Tile Sayings And Quotes

We were fools.” “You were children. Was there no one to protect you?” “Was there anyone to protect you?” “My father. My mother. They would have done anything to keep me from being stolen.” “And they would have been mowed down by slavers.” “Then I guess I was lucky I didn’t have to see that.” How could she still look at the world that way? “Sold into a brothel at age fourteen and you count yourself lucky.” “They loved me. They love me. I believe that.” He saw her draw closer in the mirror. Her black hair was an ink splash against the white tile walls. She paused behind him. “You protected me, Kaz.” “The fact that you’re bleeding through your bandages tells me otherwise.” She glanced down. A red blossom of blood had spread on the bandage tied around her shoulder. She tugged awkwardly at the strip of towel. “I need Nina to fix this one.” He didn’t mean to say it. He meant to let her go. “I can help you.” Her gaze snapped to his in the mirror, wary as if gauging an opponent. I can help you. They were the first words she’d spoken to him, standing in the parlor of the Menagerie, draped in purple silk, eyes lined in kohl. She had helped him. And she’d nearly destroyed him. Maybe he should let her finish the job.

My child, I know you're not a child But I still see you running wild Between those flowering trees. Your sparkling dreams, your silver laugh Your wishes to the stars above Are just my memories. And in your eyes the ocean And in your eyes the sea The waters frozen over With your longing to be free. Yesterday you'd awoken To a world incredibly old. This is the age you are broken Or turned into gold. You had to kill this child, I know. To break the arrows and the bow To shed your skin and change. The trees are flowering no more There's blood upon the tiles floor This place is dark and strange. I see you standing in the storm Holding the curse of youth Each of you with your story Each of you with your truth. Some words will never be spoken Some stories will never be told. This is the age you are broken Or turned into gold. I didn't say the world was good. I hoped by now you understood Why I could never lie. I didn't promise you a thing. Don't ask my wintervoice for spring Just spread your wings and fly. Though in the hidden garden Down by the green green lane The plant of love grows next to The tree of hate and pain. So take my tears as a token. They'll keep you warm in the cold. This is the age you are broken Or turned into gold. You've lived too long among us To leave without a trace You've lived too short to understand A thing about this place. Some of you just sit there smoking And some are already sold. This is the age you are broken Or turned into gold. This is the age you are broken or turned into gold.

You could have knocked ... Or, you know, announced your entrance like they do on Downton Abbey”. He steps out of his drawstring pants, now completely naked. He walks towards the glass shower door and stops. And then he knocks on it. I have petrified by the tiled wall. “It’s Loren Hale,” he says, a smile spreading across his lips. “May I come in?

What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star? That, by the way, is a phrase of Julian's. I remember it from a lecture of his on the Iliad, when Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream. There is a very moving passage where Achilles overjoyed at the sight of the apparition – tries to throw his arms around the ghost of his old friend, and it vanishes. The dead appear to us in dreams, said Julian, because that's the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at us from a dead star… Which reminds me, by the way, of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago. I found myself in a strange deserted city – an old city, like London – underpopulated by war or disease. It was night; the streets were dark, bombed-out, abandoned. For a long time, I wandered aimlessly – past ruined parks, blasted statuary, vacant lots overgrown with weeds and collapsed apartment houses with rusted girders poking out of their sides like ribs. But here and there, interspersed among the desolate shells of the heavy old public buildings, I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble. I went inside one of these new buildings. It was like a laboratory, maybe, or a museum. My footsteps echoed on the tile floors.There was a cluster of men, all smoking pipes, gathered around an exhibit in a glass case that gleamed in the dim light and lit their faces ghoulishly from below. I drew nearer. In the case was a machine revolving slowly on a turntable, a machine with metal parts that slid in and out and collapsed in upon themselves to form new images. An Inca temple… click click click… the Pyramids… the Parthenon. History passing beneath my very eyes, changing every moment. 'I thought I'd find you here,' said a voice at my elbow. It was Henry. His gaze was steady and impassive in the dim light. Above his ear, beneath the wire stem of his spectacles, I could just make out the powder burn and the dark hole in his right temple. I was glad to see him, though not exactly surprised. 'You know,' I said to him, 'everybody is saying that you're dead.' He stared down at the machine. The Colosseum… click click click… the Pantheon. 'I'm not dead,' he said. 'I'm only having a bit of trouble with my passport.' 'What?' He cleared his throat. 'My movements are restricted,' he said. 'I no longer have the ability to travel as freely as I would like.' Hagia Sophia. St. Mark's, in Venice. 'What is this place?' I asked him. 'That information is classified, I'm afraid.' 1 looked around curiously. It seemed that I was the only visitor. 'Is it open to the public?' I said. 'Not generally, no.' I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point. 'Are you happy here?' I said at last. He considered this for a moment. 'Not particularly,' he said. 'But you're not very happy where you are, either.' St. Basil's, in Moscow. Chartres. Salisbury and Amiens. He glanced at his watch. 'I hope you'll excuse me,' he said, 'but I'm late for an appointment.' He turned from me and walked away. I watched his back receding down the long, gleaming hall.

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges, I see my father strolling out under the ochre sandstone arch, the red tiles glinting like bent plates of blood behind his head, I see my mother with a few light books at her hip standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its sword-tips black in the May air, they are about to graduate, they are about to get married, they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are innocent, they would never hurt anybody. I want to go up to them and say Stop, don't do it--she's the wrong woman, he's the wrong man, you are going to do things you cannot imagine you would ever do, you are going to do bad things to children, you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of, you are going to want to die. I want to go up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it, her hungry pretty blank face turning to me, her pitiful beautiful untouched body, his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me, his pitiful beautiful untouched body, but I don't do it. I want to live. I take them up like the male and female paper dolls and bang them together at the hips like chips of flint as if to strike sparks from them, I say Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it

On the back part of the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brilliance. At first I thought it was revolving; then I realised that this movement was an illusion created by the dizzying world it bounded. The Aleph's diameter was probably little more than an inch, but all space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror's face, let us say) was infinite things, since I distinctly saw it from every angle of the universe. I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I saw the multitudes of America; I saw a silvery cobweb in the center of a black pyramid; I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London); I saw, close up, unending eyes watching themselves in me as in a mirror; I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me; I saw in a backyard of Soler Street the same tiles that thirty years before I'd seen in the entrance of a house in Fray Bentos; I saw bunches of grapes, snow, tobacco, lodes of metal, steam; I saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of their grains of sand; I saw a woman in Inverness whom I shall never forget; I saw her tangled hair, her tall figure, I saw the cancer in her breast; I saw a ring of baked mud in a sidewalk, where before there had been a tree; I saw a summer house in Adrogué and a copy of the first English translation of Pliny -- Philemon Holland's -- and all at the same time saw each letter on each page (as a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight); I saw a sunset in Querétaro that seemed to reflect the colour of a rose in Bengal; I saw my empty bedroom; I saw in a closet in Alkmaar a terrestrial globe between two mirrors that multiplied it endlessly; I saw horses with flowing manes on a shore of the Caspian Sea at dawn; I saw the delicate bone structure of a hand; I saw the survivors of a battle sending out picture postcards; I saw in a showcase in Mirzapur a pack of Spanish playing cards; I saw the slanting shadows of ferns on a greenhouse floor; I saw tigers, pistons, bison, tides, and armies; I saw all the ants on the planet; I saw a Persian astrolabe; I saw in the drawer of a writing table (and the handwriting made me tremble) unbelievable, obscene, detailed letters, which Beatriz had written to Carlos Argentino; I saw a monument I worshipped in the Chacarita cemetery; I saw the rotted dust and bones that had once deliciously been Beatriz Viterbo; I saw the circulation of my own dark blood; I saw the coupling of love and the modification of death; I saw the Aleph from every point and angle, and in the Aleph I saw the earth and in the earth the Aleph and in the Aleph the earth; I saw my own face and my own bowels; I saw your face; and I felt dizzy and wept, for my eyes had seen that secret and conjectured object whose name is common to all men but which no man has looked upon -- the unimaginable universe. I felt infinite wonder, infinite pity.

Thanks for staying with me last night,” I said, stroking Toto’s soft fur. “You didn’t have to sleep on the bathroom floor.” “Last night was one of the best nights of my life.” I turned to see his expression. When I saw that he was serious, I shot him a dubious look. “Sleeping in between the toilet and the tub on a cold, hard tile floor with a vomiting idiot was one of your best nights? That’s sad, Trav.” “No, sitting up with you when you’re sick, and you falling asleep in my lap was one of my best nights. It wasn’t comfortable, I didn’t sleep worth a shit, but I brought in your nineteenth birthday with you, and you’re actually pretty sweet when you’re drunk.” “I’m sure between the heaving and purging I was very charming.” He pulled me close, patting Toto who was snuggled up to my neck. “You’re the only woman I know that still looks incredible with your head in the toilet. That’s saying something.

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE IN WHICH I AM UNFAZED BY THE MEN WHO DO NOT LOVE ME when the businessman shoulder checks me in the airport, i do not apologize. instead, i write him an elegy on the back of a receipt and tuck it in his hand as i pass through the first class cabin. like a bee, he will die after stinging me. i am twenty-four and have never cried. once, a boy told me he doesn’t “believe in labels” so i embroidered the word chauvinist on the back of his favorite coat. a boy said he liked my hair the other way so i shaved my head instead of my pussy. while the boy isn’t calling back, i learn carpentry, build a desk, write a book at the desk. i taught myself to cum from counting ceiling tiles. the boy says he prefers blondes and i steam clean his clothes with bleach. the boy says i am not marriage material and i put gravel in his pepper grinder. the boy says period sex is disgusting and i slaughter a goat in his living room. the boy does not ask if he can choke me, so i pretend to die while he’s doing it. my mother says this is not the meaning of unfazed. when the boy says i curse too much to be pretty and i tattoo “cunt” on my inner lip, my mother calls this “being very fazed.” but left over from the other universe are hours and hours of waiting for him to kiss me and here, they are just hours. here, they are a bike ride across long island in june. here, they are a novel read in one sitting. here, they are arguments about god or a full night’s sleep. here, i hand an hour to the woman crying outside of the bar. i leave one on my best friend’s front porch, send my mother two in the mail. i do not slice his tires. i do not burn the photos. i do not write the letter. i do not beg. i do not ask for forgiveness. i do not hold my breath while he finishes. the man tells me he does not love me, and he does not love me. the man tells me who he is, and i listen. i have so much beautiful time.

