. The existing political system failed to support the thin blue line, and that line is crumbling. The communists are winning.

The personality of which she was so tired seemed to let go of her. The high, sparkling air drank it up like blotting-paper. It was lost in the thrilling blue of the new sky and the song of the thin wind in the piñons. The old, fretted lines which marked one off, which defined her . . . were all erased.

Well, at first I did; I was restless; I didn't know however I should manage to support life--you know there are such moments, especially in solitude. There was a waterfall near us, such a lovely thin streak of water, like a thread but white and moving. It fell from a great height, but it looked quite low, and it was half a mile away, though it did not seem fifty paces. I loved to listen to it at night, but it was then that I became so restless. Sometimes I went and climbed the mountain and stood there in the midst of the tall pines, all alone in the terrible silence, with our little village in the distance, and the sky so blue, and the sun so bright, and an old ruined castle on the mountain-side, far away. I used to watch the line where earth and sky met, and longed to go and seek there the key of all mysteries, thinking that I might find there a new life, perhaps some great city where life should be grander and richer--and then it struck me that life may be grand enough even in a prison.

He was a very tall, very thin creature that could only be described as a wood elf. His long, ponytailed hair was every color of autumn leaves; his skin was the hue of fresh-cut pine boards; and his eyes were the vibrant color of fresh spring foliage. He also wore blue jeans and brown loafers and a ragged t-shirt that read, "Choose your Weapon!" under which sat a line of Dungeons and Dragons dice of various shapes and denominations. Kay could barely believe it. For one, where did he get that shirt? These Otherworld people LIVED Dungeons and Dragons--they played it too? For a second Kay thought she might be looking at the most ironic t-shirt and t-shirt wearer combination ever.

What was in New York?” “I had to sign a new contract. A Thin Blue Line was renewed for another season.” “Oh, that’s awesome!” I heard rumblings on a few of the news outlets that the show might get dropped. “I really hope you’re finally able to get a new partner. I don’t know why they keep pushing that story line. Tina is not a good match for Jimmy. Brody and I have been riding together for almost seven years, and I would punch myself in the face before I ever kissed him. The show needs to give Jimmy a woman who he saved or something. That would be an interesting plot. Also, your brother on the show has to stop sleeping with that model. Twitter went nuts when he went back to her. She’s a bitch.” Eli’s gaze shifts to mine, and he chuckles. “I thought you didn’t watch the show.” Crap. I did say that. I chew on my thumb and shrug. “I guess I’ve seen a few seasons.” I say the last word under my breath, hoping he didn’t catch it. “Seasons?” No such luck. “Whatever. It’s just to see how bad you butcher my job.” Eli shakes his head and grabs my hand. His fingers thread with mine and then he gently squeezes. “Sounds like you’re a little more invested than that.” “Fine,” I admit. “I watch it religiously." He brings my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles. “I knew you liked me.” I laugh and hit his chest with our entwined hands. “You’re crazy. I like your show, but seriously, tell the writers they need to clear that up.

Merritt stared in bemusement at the big, wrathful Scotsman. He was an extraordinary sight, more than six feet of muscle and brawn dressed in a thin wet shirt and trousers that clung as if they'd been glued to his skin. An irritable shiver, almost certainly from the chill of evaporating alcohol, ran over him. Scowling, he reached up to remove his flat cap, revealing a shaggy mop of hair, several months past a good cut. The thick locks were a beautiful cool shade of amber shot with streaks of light gold. He was handsome despite his unkempt state. Very handsome. His blue eyes were alert with the devil's own intelligence, the cheekbones high, the nose straight and strong. A tawny beard obscured the line of his jaw- perhaps concealing a weak chin?- she couldn't tell. Regardless, he was a stunner.

Now Gideon was more handsome than before, if that was possible. The lines of strain and cynicism had been smoothed away, and the dark smudges had disappeared from beneath his eyes, and he looked so vibrant and vigorous that her heart thudded wildly in response. Although Livia didn't move or make a sound, something drew Gideon's attention to the window. He stared at her through the glass panes, seemingly riveted by the sight of her. Livia stared back at him, wrenched with exquisite longing. Oh, to be in his arms again, she thought, touching the window, her fingertips leaving watery circles in the thin glaze of frost. A slow smile began on Gideon's face, and his blue eyes sparkled. With a shake of his head, he put his hand on his chest, as if the sight of her was more than his heart could bear.

Blue water extends in rows of gentle ripples to a thin line of barely visible cottonwoods on the far side. The wind dies to a whisper and it's quiet, almost perfectly still except for the snap of grasshoppers leaping from the weeds. To the west the mountains rise suddenly, almost violently from the sandy brown of the plains, layered silhouettes of blue and green and gray rising to a turquoise sky. My heart is filled with the beauty of it all.

There were ceramic teapots in aubergine, mustard, and midnight blue (good for one, sweeter still when shared between two drinkers); and forty small, thin glasses with curved handles, set in gold- and silver-plated holders etched with arabesque swirls. Bahar gingerly lined the tea glasses up on the counter where the cappuccino machine had been stationed. She tucked the teapots into the counter's glass-paneled belly, where they sat prettily next to twenty glass containers of loose-leaf teas, ranging from bergamot and hibiscus to oolong.

His tongue slid down the inner length of her finger, then traced the lines on her palm. “Such lovely hands,” he murmured, nibbling on the fleshy part of her thumb as his fingers entwined with hers. “Strong, and yet so graceful and delicate.” “You’re talking nonsense,” Kate said self-consciously. “My hands—” But he silenced her with a finger to her lips. “Shhh,” he admonished. “Haven’t you learned that you should never ever contradict your husband when he is admiring your form?” Kate shivered with delight. “For example,” he continued, the very devil in his voice, “if I want to spend an hour examining the inside of your wrist”— with lightning-quick movements, his teeth grazed the delicate thin skin on the inside of her wrist—“ it is certainly my prerogative, don’t you think?” Kate had no response, and he chuckled, the sound low and warm in her ears. “And don’t think I won’t,” he warned, using the pad of his finger to trace the blue veins that pulsed under her skin. “I may decide to spend two hours examining your wrist.” Kate watched with fascination as his fingers, touching her so softly that she tingled from the contact, made their way to the inside of her elbow, then stopped to twirl circles on her skin. “I can’t imagine,” he said softly, “that I could spend two hours examining your wrist and not find it lovely.” His hand made the jump to her torso, and he used his palm to lightly graze the tip of her puckered breast. “I should be most aggrieved were you to disagree.” He leaned down and captured her lips in a brief, yet searing kiss. Lifting his head just an inch, he murmured, “It is a wife’s place to agree with her husband in all things, hmmm?” His words were so absurd that Kate finally managed to find her voice. “If,” she said with an amused smile, “his opinions are agreeable, my lord.” One of his brows arched imperiously. “Are you arguing with me, my lady? And on my wedding night, no less.” “It’s my wedding night, too,” she pointed out. He made a clucking noise and shook his head. “I may have to punish you,” he said. “But how? By touching?” His hand skimmed over one breast, then the next. “Or not touching?” He lifted his hands from her skin, but he leaned down, and through pursed lips, blew a soft stream of air over her nipple. “Touching,” Kate gasped, arching off the bed. “Definitely touching.” “You think?” He smiled, slowly like a cat. “I never thought I’d say this, but not touching has its appeal.