I step back further, until I feel cold tiles against my back. It is then I get the glimmer that I associate with memory. As my mind tries to settle on it, it flutters away, like ashes caught in a breeze, and I realize that in my life there is a then, a before, though before what I cannot say, and there is a now, and there is nothing between the two but a long, silent emptiness that has led me here, to me and him, in this house.

My father was a violent sod, and my mother was a coquette who, as they say, 'had a tile loose.' As for my brother and I, we were a pair of sullen tots who went around trying to pick fights with our cousins. The earl couldn't stand either of us. He caught me by the ear on one occasion, and told me I was a bad, wicked lad, and someday he would see to it that I was placed as a cabin boy on a trading vessel bound for China, which would undoubtedly be captured by pirates." "What did you say?" "I told him I hoped he would do it as soon as possible, because pirates would do a much better job of raising me than my parents.

Hopefully, this is a durable remission.” Durable. This isn’t the first time he’s used the word. Boy, do I miss the days of them saying cured. Those were the good, unrealistic times. Am I to be durable now? Cancer will be splashed across me like juice onto tile, only to be wiped away, then again splashed and again wiped away.

On a very hot day in August of 1994, my wife told me she was going down to the Derry Rite Aid to pick up a refill on her sinus medicine prescription - this is stuff you can buy over the counter these days, I believe. I’d finished writing for the day and offered to pick it up for her. She said thanks, but she wanted to get a piece of fish at the supermarket next door anyway; two birds with one stone and all that. She blew a kiss at me off the palm of her and and went out. The next time I saw her, she was on TV. That’s how you identify the dead here in Derry - no walking down a subterranean corridor with green tiles on the walls and long fluorescent bars overhead, no naked body rolling out of a chilly drawer on casters; you just go into an office marked PRIVATE and look at a TV screen and say yep or nope.

A joyful task,’ he says and she realizes that he welcomes the idea of years of searching, tile by tile, inscription by inscription, cornice by cornice and niche by niche, that the painstaking search of Sinan’s greatest achievement, decades long, is the holy task; that the secret letter is cut in every stone and tile. By the time you find it, you have realized the supreme unimportance of finding it. A Sufi lesson.

It’s your business if you wanna pretend you’re not queer.” Wrong. Thing. To. Say. His growl echoes on the tiled walls and he makes a move to charge forward only to stop himself feet away from me. Nostrils flared; lips curled back. Delicious anger staring at me. I’m a sick cub for finding him sexy. “You know nothing, Fierro. Keep your fucking mouth shut or I’ll do it for you, got it?” I smile and he’s further pissed off as I watch his eyes crinkle. Pity he’s a jerk, he really is hot. “Whatever you say. Try not to remember how I taste later, yeah?” It’s me who leaves first, brushing by his shoulder and he hisses another curse. His threats today don’t work on me, they never do. He’s like a posturing animal trying to exert his dominance. I never guessed he’d succeed with his tongue in my mouth. Stranger things have happened, but never did I think I’d end up making out with my tormentor.

... I will take a long shower, as the shower is the only place I will have any privacy. In the stall I will get down on my knees and weep, letting the water run over my body, praying to get better, praying not to hurt myself any more than I’m already hurting, praying that this loss, that this whole time, will move over me, through me, like a dark storm passing over a great plane. A great plain which is, essentially, my soul. A soul which is neither light nor dark, neither wholly alone nor wholly with any other, certainly not with God, just flat, open, deathless, and free. Curled up in a wet ball on the tile floor I will hear myself say, something in me is dying. I no longer know to whom I’m talking.

My brain is made up of different rooms. Each room is for doing a different thing. For example, I have an Eyes Room for seeing things and an Ears Room for hearing things. I have a Hands Room, a Memory Room (it’s like my father’s office, full of drawers and folders and boxes with papers), a New Things Room, a Numbers Room (my favorite), and a Horror Room (I wish this room would be broken, but it works just fine). The rooms don’t touch each other. There are long, looping hallways in between each room. If I’m thinking about something that happened yesterday (like when I knocked over the white coffee mug), I’m in my Memory Room. But if I want to watch a Barney video on the TV, I have to leave the Memory Room and go into Eyes and sometimes Ears. Sometimes when I’m in the hallways traveling to a different room, I get lost and confused and caught In Between and feel like I’m nowhere. This is when my brain feels like maybe it’s a little bit broken, but I know I just have to find my way into one of the rooms and shut the door. But if too much is happening at once, I can get into trouble. If I’m counting the square tiles on the kitchen floor (180), I’m in my Numbers Room, but if my mother starts talking to me, I have to go into my Ears Room to hear her. But I want to stay in Numbers because I’m counting, and I like to count, but my mother keeps talking, and her sound is getting louder, and I feel pressure to leave Numbers and go inside my Ears Room. So I go into the hallway, but then she grabs my hand, and this surprises me and forces me into Hands, which isn’t where I wanted to go, and she’s talking to me but I can’t hear what she’s saying because I’m in my Hands Room and not in Ears. If she lets go of my hand, I can go into Ears. She’s saying, Look at me. But if I look at her, I have to leave Ears and go into Eyes, and then I won’t be able to hear what she’s saying. So I don’t know what to do, and I’m wandering the halls, and I can’t make a decision on where to go, and I’m In Between, and that’s when I get into trouble.

Later, I was in a bathroom stall. Eric was on his knees. My dick was in his mouth, my head back against warm ceramic tile that shook with the beat of the music. My fingers were in his hair and everything was hot and wet. I grunted a warning and he backed away, jacking me until I came on the dirty floor. He stood up and kissed me while he jerked himself off. He sighed into my mouth. He tasted like stale beer and mint. He came on his hand. I felt raw. “Thanks,” he said, zipping up his pants. “That was great.” “Sure,” I said, because I was unsure of what else to say. “You too.” And then he left. I

Romance can be as simple as leaving a note on the refrigerator that says “I love you” or giving an unexpected hug. It can include heroic gestures like helping your partner do his taxes or scouring the tile in her skanky-looking shower or taking a whole day to organize a lover’s Nightmare-on-Elm-Street closet.

Candles?” I ask, marveling at the tile art on the walls. “The Love Bathhouse trades in magic made during sex,” Kalos says. “Lighting the candles acts as the consent to and initiation of the ritual.” That’s probably why the wards feel like a tidal wave instead of a slow trickle of power. “Did you bring me here to seduce me?” I ask,

In Zen Buddhist texts they say, “You cannot nail a peg into the sky.” And so, to be a man of the sky, a man of the void, is also called ‘a man not depending on anything’. And when you’re not hung on anything you are the only thing that isn’t hung on anything – which is the universe. Which doesn’t hang, you see. Where would it hang? It has no place to fall on, even though it may be dropping; there will never be the crash of it landing on a concrete floor somewhere. But the reason for that is that it won’t crash below because it doesn’t hang above. And so there is a poem, in Chinese, which speaks of such a person as having above, not a tile to cover the head; below, not an inch of ground on which to stand.

I’m taking this, Beckett. I did this. I could have just disabled them. But when I heard her say no I just…” Cole seemed resigned to his fate. “They were trying to rape her?” Beckett hit the wall with enough force to hear something crack—either a tile or a knuckle. “She said, ‘I do not want this,’ and they were all over her.” Cole glared at the men on the floor.

say something, but his mouth flapped open and shut without a sound except for the exhalation of his last lungful of air. He tried to gulp air down like a landed fish, and this did not work. Then his eyes went up to Ramius, wide in shock—there was no pain, and no emotion but surprise. The captain laid him gently on the tile deck. Ramius saw the face flash with recognition, then darken. He reached down to take Putin’s pulse. It was nearly two minutes before the heart stopped completely. When Ramius was sure that his political officer was dead, he took the teapot from the table and poured two cups’ worth on the deck, careful to drip some on the man’s shoes. Next he lifted the body to the wardroom table and threw open the

Healthy Choices Hold still Keep quiet. Get a degree to learn how to talk saying nothing. Catch a good man by being demure. the one your mother chooses. Let him climb you whenever his urge, amidst headaches and menstrual aches and screaming infants. And when he bids quick, turn over. Hold still. Make your tongue a slab of cement a white stone etched with your name. Kill your stories with knives and knitting needles and Clorox bleach. Hide in your mysteriousness by saying nothing. Starch your thoughts with ironed shirts. Tie your anger with a knot in your throat and when he comes without concern swallow it. Hold still. Keep desire hopeless as ice and sleepless nights and painful as pinched eyelid. Keep your fingers from the razor, keep your longing to sever his condescension safely in your douchbag. Turn the blade against yourself. Don't twitch as your slashed wrists stain your bathroom tiles. Disinfect with Pine Sol. Hold still. Keep quiet. Keep tight your lips, keep dead your dreams, keep cold your heart. Keep quiet. And he will shout praises to your perfection.

Like a child, I close my eyes as if they can't see me either. The fire from the kiss broadcasts itself all over me in the form of a full-body blush. Galen laughs. "There it is," he says, running his thumb over my bottom lip. "That is my favorite color. Wow." I'm going to kill him. "Galen. Please. Come. With. Me," I coke out. Gliding past him, my bare feet slap against the tile until I'm stomping on carpet in the hallway, then up the stairs. I can tell by the prickles on my skin that he's following like a good dead fish. As I reach the ladder to the uppermost level, I nod to him to keep following before I hoist myself up. Pacing the room until he gets through the trap door, I count more Mississipis than I've ever counted in my whole life. He closes the door and locks it shut but makes no move to come closer. Still, for a person who's about to die, he seems more amused than he should. I point my finger at him, but can't decide what to accuse him of first, so I put it back down. After several moments of this, he breaks the silence. "Emma, calm down." "Don't tell me what to do, Highness." I dare him with my eyes to call me "boo." Instead of the apology I'm looking for, his eyes tell me he's considering kissing me again, right now. Which is meant to distract me. Tearing my gaze from his mouth, I stride to the window seat and move the mountains of pillows on it. Making myself comfortable, I lean my head against the window. He knows as well as I do that if we had a special spot, this would be it. For me to sit here without him is the worst kind of snub. In the reflection, I see him run his hand through his hair and cross his arms. After a few more minutes, he shifts his weight to the other leg. He knows what I want. He knows what will earn him entrance to the window seat and my good graces. I don't know if it's Royal blood or manly pride that keeps him from apologizing, but his extended delay just makes me madder. Now I won't accept an apology. Now, he must grovel. I toss a satisfied smirk into the reflection only to find he's not there anymore. His hand closes around my arm and he jerks me up against him. His eyes are stormy, intense. "You think I'm going to apologize for kissing you?" he murmurs. "I. Yes. Uh-huh." Don't look at his mouth! Say something intelligent. "We don't have any clothes on." Fan-flipping-tastic. I meant to say he shouldn't kiss me in front of everyone, especially half naked. "Mmm," he says, pulling me closer. Brushing his lips against my ear, he says, "I did happen to notice that. Which is why I shouldn't have followed you up here.

You cannot unsee what has been seen once the veil is lifted, Reverend Olumide says in church. We cannot return to the garden of Eden. When I meet with him he says I need to confront my fears, that the devil torments us with that which scares us most. So, I cross the line between the blue hallways tiles and the white locker-room floor and navigate my way to locker umber thirty-two.

You cannot unsee what has been seen once the veil is lifted, Reverend Olumide says in church. We cannot return to the garden of Eden. When I meet with him he says I need to confront my fears, that the devil torments us with that which scares us most. So, I cross the line between the blue hallways tiles and the white locker-room floor and navigate my way to locker number thirty-two.

One morning during Lent in 415, Hypatia climbed into her chariot, some say outside her residence, some say on a street intending to ride home. Several hundred of Cyril's stooges, Christian monks from a desert monastery, swooped upon her, beat her, and dragged her to a church. Inside the church they stripped her naked and peeled away her flesh with either sharpened tiles or broken bits of pottery.

Wylan cleared his throat and the sound bounced around the blue-tiled room like a spring colt let loose in a corral. Genya’s face was bemused. Zoya crossed her arms. “Well?” “Ma’am…” Wylan attempted. “Miss Genya—” Genya smiled, her scars tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Oh, he is sweet.” “You always take to the strays,” said Zoya sourly. “You’re the boy Nina tailored to look like Kuwei,” Genya said. “And you want me to try to undo her work?” “Yes,” Wylan said, that one word imbued with a whole world of hope. “But I don’t have anything to bargain with.” Genya rolled her single amber eye. “Why are the Kerch so focused on money?” “Says the woman with a bankrupt country,” murmured Jesper. “What was that?” snapped Zoya. “Nothing,” said Jesper. “Just saying Kerch is a morally bankrupt country.

The collar of Lars of Tassla fell away and clattered onto the tiles. katriana felt unable to breathe. Her neck, so long encased with the symbol of Lars’ ownership of her, seemed paradoxically to be suddenly constricted. She felt naked. Naked and abandoned. Her head sank down to lie across the hardness of the anvil. Her entire body shook uncontrollably as she felt all security evaporate from her world. How many minutes she lay there she could not with any certainty say. Yet, eventually she became aware of one tiny point in the cruel world surrounding her. It was a scent. His scent. It entered her. It stroked inside her. It pulsed against her pain until she acknowledged its presence. Her eyes flicked open. And then she saw him there, sitting quietly beside her, watching her with all the intentness that she loved so much in him. His face was still set in the neutrality he reserved for formal times but his eyes were flashing with…with some emotion kept hidden behind his Master’s mask. katriana struggled to read the look flowing from deep inside his eyes. She awkwardly rose to kneel before her former Master. Her body and her breasts were offered. She could not do otherwise whether or not she wore his collar. (A Master's Dilemma, eXtasy)

Gregori tugged on her hair to force her back to him. "You make me feel alive, Savannah." "Do I? Is that why you're swearing?" She turned onto her stomach, propping herself up onto her elbows. He leaned into her, brushing his mouth across the swell of her breast. "You are managing to tie me up in knots. You take away all my good judgement." A slight smile curved her mouth. "I never noticed that you had particularly good judgement to begin with." His white teeth gleamed, a predator's smile, then sank into soft bare flesh. She yelped but moved closer to him when his tongue swirled and caressed, taking away the sting. "I have always had good judgement," he told her firmly, his teeth scraping back and forth in the valley between her breasts. "So you say.But that doesn't make it so. You let evil idiots shoot you with poisoned darts. You go by yourself into laboratories filled with your enemies. Need I go on?" Her blue eyes were laughing at him. Her firm, rounded bottom was far too tempting to resist. He brought his open palm down in mock punishment. Savannah jumped, but before she could scoot away, his palm began caressing, producing a far different effect. "Judging from our positions, ma petite, I would say my judgement looks better than yours." She laughed. "All right,I'm going to let you win this time." "Would you care for a shower?" he asked solicitously. When she nodded, Gregori flowed off the bed, lifted her high into his arms,and cradled her against his chest. There was something too innocent about him. She eyed him warily. But in an instant he had already glided across the tiled floor to the balcony door, which flew open at his whim, and carried her, naked, into the cold, glittering downpour. Savannah tried to squirm away, wiggling and shoving at his chest, laughing in spite of the icy water cascading over her. "Gregori! You're so mean. I can't believe you did this." "Well,I have poor judgement." He was grinning at her in mocking, male amusement. "Is that not what you said?" "I take it back!" she moaned, clinging to him, burying her fact on his shoulder as the chill rain pelted her bare breasts, making her nipples peak hard and fast. "Run with me tonight," Gregori whispered against her neck. An enticement. Temptation. Drawing her to him, another tie to his dark world. She lifted her head, looked into his silver eyes, and was lost.The rain poured over her, drenching her, but as Gregori slowly glided with her to the blanket of pine needles below the balcony,she couldn't look away from those hungry eyes.

It has taken me twenty-eight years to be able to admit that I'm glad I did not know my mother until now. Not because, as my father suspected, she would ruin my life, but because this way, I did not have to bear witness as she ruined hers. My mother's sorrow is so powerful, it cracks the clay tile beneath her feet; it makes the water in the fountain behind us overflow. "Delia," she says, as her eyes fill with tears. "I'm trying." "Me, too." I reach for her hand: a compromise, a good-bye. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

But if my father could stand up to schoolmasters and if he inherited some of his own father's gifts as a teacher, he himself could never have become one. He could teach and loved teaching. He could radiate enthusiasm, but he could never impose discipline. He could never have taught a dull subject to a dull boy, never have said: "Do this because I say so." Enthusiasm spread knowledge sideways, among equals. Discipline forced it downwards from above. My father's relationships were always between equals, however old or young, distinguished or undistinguished the other person. Once, when I was quite little, he came up to the nursery while I was having my lunch. And while he was talking I paused between mouthfuls, resting my hands on the table, knife and fork pointing upwards. "You oughtn't really to sit like that," he said, gently. "Why not?" I asked, surprised. "Well..." He hunted around for a reason he could give. Because it's considered bad manners? Because you mustn't? Because... "Well," he said, looking in the direction my fork was pointing, "Suppose somebody suddenly fell through the ceiling. They might land on your fork and that would be very painful." "I see," I said, though I didn't really. It seemed such an unlikely thing to happen, such a funny reason for holding your knife and fork flat when you were not using them... But funny reason or not, it seems I have remembered it. In the same sort of way I learned about the nesting habits of starlings. I had been given a bird book for Easter (Easter 1934: I still have the book) and with its help I had made my first discovery. "There's a blackbird's nest in the hole under the tiles just outside the drawing-room window," I announced proudly. "I've just seen the blackbird fly in." "I think it's probably really a starling," said my father. "No, it's a blackbird," I said firmly, hating to be wrong, hating being corrected. "Well," said my father, realizing how I felt but at the same time unable to allow an inaccuracy to get away with it, "Perhaps it's a blackbird visiting a starling." A blackbird visiting a starling. Someone falling through the ceiling. He could never bear to be dogmatic, never bring himself to say (in effect): This is so because I say it is, and I am older than you and must know better. How much easier, how much nicer to escape into the world of fantasy in which he felt himself so happily at home.

She glances up at Jack and finds he is watching her, a small smile playing on his lips. She wonders if he is at all alarmed to find himself in such close proximity to her after their shared encounter in the clearing the day before. "You'll have to go gently with me," he says to Albie, his eyes still on Lillian. "This is all rather new to me." Lillian blushes and stares down at the wall of tiles laid out on the table before them. "Albie is the expert. You should know that neither of us stands a chance against him." "I'm lost already," he says quietly. "My concentration is completely off today." Lillian swallows.

The Butcher’s Shop The pigs are strung in rows, open-mouthed, dignified in martyrs’ deaths. They hang stiff as Sunday manners, their porky heads voting Tory all their lives, their blue rosettes discarded now. The butcher smiles a meaty smile, white apron stained with who knows what, fingers fat as sausages. Smug, woolly cattle and snowy sheep prance on tiles, grazing on eternity, cute illustrations in a children’s book. What does the sheep say now? Tacky sawdust clogs your shoes. Little plastic hedges divide the trays of meat, playing farms. playing farms. All the way home your cold and soggy paper parcel bleeds.

Does my body please you?” She tightened her lips. Man, if he got off on hearing women say he was beautiful, he was going home disappointed. “And what would you do if it didn’t?” she shot back. “I would cover myself.” “Yeah, right.” He cocked his head to the side, as if thinking he’d read her wrong. Then he headed out to the living room where his coat was. Good lord, he was serious. “Hal, come back. You don’t have to…I, ah, I like your body just fine.” He smiled as he returned to her. “I’m glad. I want to please you.” Fine, dandy, she thought. Then lose the shirt, peel off those leather pants, and lie down on my tile. We’ll take turns being on the bottom.