That—this—is Orion’s secret. It’s not that the ship isn’t working, that we’re never going to make it. It’s that the ship has already arrived. We’re already here! There—there—is the planet that will be our home! It floats, so bright that it hurts my eyes. Giant green landmasses spread out across blue water, with swirls and wisps of clouds twirling over top. At the edge of the planet, where it turns away from the suns and starts to darken, I can see bright flashes of light—bursts of whiteness in the darkness—and I think: Is that lightning? In the center, where the light of the suns makes the planet seem to glow from within, I can see, very distinctly, a continent. A continent. On one edge, it’s cracked and broken like an egg, dark lines snaking deep into the landmass. Rivers. Lots of them. Maybe something too big to be rivers if I can see it from here. Fingers of land stretch out into the sea, and dots of islands are just out of their grasp. That area will be cool all the time, I think. Boats can go along the rivers, up and down. We can swim in the water. Because already, I can see myself living there. Being there. On a planet that looks up at a million suns every night, and at two every day. I want to scream, shout with joy. But the air is so thin now. Too thin. I’ve spent too long looking at Orion’s secret. The boop . . . boop . . . boop . . . fades away. There’s nothing to warn about now. Because there’s no air left. My sight is rimmed with black. My head pulses with my heartbeat, which sounds as loud to me as the alarm once did. I turn from the planet—my planet—and start pulling, hand over hand, against the tether, toward the hatch. The ship bobs in and out of my vision as my whole body jerks. I’m panicked now and fighting to stay awake. I try to suck in air, but there’s nothing there to suck. I’m drowning in nothing.

Marcus had a natural arrogant air to him, thanks to his striking facial features, with his slim nose, square cut jawline and high cheekbones. He also had high arched brows with one that always seemed to be raised as if he was judging every single action you made. But those elongated red diamond shapes that ran through his eyes and curved slightly an inch above his brows reminded me of horns. The opposite ends were drawn down in long points that reached his jaw until they were nothing but a thin line. A set that mirrored the same triangular design starting from under his bottom lip. This thin red line continued all the way down his chin until it disappeared under the shadows of his long neck before it dipped under a crimson red cravat. A colour that matched his unusual hair, with its strands that were twisted back from his face into sections with the ends pointed with little bells attached. All of which adding to the theatrics that rest of his outfit provided. Piercing dark blue eyes studied me as I approached.

Deep blue like the hour between the dog and the wolf. An attractively scooped neckline. Sleeves and hemline a length and cut you would call kind. Buttons in back like discreetly sealed lips. Good give in the fabric. Double lined. The sort of dress that looks like nothing but a sad dark sack on the hanger, but on the body it’s a different story. Takes extremely well to accessories. My mother loved this sort of dress. At whatever weight she was—thin, fat, middling—she owned an iteration. I saw her wear it to work, lunch with friends, on dates, to movies, parties, funerals. I saw her wear it alone in her apartment for days on end. Scratch at a stain on the boob. Shit. The hemline begin to unravel. Fuck fuck fuck. Do you have a safety pin? Holes begin to appear in the armpits. Jesus. The sleeves fray. Well. That’s that, isn’t it? She wore it so much she’d wear it out and then she’d have to hunt for another, whip through the plus-size racks for something that fit just as impossibly well, that was just as dignified, just as forgiving in its plain dark elegance.

THE sun had not yet risen. The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually. As they neared the shore each bar rose, heaped itself, broke and swept a thin veil of white water across the sand. The wave paused, and then drew out again, sighing like a sleeper whose breath comes and goes unconsciously. Gradually the dark bar on the horizon became clear as if the sediment in an old wine-bottle had sunk and left the glass green. Behind it, too, the sky cleared as if the white sediment there had sunk, or as if the arm of a woman couched beneath the horizon had raised a lamp and flat bars of white, green and yellow, spread across the sky like the blades of a fan. Then she raised her lamp higher and the air seemed to become fibrous and to tear away from the green surface flickering and flaming in red and yellow fibres like the smoky fire that roars from a bonfire. Gradually the fibres of the burning bonfire were fused into one haze, one incandescence which lifted the weight of the woollen grey sky on top of it and turned it to a million atoms of soft blue. The surface of the sea slowly became transparent and lay rippling and sparkling until the dark stripes were almost rubbed out. Slowly the arm that held the lamp reused it higher and then higher until a broad flame became visible; an arc of fire burnt on the rim of the horizon, and all round it the sea blazed gold. The light struck upon the trees in the garden, making one leaf transparent and then another. One bird chirped high up; there was a pause; another chirped lower down. The sun sharpened the walls of the house, and rested like the tip of a fan upon a white blind and made a blue fingerprint of shadow under the leaf by the bedroom window. The blind stirred slightly, but all within was dim and unsubstantial. The birds sang their blank melody outside.

There was also a package wrapped in pale blue paper and tied with a matching ribbon. Picking up a small folded note that had been tucked under the ribbon, Beatrix read: A gift for your wedding night, darling Bea. This gown was made by the most fashionable modiste in London. It is rather different from the ones you usually wear, but it will be very pleasing to a bridegroom. Trust me about this. -Poppy Holding the nightgown up, Beatrix saw that it was made of black gossamer and fastened with tiny jet buttons. Since the only nightgowns she had ever worn had been of modest white cambric or muslin, this was rather shocking. However, if it was what husbands liked... After removing her corset and her other underpinnings, Beatrix drew the gown over her head and let a slither over her body in a cool, silky drift. The thin fabric draped closely over her shoulders and torso and buttoned at the waist before flowing to the ground in transparent panels. A side slit went up to her hip, exposing her leg when she moved. And her back was shockingly exposed, the gown dipping low against her spine. Pulling the pins and combs from her hair, she dropped them into the muslin bag in the trunk. Tentatively she emerged from behind the screen. Christopher had just finished pouring two glasses of champagne. He turned toward her and froze, except for his gaze, which traveled over her in a burning sweep. "My God," he muttered, and drained his champagne. Setting the empty glass aside, he gripped the other as if he were afraid it might slip through his fingers. "Do you like my nightgown?" Beatrix asked. Christopher nodded, not taking his gaze from her. "Where's the rest of it?" "This was all I could find." Unable to resist teasing him, Beatrix twisted and tried to see the back view. "I wonder if I put it on backward..." "Let me see." As she turned to reveal the naked line of her back, Christopher drew in a harsh breath. Although Beatrix heard him mumble a curse, she didn't take offense, deducing that Poppy had been right about the nightgown. And when he drained the second glass of champagne, forgetting that it was hers, Beatrix sternly repressed a grin. She went to the bed and climbed onto the mattress, relishing the billowy softness of its quilts and linens. Reclining on her side, she made no attempt to cover her exposed leg as the gossamer fabric fell open to her hip. Christopher came to her, stripping off his shirt along the way. The sight of him, all that flexing muscle and sun-glazed skin, was breathtaking. He was a beautiful man, a scarred Apollo, a dream lover. And he was hers.

The sea was a dull, monotonous green. Slowly, the tide was coming in. Tōru lowered the telescope to the waves of the beach. As they broke, a spray like the dregs of the sea slipped from their backs, and the pyramids of deep green changed, rose and swelled into an uneasy white. The sea lost its serenity. Even as it rose it broke at the skirts, and ragged spots of white from its high belly like a call of inexpressible sorrow became a sharply smooth yet infinitely cracked wall of glass, like a vast spray. As it rose and broke, the forelocks were combed a beautiful white, and as it fell it showed the neatly arrayed blue-white of its crown, and the lines of white became a solid field of white; and so it fell, like a severed head. The spray and the falling away of foam. Little patches of foam trailing off to sea like lines of water bugs. From trailing off over the sand like swear from the back of an athlete at the end of his exertions. What delicate changes passed over the white monolith of the sea as it came in upon the shore and broke. The myriad confusion of thin waves and the fine partings of the foam became in desperation an infinity of lines spewed out over the sea as from silkworms. What a subtle evil, overcoming by sheer force even as it took into itself this delicate white.

Was it a convent you escaped from, Miss Turner?” He turned the boat with a deft pull on one oar. “Escaped?” Her heart knocked against her hidden purse. “I’m a governess, I told you. I’m not running away, from a convent or anywhere else. Why would you ask that?” He chuckled. “Because you’re staring at me as though you’ve never seen a man before.” Sophia’s cheeks burned. She was staring. Worse, now she found herself powerless to turn away. What with the murky shadows of the tavern and the confusion of the quay, not to mention her own discomposure, she hadn’t taken a good, clear look at his eyes until this moment. They defied her mental palette utterly. The pupils were ringed with a thin line of blue. Darker than Prussian, yet lighter than indigo. Perhaps matching that dearest of pigments-the one even her father’s generous allowance did not permit-ultramarine. Yet within that blue circumference shifted a changing sea of color-green one moment, gray the next…in the shadow of a half-blink, hinting at blue. He laughed again, and flinty sparks of amusement lit them. Yes, she was still staring. Forcing her gaze to the side, she saw their rowboat nearing the scraped hull of a ship. She cleared her throat and tasted brine. “Forgive me, Mr. Grayson. I’m only trying to make you out. I understood you to be the ship’s captain.” “Well,” he said, grasping a rope thrown down to him and securing it to the boat, “now you know I’m not.” “Might I have the pleasure, then, of knowing the captain’s name?” “Certainly,” he said, securing a second rope. “It’s Captain Grayson.” She heard the smirk in his voice, even before she swiveled her head to confirm it. Was he teasing her?

The sun had not yet risen. The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually. As they neared the shore each bar rose, heaped itself, broke and swept a thin veil of white water across the sand. The wave paused, and then drew out again, sighing like a sleeper whose breath comes and goes unconsciously. Gradually the dark bar on the horizon became clear as if the sediment in an old wine-bottle had sunk and left the glass green. Behind it, too, the sky cleared as if the white sediment there had sunk, or as if the arm of a woman couched beneath the horizon had raised a lamp and flat bars of white, green and yellow spread across the sky like the blades of a fan. Then she raised her lamp higher and the air seemed to become fibrous and to tear away from the green surface flickering and flaming in red and yellow fibres like the smoky fire that roars from a bonfire. Gradually the fibres of the burning bonfire were fused into one haze, one incandescence which lifted the weight of the woolen grey sky on top of it and turned it to a million atoms of soft blue. The surface of the sea slowly became transparent and lay rippling and sparkling until the dark stripes were almost rubbed out. Slowly the arm that held the lamp raised it higher and then higher until a broad flame became visible; an arc of fire burnt on the rim of the horizon, and all round it the sea blazed gold. The light struck upon the trees in the garden, making one leaf transparent and then another. One bird chirped high up; there was a pause; another chirped lower down. The sun sharpened the walls of the house, and rested like the tip of a fan upon a white blind and made a blue finger-print of shadow under the leaf by the bedroom window. The blind stirred slightly, but all within was dim and unsubstantial. The birds sang their blank melody outside.

What you’re saying makes no sense. At least, it doesn’t make sense to lower spatial dimensions as a weapon. In the long run, that’s the sort of attack that would kill the attacker as well as the target. Eventually, the side that initiated attack would also see their own space fall into the two-dimensional abyss they created.” Nothing but silence. After a long while, Cheng Xin called out, “Dr. Guan?” “You’re too … kind-hearted,” Guan Yifan said softly. “I don’t understand—” “There’s a way for the attacker to avoid death. Think about it.” Cheng Xin pondered and then said, “I can’t figure it out.” “I know you can’t. Because you’re too kind. It’s very simple. The attacker must first transform themselves into life forms that can survive in a low-dimensional universe. For instance, a four-dimensional species can transform itself into three-dimensional creatures, or a three-dimensional species can transform itself into two-dimensional life. After the entire civilization has entered a lower dimension, they can initiate a dimensional strike against the enemy without concern for the consequences.” Cheng Xin was silent again. “Are you reminded of anything?” Yifan asked. Cheng Xin was thinking of more than four hundred years ago, when Blue Space and Gravity had stumbled into the four-dimensional fragment. Yifan had been a member of the small expedition that conversed with the Ring. Did you build this four-dimensional fragment? You told me that you came from the sea. Did you build the sea? Are you saying that for you, or at least for your creators, this four-dimensional space is like the sea for us? More like a puddle. The sea has gone dry. Why are so many ships, or tombs, gathered in such a small space? When the sea is drying, the fish have to gather into a puddle. The puddle is also drying, and all the fish are going to disappear. Are all the fish here? The fish responsible for drying the sea are not here. We’re sorry. What you said is really hard to understand. The fish that dried out the sea went onto land before they did this. They moved from one dark forest to another dark forest. “Is it worth it to pay such a price for victory in war?” Cheng Xin asked. She could not imagine how it was possible to live in a world of one fewer dimension. In two-dimensional space, the visible world consisted of a few line segments of different lengths. Could anyone who was born in three-dimensional space willingly live in a thin sheet of paper with no thickness? Living in three dimensions must be equally confining and unimaginable for those born to a four-dimensional world. “It’s better than death,” said Yifan. While