Kestrel though that Arin was someone who had fallen far. She couldn’t ask if that was true. She remembered his angry response when she had asked why he had been trained as a blacksmith, and that question had seemed innocent enough. Yet it had hurt him. She did not want to hurt him. “How did you learn to play Bite and Sting?” she asked. “It’s Valorian.” He looked relieved. “There was a time when Herrani enjoyed sailing to your country. We liked your people. And we have always admired the arts. Our sailors brought back Bite and Sting sets a long time ago.” “Bite and Sting is a game, not an art.” He folded his arms across his chest, amused. “If you say so.” “I’m surprised to hear that Herrani liked anything about Valorians. I thought you considered us stupid savages.” “Wild creatures,” he muttered. Kestrel was sure she had misheard him. “What?” “Nothing. Yes, you were completely uncultured. You ate with your hands. Your idea of entertainment was seeing who could kill the other first. But”--his eyes met hers, then glanced away--“you were known for other things, too.” “What things? What do you mean?” He shook his head. He made that strange gesture again, lifting his fingers to flick the air by his temple. Then he folded his hands, unfolded them, and began to mix the tiles. “You have asked too many questions. If you want more, you will have to win them.

The gnarled pine, I would have said, touch it. This is China. Horticulturalists around the world have come to study it. Yet no one has ever been able to explain why it grows like a corkscrew, just as no one can adequately explain China. But like that tree, there it is, old, resilient, and oddly magnificent. Within that tree are the elements in nature that have inspired Chinese artists for centuries: gesture over geometry, subtlety over symmetry, constant flow over static form. And the temples, walk and touch them. This is China. Don't merely stare at these murals and statues. Fly up to the crossbeams, get down on your hands and knees, and press your head to the floor tiles. Hide behind that pillar and come eye to eye with its flecks of paint. Imagine that you are the interior decorator who is a thousand years in age. Start with a bit of Tibetan Buddhism, plus a dash each of animism and Taoism. A hodgepodge, you say? No, what is in those temples is an amalgam that is pure Chinese, a lovely shabby elegance, a glorious new motley that makes China infinitely intriguing. Nothing is ever completely thrown away and replaced. If one period of influence falls out of favor, it is patched over. The old views still exist, one chipped layer beneath, ready to pop through with the slightest abrasion. That is the Chinese aesthetic and also its spirit. Those are the traces that have affected all who have traveled along China's roads.

So we’ve made a truce. I have agreed that, in the spring, I will either enlist or marry.” He stopped spinning the tile in his fingers. “You’ll marry, then.” “Yes. But at least I will have six months of peace first.” Arin dropped the tile to the table. “Let’s play again.” This time Kestrel won, and wasn’t prepared for how her blood buzzed with triumph. Arin stared at the tiles. His mouth thinned to a line. A thousand questions swam into Kestrel’s mind, nudging, fighting to be first. But she was as taken aback as Arin seemed to be by the one that slipped out of her mouth. “Why were you trained as a blacksmith?” For a moment, Kestrel thought he wouldn’t answer. His jaw tightened. Then he said, “I was chosen because I was the last nine-year-old boy in the world suited to be a blacksmith. I was scrawny. I daydreamed. I cringed. Have you looked at the tools in the forge? At the hammer? You’d want to think carefully about what kind of slave you’d let pick that up. My first slaver looked at me and decided I wasn’t the type to raise my hand in anger. He chose me.” Arin’s smile was cold. “Well, do you like your answer?” Kestrel couldn’t speak. Arin pushed his tiles away. “I want to go into the city.” Even though Kestrel had said that he could, and knew that there was nothing wrong with a slave hoping to see his sweetheart, she wanted to say no. “So soon?” she managed. “It’s been a month.” “Oh.” Kestrel told herself that a month must be a long time to go without seeing the person one loves. “Of course. Go.

A few silent moments later, Peter tells me it’s time to go. He barely looks at me, scowls at the back wall instead. I suppose it would have been too much to ask, to see a friendly face this morning. I stand, and together we walk down the hallway. My toes are cold. My feet stick to the tiles. We turn a corner, and I hear muffled shouts. At first I can’t tell what the voice is saying, but as we draw closer, it takes shape. “I want to…her!” Tobias. “I…see her!” I glance at Peter. “I can’t speak to him one last time, can I?” Peter shakes his head. “There’s a window, though. Maybe if he sees you he’ll finally shut up.” He takes me down a dead-end corridor that’s only six feet long. At the end is a door, and Peter is right, there’s a small window near the top, about a foot above my head. “Tris!” Tobias’s voice is even clearer here. “I want to see her!” I reach up and press my palm to the glass. The shouts stop, and his face appears behind the glass. His eyes are red; his face, blotchy. Handsome. He stares down at me for a few seconds and then presses his hand to the glass so it lines up with mine. I pretend I can feel the warmth of it through the window. He leans his forehead against the door and squeezes his eyes shut. I take my hand down and turn away before he can open his eyes. I feel pain in my chest, worse than when I got shot in the shoulder. I clutch the front of my shirt, blink away tears, and rejoin Peter in the main hallway. “Thank you,” I say quietly. I meant to say it louder. “Whatever.” Peter scowls again. “Let’s just go.

Light. Light at the end. Light at the end of the tunnel. Heavenly. Afterlife. God. Goddess. Angels made of… Impossible to discern. Tender. Swimming pool with father, in the morning of childhood, in the heart of lightness, in the heart of childhoodness, in the soul of It All. Light inside a black, grey, white tunnel. Very long. Endless dark, endless light. Black all around and light inside, pure, clad in tiles, unfettered, virgineal. Water. Swimming in the light made of drops, teardrops, water. Lightning over the water made of yellow, white, brilliant flashes. Smelling incense from an abandoned church in the wild, lost in the wild, suddenly found only to be inexorably lost again, out of my sight for eternity, only to be found forever by wild, ancient and kindred spirits, that is to say, snakes, trees, ants, bees, ghosts in the wind. Seven crosses flying around a holy chalice with a communion wafer floating on top of it.

Paco is walking out of the bathroom and I rush past him. "You might want to wait before you--" Paco's voice fades as I close the door, locking myself in. Wiping my eyes, I gaze into the mirror. I'm a complete mess. My mascara is dripping and . . . oh, it's no use. I slide down and sit on the cold tile floor. Now I realize what Paco was about to tell me. The place stinks; it really reeks . . . almost to the point where I want to throw up. I put my hand over my nose, trying to ignore the offending smell. *** After locking the door behind him, he crouches beside me and takes me in his arms, pulling me close. Then he sniffs a few times. "Holy shit. Was Paco in here?" I nod. He smoothes my hair and mutters something in Spanish. *** She, too, sniffs a bunch of times. "Was Paco in here?" Alex and I nod. "What the fuck does that guy eat that it comes out his other end smelling so rotten? Dammit," she says, wadding up tissue and putting it over her nose.

Fragments for Subduing the Silence” I. The powers of language are the solitary ladies who sing, desolate, with this voice of mine that I hear from a distance. And far away, in the black sand, lies a girl heavy with ancestral music. Where is death itself? I have wanted clarity in light of my lack of light. Branches die in the memory. The girl lying in the sand nestles into me with her wolf mask. The one she couldn’t stand anymore and that begged for flames and that we set on fire. II. When the roof tiles blow away from the house of language, and words no longer keep—that is when I speak. The ladies in red have lost themselves in their masks. Though they will return to sob among the flowers. Death is no mute. I hear the song of the mourners sealing the clefts of silence. I listen and the sweetness of your crying brings life to my grey silence. III. Death has restored to silence its own bewitching charm. And I will not say my poem and I will say it. Even if (here, now) the poem has no feeling, no future. Boston Review: Three Poems April 15, 2015

Ben stands just behind me, and we begin to wedge out a fresh piece of clay. I try my best to concentrate, to ignore the fact that my heart is beating at five times its normal speed. I watch his arms as he kneads the clay—almost a little too hard—and as the muscles in his forearms flex. “That’s good,” I say, in an effort to stay focused. I dip a sponge into a bowl of water and squeeze the droplets down over his hands to keep things moist. After several minutes, Ben lets me take the lead. I place my palms over the clay mound and close my eyes. Meanwhile, Ben’s chest grazes my shoulders, and his clay-soaked fingers stroke the length of my arms. “You’re doing great,” he whispers in my ear. We continue to sculpt for another hour, working the mound down into a flattened surface—until we have a total of four tiles. And until I can no longer hold myself back. I turn around to face him. “Camelia?” He squints slightly. I bite my lip, wishing that he could read my mind, and that he would kiss me until my lips ache. “What are you thinking?” I ask, slipping my hand inside the waistband of his jeans and pulling him closer.

We did every part of this renovation together with our bare hands. Chip restored all of the wood floors, all the tile work--everything. I was learning as we went, but I definitely did my part. That house was gorgeous. Jo did an awesome job helping fix it up, and her ideas were great. There was a moment in the kitchen when I smarted off, though. I don’t even remember what I said, to be honest, but Jo got real mad and started yelling. She was carrying this five-gallon bucket of primer. She slammed it down on the ground to make a point, and it splashed right back up in her face. It was dripping off her eyelashes and her nose. Whenever something like that happened in my family, we’d all just laugh, you know? So I laughed, even though she was mad at me, and that made her even angrier. She started yelling again with the primer dripping all over, and I just had this moment where I looked at her and everything seemed to be going in slow motion and I thought, I love this woman. She is tough! Oh, this is gonna work. That was our first real “fight,” and even now we both agree it was our biggest. Chip had smarted off about something, so my blood was already boiling, but when I slammed that bucket down, Chip says I became a ninja--the kind you don’t want to mess with. Yet he still laughed, against his better judgment. We joke about it now, like, “Well, I’m mad, but I’m not primer-in-the-face mad.

She wraps her legs around my waist, and I walk us slowly down the hall. "Mmm, wait," she whines against my mouth. "I haven't showered. I'm so gross, and I don't..." She trails off as I turn into my bathroom, then set her down. She shuffles her bare feet against the gray stone tile, an inquisitive look on her face as she looks around the narrow space bathed in neutral hues. I push open the glass door and turn on the shower. Water cascades from the waterfall showered. "Oh," she says as she grins and bites her bottom lip. By the time we've helped each other out of our clothes, the water's warm. I help her in first, then step in. And then, under the hot stream of water, we resume our dirty kissing and grabbing. "Wait, wait." She presses a hand against my chest, then reaches for the shampoo bottle on the ledge. "I do need to get clean first." I laugh and follow her lead by shampooing my own hair and doing a quick rinse with body wash. She holds her hand out for the loofah, but I shake my head. "Let me?" A devilish smirk tugs at her perfect mouth. When she nods and licks her lips, I have to take a second. God, this woman. The way she's sweet and filthy all at once is enough to make me lose it right here. But I refuse. Not before she gets what I'm dying to give her. I work up a lather and run the loofah all over her body. I take my time, paying attention to every part of her. These beautifully curved hips, the fullness of her thighs, the gentle curve of her waist, her arms, her hands, the swell of her boobs. And then I lather up my hands and slowly work between her legs. She clutches both hands around my biceps, and her toes curl against the earthen-hued river rock that lines the shower floor. Her eyes go wide and pleading as she looks up at me. I lean down to kiss her. "Tell me what you want." "You. Just you. Please." With her breathy request, I'm ready to burst. Not yet, though. She reaches down to palm me, but I gently push her hand away. I want this to be one hundred percent about her. When she presses her mouth against my shoulder and her sounds go louder and more frantic, I work my hand faster. She's panting, pleading, shouting. When I feel the sting of her teeth against my skin, I grin. Fuck yeah, my girl is rough when she loses it and I love it. I love her. She explodes against my palm, the weight of her body shuddering against me. I've got her, though. I've always, always got you. When she starts to ease back down, she lets out a breathy laugh. "Oh my god." I nod down at her, which only makes her laugh harder. Then she glances down at what I'm sporting between my legs and flashes a naughty smirk. "Let's do something about that." Soon it's me at the mercy of her hands. My head spins at the pleasure she delivers so confidently, like she knows every single one of my buttons to push. When I lose it, I'm shuddering and grunting. For a few seconds, my vision's blurry. She's that incredible.

Come on. Let’s go get coffee, get your mind off it,” Silas says soothingly as I begin to take my frustration out on the bag of bread, violently twisting the end of the plastic into a knot. “I don’t like coffee,” I grumble without looking at him. Silas reaches forward and puts his hands over mine. Goose bumps erupt on my arms. He raises his eyebrows, voice gentle. “You can get chocolate milk, then. But let’s get out of here before you bend the entire loaf in half.” I sigh and look at him. Funny how he can go from being “just Silas” to Silas in a matter of seconds. I release the bread and follow him out the door, my frustration and the flutter feeling fighting for control of me. The diner Silas takes me to is just a few blocks away, a dingy but classic-looking place with black and white tile and red neon signs blinking things such as “Apple Pie!” and “Specialty Hash Browns!” We slide into a booth, and a waitress who is missing several teeth grins at us and asks us for our order. “Just a cup of coffee for me. You, Rosie?” “Chocolate milk,” I reply with a snide look at Silas. He laughs and the waitress hurries away. Then, silence. Silas rearranges the salt and pepper shakers, and I pretend to read a piece of paper outlining the history of the diner. Right. “So,” I blurt out, a little louder than I meant to, “I guess you didn’t get much time at home, did you? Back from California and now stuck here with us?” Is my voice shaking? I think my voice is shaking.

We’ll go out tomorrow morning, then. First thing,” she ventures, more to Silas than me. “Though how the hell are we supposed to hunt? The Fenris certainly can’t see my face, and he’ll recognize Rosie. We’ve got no bait, unless you think you’ll look pretty in a dress, Silas.” “Okay, one, I would look great in a dress,” Silas begins. He turns to lean against the bathroom door, seemingly forgetting that I’m still in a towel. When he sees me, he averts his eyes and flushes a little. “And two,” he continues in a forced voice, “you’ve been luring Fenris on your own for pages, Scarlett. The Apple Time Festival is tomorrow. Perfect place for a Fenris to hang out, even if you don’t take into account all the red people will be wearing. We’ll go there.” Scarlett nods curtly. No one moves for a few minutes as water continues to trickle off my back and onto the shower floor. Finally, Scarlett gives me another cold look, turns on her heel, and storms down the hall. “Sorry I got you in trouble,” Silas whispers guiltily, his voice the only sound other than the steady pattering of water hitting the tile floor. “I was worried about you when you took off, and then I realized it was probably your first solo . . .” I shake my head. “I had to tell her eventually.” “For what it’s worth,” he says, eyes still averted respectfully, “I thought you did great.” “Thanks, Silas.” He finally meets my eyes, keeping his gaze firmly on my face. I tug the towel a little tighter. “You’re welcome. And I’m sorry for barging in. I didn’t . . . um, see anything. I promise.

Have you…” “Have I what?” Gray prompted, promptly kicking himself for doing so. God only knew what she’d ask now. Or what damn fool thing he’d say in response. “Have you ever seen a Botticelli? Painting, I mean. A real one, in person?” The breath he’d been holding whooshed out of him. “Yes.” “Oh.” She bit her lip. “What was it like?” “I…” His hand gestured uselessly. “I haven’t words to describe it.” “Try.” Her eyes were too clear, too piercing. He swallowed and shifted his gaze to a damp lock of hair curling at her temple “Perfect. Luminous. So beautiful, your chest aches. And so smooth, like glass. Your fingers itch to touch it.” “But you can’t.” “No,” he said quietly, his gaze sliding back to meet hers. “It isn’t allowed.” “And you care what others will allow?” She took a step toward him, her fingers trailing along the grooved tabletop. “What if you were alone, and there was no one to see? Would you touch it then?” Gray shook his head and dropped his gaze to his hands. “It’s not…” He paused, picking over his words like fruits in an island market. Testing and discarding twice as many as he chose. “There’s a varnish, you see. Some sort of gloss. If I touched it with these rough hands, I’d mar it somehow. Make it a bit less beautiful. Couldn’t live with myself then.” “So-“ She leaned one hip against the table’s edge, making her whole body one sinuous, sweeping curve. Gray sucked in a lungful of heat. “It isn’t the rules that prevent you.” “Not really. No.” Silence again. Vast and echoing, like the long, marble-tiled galleries of the Uffizi.

Korie: Ray’s daughter, Rachel, and I were best friends, and they were going to Phil’s house for dinner one night. They invited me to go along. I still remembered Willie from camp, so needless to say, I was just dying to go. I begged my parents to let me go with them. They said yes! I even remember what I wore at Willie’s house-a black top with fluorescent green earrings. Don’t judge…it was the eighties. When Rachel and I got to the Robertsons’ house, the first thing Phil said to us was: “Have you met my boys, Jason Silas and Willie Jess? They’ll make good husbands someday. They’re good hunters and fisherman.” I was so nervous. I couldn’t believe this was happening. The other thing I remember about walking in their home was that Phil and Kay had a sign on the door that said, “Honeymoon in progress.” Phil and Kay have never been shy about their honeymooning…another thing that shocked me about their family. Once we had eaten, Willie took us back to his room, which was actually the laundry room. He made us laugh the whole time. He would stick his thumb in his mouth and pretend that he was blowing up his muscles. He did acupressure tricks and showed us our pressure points. This was all very impressive to a couple of fifth-grade girls. After a while, I decided I was going to try to really impress Korie. I started punching the tiles on the ceiling of the laundry room, which was a trick one of my buddies taught me. I’d rear back and just punch my fist through the ceiling and busted tile would fall over onto the floor. I’m sure she was really impressed.

In his book, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, Viet Thanh Nguyen writes that immigrant communities like San Jose or Little Saigon in Orange County are examples of purposeful forgetting through the promise of capitalism: “The more wealth minorities amass, the more property they buy, the more clout they accumulate, and the more visible they become, the more other Americans will positively recognize and remember them. Belonging would substitute for longing; membership would make up for disremembering.” One literal example of this lies in the very existence of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Chinese immigrants in California had battled severe anti-Chinese sentiment in the late 1800s. In 1871, eighteen Chinese immigrants were murdered and lynched in Los Angeles. In 1877, an “anti-Coolie” mob burned and ransacked San Francisco’s Chinatown, and murdered four Chinese men. SF’s Chinatown was dealt its final blow during the 1906 earthquake, when San Francisco fire departments dedicated their resources to wealthier areas and dynamited Chinatown in order to stop the fire’s spread. When it came time to rebuild, a local businessman named Look Tin Eli hired T. Paterson Ross, a Scottish architect who had never been to China, to rebuild the neighborhood. Ross drew inspiration from centuries-old photographs of China and ancient religious motifs. Fancy restaurants were built with elaborate teak furniture and ivory carvings, complete with burlesque shows with beautiful Asian women that were later depicted in the musical Flower Drum Song. The idea was to create an exoticized “Oriental Disneyland” which would draw in tourists, elevating the image of Chinese people in America. It worked. Celebrities like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Ronald Reagan and Bing Crosby started frequenting Chinatown’s restaurants and nightclubs. People went from seeing Chinese people as coolies who stole jobs to fetishizing them as alluring, mysterious foreigners. We paid a price for this safety, though—somewhere along the way, Chinese Americans’ self-identity was colored by this fetishized view. San Francisco’s Chinatown was the only image of China I had growing up. I was surprised to learn, in my early twenties, that roofs in China were not, in fact, covered with thick green tiles and dragons. I felt betrayed—as if I was tricked into forgetting myself. Which is why Do asks his students to collect family histories from their parents, in an effort to remember. His methodology is a clever one. “I encourage them and say, look, if you tell your parents that this is an academic project, you have to do it or you’re going to fail my class—then they’re more likely to cooperate. But simultaneously, also know that there are certain things they won’t talk about. But nevertheless, you can fill in the gaps.” He’ll even teach his students to ask distanced questions such as “How many people were on your boat when you left Vietnam? How many made it?” If there were one hundred and fifty at the beginning of the journey and fifty at the end, students may never fully know the specifics of their parents’ trauma but they can infer shadows of the grief they must hold.