And what is the popular color for gowns this Season?” he asked with a smile when it became necessary to announce himself. She gave a little start, and when she raised her face to look up at him, her cheeks were pink, her eyes wide. She looked, for lack of a better comparison, like a child caught doing something she oughtn’t. “Oh! Hello, Grey.” She glanced away. “Um, blue seems to be very favorable this year.” Arching a brow, he nodded at the periodical in her hand. “Beg pardon. I thought you were reading a ladies’ magazine.” “I am,” she replied with a coy smile. “But fashion is not one of its main areas of interest.” With an expression like hers-very much like the Cheshire cat in that book by Lewis Carroll-he doubted it was an article on housekeeping that put such becoming color in her cheeks. “May I?” he asked, holding out his hand. Her grip on the magazine tightened, reluctant to give it up. “Only if you promise not to tell Mama you saw me reading it.” Oh, this was trouble. Still, it was none of his business what a grown woman of three and twenty read. He was curious, that was all. “I promise.” She hesitated, then put the pages into his hand. Placing his fingers between the thin sheaves to mark her spot, Grey flipped to the cover. Christ on a pony! The magazine looked fairly harmless-the sketch on the front showed a demure young lady in a stylish gown and hat, sitting on a park bench. Only upon closer inspection could one notice that the object of her attention-and rapturous smile-was the young man bathing in the lake just on the edge of the page. He was bare-chested-quite possibly bare everywhere, but that key part of anatomy was carefully hidden with a line of text that read, “Ten ways to keep a gentleman at home-and in bed.” He didn’t want to see what she was reading. He had heard of this magazine before. Voluptuous was a racy publication for women, filled with erotic stories, advice, and articles about sexual relationships, how to conduct oneself to avoid scandal, etc. He could take her to task for reading it, but what would be the point? No doubt the information in it would serve her wisely someday. He gave the magazine back to her. “I have to confess, I’m a little surprised to find you reading such…material.” She shrugged. “I was curious. My parents were so happy in their marriage, so very much the opposite of most of what I’ve heard. If I’m to make a match as good as theirs, I need to know as much as I can about how to have a satisfying marriage.” Grey almost groaned. The image of Rose “satisfying” herself filled his mind with such clarity it was difficult to remember he’d never actually seen such a delightful sight. His body stiffened at the delectable images his mind conjured, and he had to fold his hands in front of him to hide his growing arousal.

At the Fishhouses Although it is a cold evening, down by one of the fishhouses an old man sits netting, his net, in the gloaming almost invisible, a dark purple-brown, and his shuttle worn and polished. The air smells so strong of codfish it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water. The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up to storerooms in the gables for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on. All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea, swelling slowly as if considering spilling over, is opaque, but the silver of the benches, the lobster pots, and masts, scattered among the wild jagged rocks, is of an apparent translucence like the small old buildings with an emerald moss growing on their shoreward walls. The big fish tubs are completely lined with layers of beautiful herring scales and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered with creamy iridescent coats of mail, with small iridescent flies crawling on them. Up on the little slope behind the houses, set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass, is an ancient wooden capstan, cracked, with two long bleached handles and some melancholy stains, like dried blood, where the ironwork has rusted. The old man accepts a Lucky Strike. He was a friend of my grandfather. We talk of the decline in the population and of codfish and herring while he waits for a herring boat to come in. There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb. He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty, from unnumbered fish with that black old knife, the blade of which is almost worn away. Down at the water's edge, at the place where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp descending into the water, thin silver tree trunks are laid horizontally across the gray stones, down and down at intervals of four or five feet. Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, element bearable to no mortal, to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly I have seen here evening after evening. He was curious about me. He was interested in music; like me a believer in total immersion, so I used to sing him Baptist hymns. I also sang "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." He stood up in the water and regarded me steadily, moving his head a little. Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug as if it were against his better judgment. Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us, the dignified tall firs begin. Bluish, associating with their shadows, a million Christmas trees stand waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones. I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same, slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones, icily free above the stones, above the stones and then the world. If you should dip your hand in, your wrist would ache immediately, your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn as if the water were a transmutation of fire that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame. If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter, then briny, then surely burn your tongue. It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free, drawn from the cold hard mouth of the world, derived from the rocky breasts forever, flowing and drawn, and since our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

p2 I'd seen a photo of the actual red and white checked notebook that was Anne [Frank]'s first diary. I longed to own a similar notebook. Stationery was pretty dire back in the late fifties and early sixties. There was no such thing as Paperchase. I walked round and round the stationery counter in Woolworths and spent most of my pocket money on notebooks, but they weren't strong on variety. You could have shiny red sixpenny notebooks, lined inside, with strange maths details about rods and poles and perches on the back. (I never found out what they were!) Then you could have shiny blue sixpenny notebooks. That was your lot. I was enchanted to read in Dodie Smith's novel I Capture The Castle that the heroine, Cassandra, was writing her diary in a similar sixpenny notebook. She eventually progressed to a shilling notebook. My Woolworths rarely stocked such expensive luxuries. Then, two thirds of the way through the book, Cassandra is given a two-guinea red leather manuscript book. I lusted after that fictional notebook for years. I told my mother, Biddy. She rolled her eyes. It could have cost two hundred guineas - both were way out of our league... My dad, Harry, was a civil servant. One of the few perks of his job was that he had an unlimited illegal supply of notepads watermarked SO - Stationery Office. I'd drawn on these pads for years, I'd scribbled stories, I'd written letters. They were serviceable but unexciting: thin cream paper unreliably bound with glue at the top. You couldn't write a journal with these notepads; it would fall apart in days... My spelling wasn't too hot. It still isn't. Thank goodness for the spellcheck on my computer!

It’s not one of our finest hours.

By the time Columbus discovered America, the Indians were already using beads for decoration. Beads were made from shells, bones, claws, stones, and minerals. The Algonquin and Iroquois tribes of the eastern coast made beads from clam, conch, periwinkle, and other seashells. These beads were used as a medium of exchange by the early Dutch and English colonists. They were called “wampum,” a contraction of the Algonquin “wampumpeak” or “wamponeage,” meaning string of shell beads. The purple beads had twice the value of the white ones. The explorer, followed by the trader, missionary and settler, soon discovered that he had a very good trade item in glass beads brought from Europe. The early beads that were used were about 1/8 inch in diameter, nearly twice as large as beads in the mid-1800’s. They were called pony beads and were quite irregular in shape and size. The colors most commonly used were sky-blue, white, and black. Other less widely used colors were deep bluff, light red, dark red, and dark blue. The small, round seed beads, as they are called, are the most generally used for sewed beadwork. They come in a variety of colors. Those most commonly used by the Indians are red, orange, yellow, light blue, dark blue, green, lavender, and black. The missionaries’ floral embroidered vestments influenced the Woodland tribes of the Great Lakes to apply beads in flower designs. Many other tribes, however, are now using flower designs. There are four main design styles used in the modern period. Three of the styles are largely restricted to particular tribes. The fourth style is common to all groups. It is very simple in pattern. The motifs generally used are solid triangles, hourglasses, crosses, and oblongs. This style is usually used in narrow strips on leggings, robes, or blankets. Sioux beadwork usually is quite open with a solid background in a light color. White is used almost exclusively, although medium or light blue is sometimes seen. The design colors are dominated by red and blue with yellow and green used sparingly. The lazy stitch is used as an application. The Crow and Shoshoni usually beaded on red trade or blanket cloth, using the cloth itself for a background. White was rarely used, except as a thin line outlining other design elements. The most common colors used for designs are pale lavender, pale blue, green, and yellow. On rare occasions, dark blue was used. Red beads were not used very often because they blended with the background color of the cloth and could not be seen. The applique stitch was used. Blackfoot beadwork can be identified by the myriad of little squares or oblongs massed together to make up a larger unit of design such as triangles, squares, diamonds, terraces, and crosses. The large figure is usually of one color and the little units edging it of many colors. The background color is usually white, although other light colors such as light blue and green have been used. The smallness of the pattern in Blackfoot designs would indicate this style is quite modern, as pony trading beads would be too large to work into these designs. Beadwork made in this style seems to imitate the designs of the woven quill work of some of the northwestern tribes with whom the Blackfoot came in contact.

I’m a boot, so I’m used to doing as I’m told without bellyaching.

Instead of casting aspersions at the process, why don’t you redirect your energy towards something more advantageous, like finally completing the Program!

I think your deputies are in trouble.

Da shit you say!

Because being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, and loving someone else deeply gives you courage. I knew our life together would never be perfect. Marriage is two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other.

Amazing how quickly those thin blue line flags turned into weapons against the police, almost like the only true ideological commitment is to white supremacy & literally nothing else (1/6/2021 on Twitter)

The last time I’d been so taken with a woman, she’d perished horribly. I’d sworn to myself that would never happen again, but presently, I walked a thin line.  I needed to ask about Luca and leave. Determined to do just that, I stood, the stool I’d taken pushing back and scraping the floor.  With the sound, Meredith’s eyes—one blue, one green—flew open, and landed on me. “Tobias?”  I swallowed, aware of how close I stood to her bed, how this looked. How I couldn’t leave now, or even look away. Bloody hell, what was wrong with me? 

young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions. —Oliver Wendell Holmes,

But that political hangover from the Flea House was flushed out every Friday morning by the knowledge that his family was safe because of the fences that the police built with their “thin blue line.

Chatting to the gossip of flames waking from the slumber of our flesh-drunk night together— it’s only when I step out to pee do I notice— how far, burgundy-dark, the moon has risen…. On four paws the shepherd- dogs bound, lightly though the trees they hardly touch on earth— we saw it from far sunk here in an always-ache…. Dyeing paling twilight woods— a pair of wasps, spiraling, writhe…. Wetted lips of hers and mine, just-parted, move over each other with tongues just-coming but refuse— like mists of evening they've no place to settle…. Just-here though she's singing she’s in some song from long ago— poised on the brink of twilight longing three thousand miles rush through my heart…. Under undulating curtains— I hover above her the tips of me brushing the tips of her— breathing back and forth a column of air we share our breath slowly asphyxiating…. From burning wood campfire sparks dart off extinguishing in the wet blue dark… how you blow your long wind across my embers, through my soul, she pleads me, take away the pain— I dip a branch in blue water and plunge it into coals…. *** In pre-dawn dark, against a leaping inferno of flames black monolith of wood in the cast iron compartment softens, and—gradually— fractures to cells, warping upward, until from the top a shard splinters: pearls of flame string a fiber and leap in little tongues while the log, glowing, engulfed, is consumed by the inferno contained…. A shadow daunts me, haunts and taunts me now reaching far, now recoiling, now growing bold…. I once sang eruptions and the wind— then appeared you it took my whole life singing only the songs of you and still I sing for you what other refuge can stay me from this torment? So— my doppelganger has arrived no one said it would happen this way but the way his hands fold like mine, the style of his humor, broadness of his smile— even the way he walks…. Licking and lapping these lashings of grasses are in tongues at my feet smoldering's the fury within me— I have seen my fields of daylight warp to noxious-air infernos but still to the clean blue of the flame I take rest in her breast…. His songs I mouth, and in my head is his voice— I cannot hear my own…. in my mind I see myself— thin, stupid— my arms too weak, my own chest too frail— and besides I prefer him more…. Along spiral lines, seed-heads decay— swept away they whirl and writhe in the hot blue fire of evening…. Stuck in a mural of sticky flesh— the family… I am locked-in-arms with brothers and sisters, drooping at the thighs with nieces and nephews, grafted to parents at the scalp, and pasted with toddlers all over… hived, sapped, black I sit, subject to the flavors and aromas of your abuse…. Then— be wrapped in his presence… crescendo to his warmth the cascade of your laughter search in his wrinkles for the boy inside him… I’m just biding here, bragless, trying to admit these rival-streams that flow in one latticework of blood…. Halves of flesh and bosomy hips, lips like dark ripe fruits they're chasing— I chased them… full-feathered was their hair like floss in the sunshine fine-fingered was their style like laces cut to curves: and then there was you, returning one, just there like the midnight moon in my sky at noontime….

All I know is that I am walking on a bridge. Amidst the mist the point where it started appears faded and the bridge ends in bright light that makes it too hard to even look. I need to cross this and I am walking. But, my Lord, I am tired! I love this blue; I wish if I could see the depth of the river beneath, come back to the surface, float and then to be carried away by the tranquil waves to the banks where a thousand lilies will bloom, look at the sun and say 'we love you'. O Lord, remember, they are my eyes that longed for a life the boon of your sight!

There, in thin blue lines that could be called spidery, was the mark of Lord Nightshade—the

I fuck conventional wisdom’s wife. Clipboard. Orange cones. You’re a mall cop. Not a real cop. My personal code is never harm real cops, who risk their lives every day. The Thin Blue Line. You’re an almost-cop, so harming you is a gray area. Thin Gray Line? Who knows? So I’ll err on the side of decency and ask nice. Don’t yell at any more kids before you’re fired.

talking about some guy. I’m talking about the Force, the Thin Blue Line, the fraternity of police I’ve been barred from. Being on the outside looking in does have its compensations, because now I’m my own boss. I have an agency, California Investigations, named for yours truly, California G. Corwin. My leftover hippie mother stuck the moniker on me, though it’s really not so bad because I go by Cal. I’ve always been a tomboy anyway. With a clear docket and hope for a new case this Monday, I reached down to flip the drop box open, the one inside my Mission District office off of Valencia. The sounds and smells of San Francisco streets

I reach into the hat and pull out a little white slip of paper. I open it slowly while I bite my lower lip in anticipation. In bold letters I read HAND WARMERS. “Hand warmers?” I question. Alex leans over and reads the paper with a confused look on his face. “What the fuck are hand warmers?” Mrs. Peterson shoots Alex a warning glare. “If you’d like to stay after school, I have another blue detention slip on my desk with your name already on it. Now, either ask the question again without using foul language or join me after school.” “That’d be cool to hang with you, Mrs. P., but I’d rather spend the time studyin’ with my chem partner,” Alex responds, then has the nerve to wink at Colin, “so I’ll rephrase the question. What exactly are hand warmers?” “Thermal chemistry, Mr. Fuentes. We use them to warm our hands.” Alex has this big, cocky grin as he turns to me. “I’m sure we can find other things to warm.” “I hate you,” I say loud enough for Colin and the rest of the class to hear. If I sit here and let him get the best of me, I’ll probably hear my mom tsk’ing in my head about reputation meaning everything. I know the class is watching out interaction, even Isabel, who thinks Alex isn’t as bad as everyone thinks he is. Can’t she see him for what he is, or is she blinded by his chiseled face and popular status among their friends? Alex whispers, “There’s a thin line between love and hate. Maybe you’re confusing your emotions.” I scoot away from him. “I wouldn’t bet on it.” “I would.