The walk is over too quickly. Tally tries everything she can think of to make it last longer, suggesting that Rupert needs to be taken all around the park and then play some stick-chasing games. But after twenty minutes, Mum says that it’s time to head home. “He’s an old dog,” she tells Tally. “And he had quite a fright yesterday. He’ll be happiest having a sleep on his bed now, while we pop out for a while.” “Can’t Nell and I stay here?” Tally asks, the second they’re inside the house. Mum shakes her head. “Not today. After yesterday’s escapades I think that I want us all to stick together. And besides, Dad is looking forward to seeing you.” “I can’t wait to see him,” says Nell, and Tally wonders how she can be so brave about going to the hospital but so scared about something as silly as the dark. Just like the dog walk, the drive to the hospital doesn’t take long enough. Mum parks the car and they all get out. Tally stares at the building ahead. It is grey and gloomy and huge and she knows that if she were to get lost in there then she’d never find her way out. “This way,” says Mum, leading them towards the main entrance. They walk past a man sitting in a wheelchair and a woman with her arm in a sling, and Tally lowers her eyes so that the only thing she can see is Mum’s feet in front of her. The ground changes from concrete to tiles and then Mum’s feet stop and Tally has to look up There are people everywhere and the lights are so bright that it hurts her eyes. “Dad is on the fifth floor,” mum says. “So we need to take the lift.” Tally steps back, accidentally bumping into Nell.

Tub full, she stood back to regard the mound of ice. Already the heat of her home fought to melt it. A rap came again at the entrance, more like an impatient pounding, and she cursed. The clock showed her only a few minutes away from her torture. I need whoever it is to go away. She ran to the door and slid open the peek-a-boo slot. Familiar turquoise eyes peered back. “Little witch, little witch, let me come in,” he chanted in a gruff voice. A smile curled her lips. “Not by the wart on my chinny chin chin,” she replied. “And before you try huffing and puffing, Nefertiti herself spelled this door. So forget blowing it down.” “So open it then. I’ve got a lead I think on escapee number three.” A glance at the clock showed one minute left. “Um, I’m kind of in the middle of something. Can you come back in like half an hour?” “Why not just let me in and I’ll wait while you do your thing? I promise not to watch, unless you like an audience.” “I can’t. Please. Just go away. I promise I’ll let you in when you come back.” His eyes narrowed. “Open this door, Ysabel.” “No. Now go away. I’ll talk to you in half an hour.” She slammed the slot shut and only allowed herself a moment to lean against the door which shuddered as he hit it with a fist. She didn’t have time to deal with his frustration. The tickle in her toes started and she ran to the bathroom, dropping her robe as she moved. The fire erupted, and standing on the lava tile in her bathroom, she concentrated on breathing against the spiraling pain and flames. I mustn’t scream. Remy might still be there, listening. Why that mattered, she couldn’t have said, but it did help her focus for a short moment. But the punishment would not allow her respite. Flames licked up her frame, demolishing her thin underpants and she couldn’t help but scream as the agony tore through her body. Make it stop. Make it stop. Wishing, praying, pleading didn’t stop the torture. As the inferno consumed her, her ears roared with the snap of the fire and a glance in her mirror horrified her, for there she stood – a living pyre of fire. She closed her eyes against the brilliant heat, but that just seemed to amplify the pain. Her knees buckled, but she didn’t fall. Something clasped her and she moaned as she sensed more than saw Remy’s arms wrap around her waist. It had to be him. Who else was crazy enough to break down her door and interrupt? Forcing open her eyes, eyes that wanted to water but couldn’t as the heat dried up all moisture, she saw the flames, not picky about their choice her own nightmare, she knew enough to try and push him away with hands that glowed inferno bright. He wouldn’t budge, and he didn’t scream – just held her as the curse ran its course. Without being told, once the flames disappeared, he placed her in the ice bath, the shocking cold a welcome relief. Gasping from the pain, she couldn’t speak but remained aware of how he stroked her hair back from her face and how his arm rested around her shoulders, cradling her. “Oh, my poor little witch,” he murmured. “No wonder you’ve been hiding.” Teeth chattering as the cold penetrated her feverish limbs, she tried to reply. “Wh-what c-c-can I say? I’m h-h-hot.” -Remy & Ysabel

The street sprinkler went past and, as its rasping rotary broom spread water over the tarmac, half the pavement looked as if it had been painted with a dark stain. A big yellow dog had mounted a tiny white bitch who stood quite still. In the fashion of colonials the old gentleman wore a light jacket, almost white, and a straw hat. Everything held its position in space as if prepared for an apotheosis. In the sky the towers of Notre-Dame gathered about themselves a nimbus of heat, and the sparrows – minor actors almost invisible from the street – made themselves at home high up among the gargoyles. A string of barges drawn by a tug with a white and red pennant had crossed the breadth of Paris and the tug lowered its funnel, either in salute or to pass under the Pont Saint-Louis. Sunlight poured down rich and luxuriant, fluid and gilded as oil, picking out highlights on the Seine, on the pavement dampened by the sprinkler, on a dormer window, and on a tile roof on the Île Saint-Louis. A mute, overbrimming life flowed from each inanimate thing, shadows were violet as in impressionist canvases, taxis redder on the white bridge, buses greener. A faint breeze set the leaves of a chestnut tree trembling, and all down the length of the quai there rose a palpitation which drew voluptuously nearer and nearer to become a refreshing breath fluttering the engravings pinned to the booksellers’ stalls. People had come from far away, from the four corners of the earth, to live that one moment. Sightseeing cars were lined up on the parvis of Notre-Dame, and an agitated little man was talking through a megaphone. Nearer to the old gentleman, to the bookseller dressed in black, an American student contemplated the universe through the view-finder of his Leica. Paris was immense and calm, almost silent, with her sheaves of light, her expanses of shadow in just the right places, her sounds which penetrated the silence at just the right moment. The old gentleman with the light-coloured jacket had opened a portfolio filled with coloured prints and, the better to look at them, propped up the portfolio on the stone parapet. The American student wore a red checked shirt and was coatless. The bookseller on her folding chair moved her lips without looking at her customer, to whom she was speaking in a tireless stream. That was all doubtless part of the symphony. She was knitting. Red wool slipped through her fingers. The white bitch’s spine sagged beneath the weight of the big male, whose tongue was hanging out. And then when everything was in its place, when the perfection of that particular morning reached an almost frightening point, the old gentleman died without saying a word, without a cry, without a contortion while he was looking at his coloured prints, listening to the voice of the bookseller as it ran on and on, to the cheeping of the sparrows, the occasional horns of taxis. He must have died standing up, one elbow on the stone ledge, a total lack of astonishment in his blue eyes. He swayed and fell to the pavement, dragging along with him the portfolio with all its prints scattered about him. The male dog wasn’t at all frightened, never stopped. The woman let her ball of wool fall from her lap and stood up suddenly, crying out: ‘Monsieur Bouvet!

Can you just imagine the two of them next year at the Phi Delta Carnation Ball?” Laura Grace asks, clapping her hands together. Daddy looks confused. “The two of who?” “Why, Ryder and Jemma, of course.” Mama pats him on the hand. “You remember the Carnation Ball--it’s the first Phi Delta party of the year. They have to go together, right, Laura Grace?” She nods. “We’ve been waiting all our lives for this.” Mama finally glances my way and sees my scowl. “Aw, honey. We’re just teasing, that’s all.” This sort of teasing has been going on my entire life--second verse, same as the first. It’s gotten real old, real fast. “May I be excused?” I ask, pushing back from the table. “You go on and finish your dinner,” Laura Grace says, entirely unperturbed. “We’ll stop teasing. I promise.” “It’s okay. I’m done. It was delicious, thanks. I just need to get some air, that’s all. I’m getting a bit of a headache.” Laura Grace nods. “It’s this heat--way too hot for September.” She waves a hand in my direction. “Go on, then. Ryder, why don’t you go get Jemma some aspirin or something.” I glance over at Ryder, and our eyes meet. I shake my head, hoping he gets the message. “No, it’s fine. I’m…uh…I’ve got some in my purse.” “Go with her, son,” Mr. Marsden prods. “Be a gentleman, and get her a bottle of water to take outside with her.” Ugh. I give up. My escape plot is now ruined. Wordlessly, Ryder rises from the table and stalks out of the dining room. I follow behind, my sandals slapping noisily against the hardwood floor. “Do you want water or not?” he asks me as soon as the door swings shut behind us. “Sure. Fine. Whatever.” He turns to face me. “It is pretty hot out there.” “I near about melted on the drive over.” His lips twitch with the hint of a smile. “Your dad refused to turn on the AC, huh?” I nod as I follow him out into the cavernous marble-tiled foyer. “You know his theory--‘no point when you’re just going down the road.’ Must’ve been a thousand degrees in the car.” He tips his head toward the front door. “You wait out on the porch--I’ll bring you a bottle of water.” “Thanks.” I watch him go, wondering if we’re going to pretend like last night’s fight didn’t happen. I hope that’s the case, because I really don’t feel like rehashing it.

I didn’t think we were being quiet, particularly. High heels may have looked dainty, but they didn’t sound that way on a tile floor. Maybe it was just that my dad was so absorbed in the convo on his cell phone. For whatever reason, when we emerged from the kitchen into the den, he started, and he stuffed the phone down by his side in the cushions. I was sorry I’d startled him, but it really was comical to see this big blond manly man jump three feet off the sofa when he saw two teenage girls. I mean, it would have been funny if it weren’t so sad. Dad was a ferocious lawyer in court. Out of court, he was one of those Big Man on Campus types who shook hands with everybody from the mayor to the alleged ax murderer. A lot like Sean, actually. There were only two things Dad was afraid of. First, he wigged out when anything in the house was misplaced. I won’t even go into all the arguments we’d had about my room being a mess. They’d ended when I told him it was my room, and if he didn’t stop bugging me about it, I would put kitchen utensils in the wrong drawers, maybe even hide some (cue horror movie music). No spoons for you! Second, he was easily startled, and very pissed off afterward. “Damn it, Lori!” he hollered. “It’s great to see you too, loving father. Lo, I have brought my friend Tammy to witness out domestic bliss. She’s on the tennis team with me.” Actually, I was on the tennis team with her. “Hello, Tammy. It’s nice to meet you,” Dad said without getting up or shaking her hand or anything else he would normally do. While the two of them recited a few more snippets of polite nonsense, I watched my dad. From the angle of his body, I could tell he was protecting that cell phone behind the cushions. I nodded toward the hiding place. “Hot date?” I was totally kidding. I didn’t expect him to say, “When?” So I said, “Ever.” And then I realized I’d brought up a subject that I didn’t want to bring up, especially not while I was busy being self-absorbed. I clapped my hands. “Okay, then! Tammy and I are going upstairs very loudly, and after a few minutes we will come back down, ringing a cowbell. Please continue with your top secret phone convo.” I turned and headed for the stairs. Tammy followed me. I thought Dad might order me back, send Tammy out, and give me one of those lectures about my attitude (who, me?). But obviously he was chatting with Pamela Anderson and couldn’t wait for me to leave the room. Behind us, I heard him say, “I’m so sorry. I’m still here. Lori came in. Oh, yeah? I’d like to see you try.” “He seems jumpy,” Tammy whispered on the stairs. “Always,” I said. “Do you have a lot of explosions around your house?” I glanced at my watch. “Not this early.

So, what did you want to watch?’ ‘Thought we might play a game instead,’ he said, holding up a familiar dark green box. ‘Found this on the bottom shelf of your DVD cupboard … if you tilt the glass, the champagne won’t froth like that.’ Neve finished pouring champagne into the 50p champagne flutes she’d got from the discount store and waited until Max had drunk a good half of his in two swift swallows. ‘The thing is, you might find it hard to believe but I can be very competitive and I have an astonishing vocabulary from years spent having no life and reading a lot – and well, if you play Scrabble with me, I’ll totally kick your arse.’ Max was about to eat his first bite of molten mug cake but he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. ‘You’re gonna kick my arse?’ ‘Until it’s black and blue and you won’t be able to sit down for a week.’ That sounded very arrogant. ‘Really, Max, Mum stopped me from playing when I was thirteen after I got a score of four hundred and twenty-seven, and when I was at Oxford, I used to play with two Linguistics post-grads and an English don.’ ‘Well, my little pancake girlfriend, I played Scrabble against Carol Vorderman for a Guardian feature and I kicked her arse because Scrabble has got nothing to do with vocabulary; it’s logic and tactics,’ Max informed her loftily, taking a huge bite of the cake. For a second, Neve hoped that it was as foul-tasting as she suspected just to get Max back for that snide little speech, but he just licked the back of the spoon thoughtfully. ‘This is surprisingly more-ish, do you want some?’ ‘I think I’ll pass.’ ‘Well, you’re not getting out of Scrabble that easily.’ Max leaned back against the cushions, the mug cradled to his chest, and propped his feet up on the table so he could poke the Scrabble box nearer to Neve. ‘Come on, set ’em up. Unless you’re too scared.’ ‘Max, I have all the two-letter words memorised, and as for Carol Vorderman – well, she might be good at maths but there was a reason why she wasn’t in Dictionary Corner on Countdown so I’m not surprised you beat her at Scrabble.’ ‘Fighting talk.’ Max rapped his knuckles gently against Neve’s head, which made her furious. ‘I’ll remind you of that little speech once I’m done making you eat every single one of those high-scoring words you seem to think you’re so good at.’ ‘Right, that does it.’ Neve snatched up the box and practically tore off the lid, so she could bang the board down on the coffee table. ‘You can’t be that good at Scrabble if you keep your letters in a crumpled paper bag,’ Max noted, actually daring to nudge her arm with his foot. Neve knew he was only doing it to get a rise out of her, but God, it was working. ‘Game on, Pancake Boy,’ she snarled, throwing a letter rack at Max, which just made him laugh. ‘And don’t think I’m going to let you win just because it’s your birthday.’ It was the most fun Neve had ever had playing Scrabble. It might even have been the most fun she had ever had. For every obscure word she tried to play in the highest scoring place, Max would put down three tiles to make three different words and block off huge sections of the board. Every time she tried to flounce or throw a strop because ‘you’re going against the whole spirit of the game’, Max would pop another Quality Street into her mouth because, as he said, ‘It is Treat Sunday and you only had one roast potato.’ When there were no more Quality Street left and they’d drunk all the champagne, he stopped each one of her snits with a slow, devastating kiss so there were long pauses between each round. It was a point of honour to Neve that she won in the most satisfying way possible; finally getting to use her ‘q’ on a triple word score by turning Max’s ‘hogs’ into ‘quahogs’ and waving the Oxford English Dictionary in his face when he dared to challenge her.

I step up on the little wooden bridge that arches over the huge clear koi pond in the lobby. The blue and gray tiles on the floor of the pond are littered with pennies, dimes, quarters; my father would say That’s a lot of money to throw away on wishes. I’m jittering my fingers on the wooden railing, watching a pure gold koi get jostled by his big spotted pondmates, when a small dark silhouette ripples beside me. I hear the crunch of a plastic snack bag, catch a glimpse of an amber ring. Now that she’s here, I think about running. But I don’t. “Gummy bear?” she says. I whisper, “How old are you?” “Guess.” “You look twelve.” “I’m seventeen. But thanks. That never gets old.

Try Evan,” he suggests. “Apart from numbers and heaven, which gets old very quickly, there’s practically nothing.” “Numbers? Oh! Eleven…seven…” I furrow my brow. “Devon,” Kelly calls over. “That’s a county in England.” “Leaven,” I add. “You do it to bread.” Evan’s expression is comical, his blue eyes stretched as wide as they’ll go as he plucks a string and, in a singsong nursery-rhyme voice, intones: “From the age of seven to eleven Before he tragically went to heaven Evan leavened bread in Devon.” He throws his hands wide. “See? Not much to work with.” “At least you don’t have rude stuff that rhymes with you,” Kelly says gloomily. “They called me Smelly Jelly Belly at school for years.” “And Kendra isn’t that great either. It sort of sounds like bend-ya,” Kendra adds. I can’t help smiling that Kendra and Kelly are competitive in everything, even down to whose name rhymes with worse stuff. “Kendra,” Evan sings, playing a chord, “I would never bend ya, or lend ya or send ya… Oh, the words I can engender thinking about Kendra…” “‘Engender’!” Kelly exclaims. “That’s really good!” I pull myself out of the pool and walk over to a lounger, picking up a towel and wrapping it around myself; I sit on one side of Evan, Kelly on the other. Even cool-as-a-cucumber Kendra has sat up to watch Evan playing his guitar. “What about Paige?” I ask, looking over at his sister, the only one uninterested in her brother’s talent. She’s got a moisturizing pack on her hair--her head is wrapped in the special leopard-skin towel she uses when she’s doing a hair treatment--pink headphones on her ears, and a magazine in her hands as she reclines on her lounger. “Paige goes into a rage when you tell her she’s not yet legal drinking age--” Evan sings immediately, and Paige, who must have been listening after all, promptly throws her magazine at his head. He ducks easily, and it flies past and lands on the tiles.

You poor, dear child,” Mrs. Wilkes said, after several restorative sips. “I can only begin to image the insults and humiliations you have been forced to endure, living among those…savages.” Tipsy, Livy wondered if she was referring to Lawson or the Gunns. “I can’t change what you have been through, but I can promise you this. You will never have to see the Gunns again. They were intolerably negligent in placing you in a situation where a savage could propose to make you his…his…wife.” Mrs. Wilkes mouth pursed, as if she’d gone for the snuff and mistakenly taken alum. She lay a hand over her heart. “You needn’t fear going back. You may stay with us for as long as you wish. I swear to you, there is nothing on heaven or earth that could ever persuade me to return you to that nest of vipers.” Mr. Wilkes came in carrying a shawl. “When I think of a child of her caliber being forced into such degraded association with those red instruments of Satan, it makes my blood boil.” He draped the shawl around Livy’s shoulders and patted her kindly. “Mr. Lawson may be a rascal,” Mr. Wilkes continued, “but we owe him a debt of gratitude for rescuing you. I cannot believe one of those creatures actually proposed marriage! To be honest, the mere thought of you with him makes me ill. You were fortunate, Deliverance. I mean to say, I am assuming that the savage did not actually act on his evil intentions?” Livy flinched at his words. Mrs. Wilkes looked sympathetic, but her eyes were bright with curiosity. Every grown person Livy’d been near lately seemed to have their minds stuck on Sodom and Gomorrah. They made her feel dirty. And they wanted to keep her here. To rescue her form Rising Hawk. From Rising Hawk! She looked into the fire. There were bright blue and white tiles the entire length of the hearth. A silver tea service sparkled on a walnut sideboard. This room, with its warm fire and pretty things, had seemed like a haven, peaceful and civilized, up to this moment. They watched her, her head down, studying the tabletop. Suddenly she stood up. “Mr. Wilkes, Mrs. Wilkes. You have both been so kind to me and Ephraim that I feel I owe you the truth.” She paused and put a corner of the shawl to her eyes. “The fact is, me and the Indian have been sinning together for, oh, I don’t know how long. And now here I am, a month gone already and nearly a widow before I’m married.” Mrs. Wilkes fainted with a loud thud. Livy took a certain satisfaction in the sound.