There you are,” I told my mother, standing in the hot breeze that had entered along with the rattle of traffic and the voices in the street. “Brooklyn.” My mother turned to Gabe, who was holding her hand. “Show me,” she said again. The strain of this vigil was evident in the shape of his shoulders and the weariness in his eyes. He glanced up at me where I stood by the window and then down at her again. “All right,” he said softly. He got up slowly, pushing back the old dining-room chair. He leaned over the bed, slipping his hands beneath her. I watched in some astonishment as he lifted her, the bedclothes trailing. “Get the door,” he said over his shoulder as he made his way out of the room with our mother in his arms like a child. He turned to his side to fit them both through the passageway, and I overtook them in the living room. We had lined the woodwork here with boric acid, to keep the roaches at bay, and there was something of its pale dust over everything in those days. It sometimes made me recall: sand of Syria and Mount Lebanon. I went ahead to open the door. Gabe slipped through it, our mother in his arms. I followed them down the stairs, astonished, full of objections, but unable to object. I watched him as he gently negotiated the turnings. I wondered briefly if he planned to carry her all the way to the hospital. In the vestibule, the door to the parlor-floor apartment was still patched with plywood. Gabe turned to me and nodded toward the street. My mother’s eyes were closed. In my brother’s arms she seemed as small and light as an infant. I went ahead to pull the first door open, and then slipped around them to get the outer door as well. There was a blast of heat. Gabe carried my mother into the sunlight and down the steps. There were kids on the stoop across the street, there was the tinny music from their transistor radios. They glared, open-mouthed. A pair of dark men passing by looked up as Gabe came down the stairs with my mother in his arms. They walked to the curb, glancing over their shoulders, giving him wide berth. Gabe, too, went to the curb and then turned around to look back up at the house. I rushed to scoop up the sheet and the blanket that was now brushing the sidewalk. “You’re here, Momma,” I heard him say. “Where we’ve always lived.” My mother raised her head. She extricated one thin hand from the winding bedclothes and raised it to her eyes against the sun. She looked down the street and then up at our building, the blue summer light reflecting in the glass of the front door, the bowed parlor window—some plywood there, too—and then up to the fourth floor, where a bit of lace curtain, her handiwork, had been drawn through the opened window. “Not home,” I heard Gabe tell her, reassuring her. “Brooklyn.

A Language" Today the sky is blue dust and the mountains blue shadows against the dust so only the snow line across the peaks actually exists, a scribbled white cursive, words piling up here and thinning out there, like the long sentence you’d write against the sky if you thought you had that much to say.

And then it was my turn. I stood there, shoulders back, head high, eyes focused somewhere over Sorcha’s left shoulder as, wordlessly, she stalked back from retrieving my oath gift from the chariot. And what she gave me . . . was already mine. My sword. The only thing other than me that had survived the long journey from Durovernum. The thing that had convinced Charon that I had value and had prompted my sister to buy my life for a ridiculous amount of money. It seemed that she had commissioned a new leather sheath for it, dyed black and embossed with the intricate, tortuously beautiful artwork of our people. Sorcha belted the sword around my waist and, as its comforting weight settled against my left hip, my hand dropped reflexively to rest on the hilt. It felt as though a severed limb had suddenly been sewn back onto my body. But then I noticed that on my right hip there hung a second—empty—sheath. I frowned in confusion, then glanced up into my sister’s face. With a start, I saw that there was the thin line of a scar, beneath the blue-painted designs on her forehead, running from the shock of silver in her hair down to her over-dark eye. She stared down at me, her expression fierce and hard, as her right hand crossed her body to her own left hip, and she drew the sword she wore. It was a twin to my blade. The sword she had carried into battle the last time I’d seen her. With a swift, brief-as-lightning flourish, she resheathed the blade in the empty scabbard on my hip. A murmur rippled through the watchers beneath the portico. The dimachaerus technique—fighting with two swords—was a rare choice among gladiatrices, and so the second sword was a rare gift. Of course, no one there watching would come close to understanding the true significance of Sorcha’s gift to me. I wasn’t even sure if I understood it.

The pig is an instrument of neoslavery, to be hated and avoided; he is pushed to the front by the men who exercise the unnatural right over property. You’ve heard the patronizing shit about the thin blue line that protects property and the owners of property. The pigs are not protecting you, your home, and its contents. Recall they never found the TV set you lost in that burglary. They’re protecting the unnatural right of a few men to own the means of all of our subsistence. The pig is protecting the right of a few private individuals to own public property!! The pig is merely the gun, the tool, a mentally inanimate utensil. It is necessary to destroy the gun, but destroying the gun and sparing the hand that holds it will forever relegate us to a defensive action, hold our revolution in the doldrums, ultimately defeat us. The animal that holds the gun, that has loosed the pig of war on us, is a bitter-ender, an intractable, gluttonous vulture who must eat at our hearts to live. Midas-motivated, never satisfied, everything he touches will turn into shit! Slaying the shitty pig will have absolutely no healing effect at all, if we leave this vulture to touch someone else. Spare the hand that holds the gun and it will simply fashion another.

There is a thin line between poetry and word salad.

Just like the criminals they are paid to pursue, cops don’t like rats in their ranks—the omertà of the thin blue line.

She stood up, went to the window by the door, stared mournfully out at the day. The rain had stopped. the sun had come out, burning heat through the trees, sucking the moisture right back up into the brilliant blue prairie sky, She saw the way this fierce naked light hit the empty street. She saw the sky with its thin line of evaporating clouds and tried to think about herself in the future. But no image would come. ... Nothing. The emptiness of it all filled her with dread.

Jazz is a strange music. Jazz is where you find it. You dig all day in the mine, handling those big lumpy dead rocks; that’s the popular music, the dead stuff. And then all of a sudden you come on a bright gleaming streak embedded in the dead rock; it’s alive, it’s gold. That’s how you find jazz. So many people have never heard jazz, because they’ve found nothing but the slag, the dead ore in which it’s cased. They hear the raw material, the nondescript popular song; they may never be lucky enough to be present when inspired musicians strike away the lumpy death and bring out the life. The trumpet states a theme; it isn’t a hell of a good theme and in the song it means little or nothing. He strips it down to its bare chords, throws its thin line of melody out there for a start. The clarinet invents a counter-melody for himself, an invention as carefully wrought, as musicianly, as anything Bach ever wrote down. And then the trombone sings; there is a complete perfection, coming close to the unbearable, in the addition of that third voice to the polyphony of true jazz. Out of nothing something of beauty has been created; you have heard jazz, and you are lucky. You are even more lucky if you have created jazz, if you can sit with the gut-searing vibrations of a trombone mouthpiece kicking back against your face and feel the music down into your feet.

The gelding had a broad back, making for a comfortable ride. Yedan rode at a canter. Ahead, the hills thickened with scrub, and beyond was a forest of white trees, branches like twisted bones, leaves so dark as to be almost black. Just before them and running the length of the wooded fringe rose dolmens of grey granite, their edges grooved and faces pitted with cup-shaped, ground-out depressions. Each stone was massive, twice the height of a grown man, and crowding the foot of each one that he could see were skulls. He slowed his mount, reined in a half-dozen paces from the nearest standing stone. Sat motionless, flies buzzing round the horse’s flickering ears, and studied those grisly offerings. Cold judgement was never short of pilgrims. Alas, true justice had no reason to respect secrets, as those close-fisted pilgrims had clearly discovered. A final and fatal revelation. Minute popping sounds in the air announced the approach of dread power, as the buzzing flies ignited in mid-flight, black bodies bursting like acorns in a fire. The horse shied slightly, muscles growing taut beneath Yedan, and then snorted in sudden fear. ‘Hold,’ Yedan murmured, his voice calming the beast. Those of the royal line among the Shake possessed ancient knowledge, memories thick as blood. Tales of ancient foes, sworn enemies of the uncertain Shore. More perhaps than most, the Shake rulers understood that a thing could be both one and the other, or indeed neither. Sides possessed undersides and even those terms were suspect. Language itself stuttered in the face of such complexities, such rampant subtleties of nature. In this place, however, the blended flavours of compassion were anathema to the powers that ruled. Yet the lone figure that strode out from the forest was so unexpected that Yedan Derryg grunted as if he had been punched in the chest. ‘This realm is not yours,’ he said, fighting to control his horse. ‘This land is consecrated for adjudication,’ the Forkrul Assail said. ‘I am named Repose. Give me your name, seeker, that I may know you—’ ‘Before delivering judgement upon me?’ The tall, ungainly creature, naked and weaponless, cocked his head. ‘You are not alone. You and your followers have brought discord to this land. Do not delay me—you cannot evade what hides within you. I shall be your truth.’ ‘I am Yedan Derryg.’ The Forkrul Assail frowned. ‘This yields me no ingress—why is that? How is it you block me, mortal?’ ‘I will give you that answer,’ Yedan replied, slipping down from the horse. He drew his sword. Repose stared at him. ‘Your defiance is useless.’ Yedan advanced on him. ‘Is it? But, how can you know for certain? My name yields you no purchase upon my soul. Why is that?’ ‘Explain this, mortal.’ ‘My name is meaningless. It is my title that holds my truth. My title, and my blood.’ The Forkrul Assail shifted his stance, lifting his hands. ‘One way or another, I will know you, mortal.’ ‘Yes, you will.’ Repose attacked, his hands a blur. But those deadly weapons cut empty air, as Yedan was suddenly behind the Forkrul Assail, sword chopping into the back of the creature’s elongated legs, the iron edge cutting between each leg’s two hinged knees, severing the buried tendons—Repose toppled forward, arms flailing. Yedan chopped down a second time, cutting off the Assail’s left arm. Blue, thin blood sprayed on to the ground. ‘I am Shake,’ Yedan said, raising his sword once more. ‘I am the Watch.’ The sudden hiss from Repose was shortlived, as Yedan’s sword took off the top of the Forkrul Assail’s head.

certain aspects of the physical world, so blessedly outside herself, to feel them invade and in stantly renew her, just as a beach is made clean and smooth again after the pounding of the waves. That thin crescent moon in the pale sky of early evening, already she can feel it refreshing her eyes stinging with hot tears; the line of the horizon, so simple and sparse, fills her with a forgetful innocence; that light-blue coastline over there talks to her of adventure, of freedom, of exemption from common sense.

There is a thin line between God, intuition, and destiny. People tend to only believe in the visible. They only are convinced by things that they can see or define. With the many unseen things that exist in the world, we are still invested in the tangible. God, intuition, and destiny are intangible feelings that are too big for a definition. They are intimate, personal feelings that only exchange revelation with the soul.

leaving. “Live my life, I suppose. Live it the way I want to, for once. Learn how to be a normal girl.” “How far away?” Her blue-and-gold eyes flickered. “I’d travel until I found a place where they’d never heard of Adarlan. If such a place exists.” And she would never come back. And because she was young, and so damn clever and amusing and wonderful, wherever she made her home, there would be some man who would fall in love with her and who would make her his wife, and that was the worst truth of all. It had snuck up on him, this pain and terror and rage at the thought of anyone else with her. Every look, every word from her … He didn’t even know when it had started. “We’ll find that place, then,” he said quietly. “What?” Her brows narrowed. “I’ll go with you.” And though he hadn’t asked, they both knew those words held a question. He tried not to think of what she’d said last night—of the shame she’d felt holding him when he was a son of Adarlan and she was a daughter of Terrasen. “What about being Captain of the Guard?” “Perhaps my duties aren’t what I expected them to be.” The king kept things from him; there were so many secrets, and perhaps he was little more than a puppet, part of the illusion that he was starting to see through … “You love your country,” she said. “I can’t let you give all that up.” He caught the glimmer of pain and hope in her eyes, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d closed the distance between them, one hand on her waist and the other on her shoulder. “I would be the greatest fool in the world to let you go alone.” And then there were tears rolling down her face, and her mouth became a thin, wobbling line. He pulled back, but didn’t let her go. “Why are you crying?” “Because,” she whispered, her voice shaking, “you remind me of how the world ought to be. What the world can be.” There had never been any line between them, only his own stupid fear and pride. Because from the moment he’d pulled her out of that mine in Endovier and she had set those eyes upon him, still fierce despite a year in hell, he’d been walking toward this, walking to her. So Chaol brushed away her tears, lifted her chin, and kissed her.

Law enforcement is known as the symbolic thin blue line that stands between order and chaos in our society.

A camera requires law, order, the thin blue line.

then there are the lawyers.  As the old saying has it ... there are two sides to every problem, until the lawyers become involved.  At that point, there will become a thousand sides – and all of them will appear to be correct.

But the camera sees what he does not say. A camera is a thing easily broken or purloined; its fragility makes it fastidious. A camera requires law, order, the thin blue line. Seeking to preserve itself, it remains behind the shielding wall, observing the shadow-lands from afar, and of course from above: that is, it chooses sides.

The thin blue line of service, Is not for self-serving narcissists. When your sole concern is society, Only then can you uphold justice.

Opening the lid, Beatrix found her neatly folded clothes and a drawstring muslin bag containing a brush and a rack of hairpins, and other small necessities. There was also a package wrapped in pale blue paper and tied with a matching ribbon. Picking up a small folded note that had been tucked under the ribbon, Beatrix read: A gift for your wedding night, darling Bea. This gown was made by the most fashionable modiste in London. It is rather different from the ones you usually wear, but it will be very pleasing to a bridegroom. Trust me about this. -Poppy Holding the nightgown up, Beatrix saw that it was made of black gossamer and fastened with tiny jet buttons. Since the only nightgowns she had ever worn had been of modest white cambric or muslin, this was rather shocking. However, if it was what husbands liked... After removing her corset and her other underpinnings, Beatrix drew the gown over her head and let a slither over her body in a cool, silky drift. The thin fabric draped closely over her shoulders and torso and buttoned at the waist before flowing to the ground in transparent panels. A side slit went up to her hip, exposing her leg when she moved. And her back was shockingly exposed, the gown dipping low against her spine. Pulling the pins and combs from her hair, she dropped them into the muslin bag in the trunk. Tentatively she emerged from behind the screen. Christopher had just finished pouring two glasses of champagne. He turned toward her and froze, except for his gaze, which traveled over her in a burning sweep. "My God," he muttered, and drained his champagne. Setting the empty glass aside, he gripped the other as if he were afraid it might slip through his fingers. "Do you like my nightgown?" Beatrix asked. Christopher nodded, not taking his gaze from her. "Where's the rest of it?" "This was all I could find." Unable to resist teasing him, Beatrix twisted and tried to see the back view. "I wonder if I put it on backward..." "Let me see." As she turned to reveal the naked line of her back, Christopher drew in a harsh breath. Although Beatrix heard him mumble a curse, she didn't take offense, deducing that Poppy had been right about the nightgown. And when he drained the second glass of champagne, forgetting that it was hers, Beatrix sternly repressed a grin. She went to the bed and climbed onto the mattress, relishing the billowy softness of its quilts and linens. Reclining on her side, she made no attempt to cover her exposed leg as the gossamer fabric fell open to her hip. Christopher came to her, stripping off his shirt along the way. The sight of him, all that flexing muscle and sun-glazed skin, was breathtaking. He was a beautiful man, a scarred Apollo, a dream lover. And he was hers.

Reality is so, so much better than dream. You are so much better than any dream I’ve ever had.

Go already,” Jess mumbled, but she snuggled deeper, sending pins and needles snaking up his arm. He searched out her face in the darkness. “Are you sure, baby?” “As long as you promise to hurry home, Pookie Bear, I'll miss you.” Jess batted her eyes at him adoringly. “I'll check 10-8 in a few,” Kayne sighed, knowing he was going to have to figure out how to extricate himself from the sardine can of the bed. He did not want to leave them. “Okay, Pookie Bear.” Shay chuckled before she hung up. Kayne pinched Jess’s ass, satisfied when she yelped in surprise. “You're in so much trouble for that,” he growled. “I guess you're really not much of a Pookie Bear, you're more of a Pookums? Or maybe a Snooky Poo?” Jess giggled when he cringed. “Sugar Kayne, Candy Kayne?” “You're enjoying the fact that I'm a captive audience, aren't you?” Jess nodded—the little witch.

Wait...no, I made a promise to the kids.” He edged back, crossing his arms over his chest, his face drawn up in a scowl. “Maybe Joe or Del or somebody would like them.” “They are once in a lifetime tickets, Kayne.” Was he seriously going to pass on playoff tickets? She could hardly believe it. Jarred would have been on the phone and halfway out the door. “Pass.” She took pity on him. “Kayne, there's five of them. I was just teasing. I confirmed Gracie can sit on my lap.

Hey, it’s Shay in dispatch. I need Kayne.” “Sorry, he’s taken,” Jess mumbled. Shay laughed. “You can keep him. I only need to borrow him for a call out.

Can you guys behave yourselves while I walk over to the kids clothing section?” Why she was even bothering to ask was beyond her. She'd been fighting hard not to laugh at Kayne for the last five minutes. He was sitting on a toddler size tricycle and pushing it around with his feet—something Jarred would never have been caught doing, especially in public—looking like the Grape Ape.

Bruno returns, still clad in only his green towel, hair poofing out a little as it dries. “Everything all right?” I ask, with a stupid smile. I fight my line of sight to stay above the shoulders, but despite my best efforts, my eyes dart down a few times as he strides across the room to his closet. “Yes, clothes. Please,” I say too fast. “Good idea.” Shut. Up. The corner of his mouth hitches up, and his head turns toward my open suitcase on the floor. He bends over and I realize I’m still watching, both to see what he’s doing, and to see if his towel can hang on for the ride. He pulls out a few of my shirts and flings them onto the bed, digging deeper into my suitcase until he pulls out a coral-colored sundress. “Oh, that’s going to look fabulous on you,” I say. “I do not doubt it.” He laughs, turning and holding the dress up to himself, one hip jutting out, then closes the distance between us in a couple of steps. I take the dress from him and do my best to avoid eye contact. But now I’m looking at his chest. His bare chest. His tan, bare chest. And he smells clean, like almonds and oats. A feast for all the senses. Maybe eye contact would be better. I look up into them and immediately regret it. They’re big and golden and deep, and they’re looking at me. I have no clue what’s happening. “You will wear this for me today, yes?” I nod. “Bene.” He walks back to the closet and pulls out a thin white button-down shirt and a pair of navy-blue shorts, then heads for the door. “Wait,” I say, shaking my head out of my daze. He stops just before he passes me. “What’s so special about today? Aren’t we just working?” Darren said he was coming back today and would pop by the restaurant, but we didn’t set a specific time. I assumed I’d be at work all day. “Later, yes,” he says quietly, leaning in like we’re coconspirators. “First, I am taking you on my boat.” I get pulled into the conspiracy and lean in too. “Your boat?” “My boat.” He’s even closer now, still shirtless. His clothes are just an afterthought of wadded-up laundry in his hands. It’s probably such a chore for him to put them on every day. He’s clearly in his element without them. Chiara did say that I had to see Cinque Terre from the sea, that there’s nothing else like it. The anticipation of the photo ops alone is enough to make my answer “Si, si, si,” forget about the half-naked guy standing in front of me. Forget about his lips, inches from mine. Forget that he has his own boat in Italy. “Where are we going?” I stare at his mouth, waiting for an answer. He smirks and I’m pretty sure I’ll follow him anywhere. Bruno traces my jaw with a fingertip and lightly taps the tip of my nose. “You will see.

Her eyebrows were plucked into thin arched lines, which gave her a permanent look of surprise, or outrage, or inquisitiveness, such as you might see on a startled child, but below them her eyelids were tired-looking. Not so her eyes, which were the flat hostile blue of a midsummer sky in bright sunlight, a blue that shuts you out.