I cannot believe one of those creatures actually proposed marriage! To be honest, the mere thought of you with him makes me ill. You were fortunate, Deliverance. I mean to say, I am assuming that the savage did not actually act on his evil intentions?” Livy flinched at his words. Mrs. Wilkes looked sympathetic, but her eyes were bright with curiosity. Every grown person Livy’d been near lately seemed to have their minds stuck on Sodom and Gomorrah. They made her feel dirty. And they wanted to keep her here. To rescue her from Rising Hawk. From Rising Hawk! She looked into the fire. There were bright blue and white tiles the entire length of the hearth. A silver tea service sparkled on a walnut sideboard. This room, with its warm fire and pretty things, had seemed like a heaven, peaceful and civilized, up to this moment. They watched her, her head down, studying the tabletop. Suddenly she stood up. “Mr. Wilkes, Mrs. Wilkes. You have both been so kind to me and Ephraim that I feel I owe you the truth.” She paused and put a corner of the shawl to her eyes. “The fact is, me and the Indian have been sinning together for, oh, I don’t know how long. And now here I am, a month gone already and nearly a widow before I’m married.” Mrs. Wilkes fainted with a loud thud. Livy took a certain satisfaction in the sound.

Marcus unwinds a belt from his fist. “This is for your own good,” he says, and I want to scream. He multiplies immediately, surrounding us, the belts dragging on white tile. I curl into myself, hunching my back, waiting, waiting. The belt pulls back and I flinch before it hits, but then it doesn’t. Tris stands in front of me, her arm up, tense from head to toe. She grits her teeth as the belt wraps around her arm, and then she pulls it free, and lashes out. The movement is so powerful I’m amazed by how strong it looks, by how hard the belt slaps Marcus’s skin. He lunges at Tris, and I step in front of her. I’m ready this time, ready to fight back. But the moment never comes. The lights lift and the fear landscape is over. “That’s it?” she says as I watch the place where Marcus stood. “Those were your worst fears? Why do you only have four…oh.” She looks at me. “That’s why they call you…” I was afraid that if she knew about Marcus, she would look at me with pity, and she would make me feel weak, and small, and empty. But she saw Marcus and she looked at him, with anger and without fear. She made me feel, not weak, but powerful. Strong enough to fight back. I tug her toward me by her elbow, and kiss her cheek, slowly, letting her skin burn into mine. I hold her tightly, slouching into her. “Hey.” She sighs. “We got through it.” I put my fingers through her hair. “You got me through it,” I say.

fat" such power is, of course, no good at all. . . . Say it until you lose the nervousness around it, say it until it seems normal--like the word "tray"--and eventually becomes meaningless. Point at things and call them "fat." "That tile is fat." "The wall is fat.' "I believe Jesus is fat." The heat needs to be drained out of the word "fat, like a fever from a child. We need to stare, clearly and calmly, right into the middle of fat and talk about what is it, and what it means, amd why it's become a big topic for Western women in the 21st century. FAT FAT FAT FAT.

15. Nature and her Lesson. Nature offers us nectar and ambrosia every day, and everywhere we go the rose and lily await us. "Spring visits us men," says Gu-do,[FN#277] "her mercy is great. Every blossom holds out the image of Tathagata." "What is the spiritual body of Buddha who is immortal and divine?" asked a man to Ta Lun (Dai-ryu), who instantly replied: "The flowers cover the mountain with golden brocade. The waters tinge the rivulets with heavenly blue." "Universe is the whole body of Tathagata; observed Do-gen. "The worlds in ten directions, the earth, grass, trees, walls, fences, tiles, pebbles-in a word, all the animated and inanimate objects partake of the Buddha-nature. Thereby, those who partake in the benefit of the Wind and Water that rise out of them are, all of them, helped by the mysterious influence of Buddha, and show forth Enlightenment."[FN#278]

Goodness, I hope I win this bet. There are so many things I want you to do.” “Really?” he says huskily, tracing one long finger down my arm. “Yes, I want the tiles grouted in the bathroom.

We’ve won a great victory against tyranny,” he called. “We’ve won the chance to forge a Union that’s the envy of the world.” And he set himself so he could strike his crutch on the tiles with an echoing bang. “But we have to build bridges. We have to bring good men in. Like my old friends from Angland. Discord won’t help us. We need equality. We need loyalty. We need unity!” He hobbled to his seat with the applause ringing in his ears and dropped down wincing, shaking his leg to loosen it on his sore stump. Glaward looked more dumbfounded than ever. “You didn’t… say anything.” Perhaps he was faithful and diligent, like Savine said, but Leo had forgotten how slow he could be. “Only an idiot stands in front of this rabble to say something,” muttered Leo, wiping the fresh sheen of sweat from his forehead. “You shuffle a few of the right words together and make sure you look ’em in the eye.” He flashed the humble smile he’d been working on.

When we’ve rinsed off, I move to lower to my knees, but Hunter catches me by the elbow. “What---” I begin to protest. “I’d love to see you on your knees, but not on this tile.” He walks me over to a small triangular bench in the corner. “This will be more comfortable.” I smile up at him. “And they say chivalry is dead.

I’ve used an activity in my classrooms before, where I tell my class that we’re going to spend three minutes in complete silence. Nobody can close their eyes and sleep through the three minutes, nor can they busy themselves by reading or scrolling. Instead, we simply sit in silence together for a full three minutes. You should see their eyes when I announce this. I may as well announce that our guest speaker for the day is a greasy, stank-ass hillbilly with a chainsaw and a mask made from the skin of his prior victims. In fact, such a guest “lecture” may be preferable for many. During this time, people behave predictably. The first 30 seconds are the easiest. From 30-45 seconds, everyone contracts a case of the giggles, and students try to stifle themselves. After the one-minute mark, eyes wander, desperately seeking something to occupy their attention. Some count ceiling tiles, others stare out the window at cloud formations, and many discover solace in examining feet. From 90 seconds to the two-minute mark, students visibly squirm in their seats like a crack addict jonesing for a fix, but once we get into the second minute, something remarkable happens. People chill the fuck out. They no longer avoid eye contact with me or one another. They smile quaint little grins. The squirming subsides, they sit up a bit straighter, and the tension hanging heavy in the air like leaded fog dissipates. When the timer on my phone goes off at three minutes, one might assume that someone in the room would shout and break the uncomfortable silence like they’d been holding their breath the whole time, but they don’t. I never rush our entrance back into dialogue; rather, I wait and allow students to speak first. What’s crazy is that, generally speaking, most students go nearly another minute or so before saying anything.

One great way to do that is by playing what I call the “I have to listen to you now” game. Introduce this by saying, “I know being a kid is tough. There are so many things that parents ask of you! So let’s play a game. For the next five minutes, you’re the adult and I’m the kid. I have to do what you say, assuming it’s safe.” Explain to your child that the game does not involve food or gifts (your child cannot tell you to go buy them a hundred new Pokémon packs or give them thirty bags of Skittles)—it’s really about the routine of your day. But the details here aren’t important. What’s important is to reverse roles, allow your child to experiment with the position of powerful adult, and express empathy for the difficulties of being a child. While you play the game, exaggerate how hard it is to listen to your “parent”; voice things like, “Ughhhhhh, really? I have to clean up the Magna-Tiles? I don’t waaaaaaant to,” and “Ughhhhh, I wish I didn’t have to take a shower right now!” I find this game useful for myself as well—it reminds me how hard it can be to take orders when you don’t want to do something.

I tried with Bonnie. But they’re beyond my help,” Mirren says. She rearranges her tiles again. “I like the idea of a motto,” she goes on. “I think an inspirational quote can get you through hard times.” “Like what?” asks Gat. Mirren pauses. Then she says: “Be a little kinder than you have to.” We are all silenced by that. It seems impossible to argue with.

His bath chamber across the main room was all that remained, so I backtracked and entered it. The extravagance to which I was accustomed within the Hytanican palace did not range so far as to include the depth and size of his bath, nor the unusual mosaic tiles set into the floor. But what struck me the most were the shelves filled with ointments and bandages, and the long table against the wall that was similar to what one would find in a physician’s examination room. He had in many ways grown up a prince, but this chamber was more telling of his past than all the finery in his wardrobe. When I returned to the parlor, I felt strangely cold. Narian had once more taken up his place on the sofa, and I went to sit at his feet, wanting to be closer to the fire. He swung around and put one leg on each side of me, then started to massage my back. After a few minutes, he slipped down behind me to wrap his arms around my waist, and I leaned against him. He was warm and safe and all that I wanted. At times I felt that there was no world outside of him, and it was the best feeling I ever had. This was one of those times. “Were you ever happy here?” I softly inquired. “Yes,” he answered after a moment of thought. “I was--here in the temple.” Though I had not handled seeing Miranna’s room very well, I again had a surge of curiosity about the Overlord’s Hall, which Narian had subtly referenced. But I did not ask him to take me there--seeing it would not help me, and it would not help him. He needed to forget that place. “Then tell me something about your childhood. Something pleasant.” I closed my eyes, feeling the vibration of his chest as he began to speak. “I remember when that mural on my wall was painted. I was perhaps six or seven. The High Priestess commissioned an artist, and gave her freedom to paint something colorful and unique, something that would amuse me. I was permitted to watch, but at that age…” “Watching wasn’t enough,” I guessed, and he laughed. “The artist was on a ladder, and she had her palette with her, but she’d left the majority of her paints on the floor. I was into them before she could say a word, and I spread paint everywhere. In my hair, on my clothes, the floors, the wall where she was trying to create her masterpiece, everywhere.” He was reminiscing now instead of just telling me a story, seeing it unfold in his mind. “I’d forgotten, honestly forgotten, that I’d been told not to touch the paints. Nan was furious--we were supposed to go to a banquet that night and I’d--” “Nan?” I asked, and he tensed for a moment. “That’s what I used to call the High Priestess, when I was young.” Smiling at the idea, I nestled against him and said, “Go on.” He continued the story, and I listened contentedly, eventually falling asleep in his embrace.

Come see the kitchen,” Haven told me, tugging me toward a tiled area with granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances. “Would you like something to drink?” “Yes, thanks.” She opened the refrigerator. “Mango iced tea, or raspberry basil?” “Mango, please.” I sat on a stool at the island. Jack ripped his attention away from the magazine long enough to protest, “Haven, you know I can’t stand that stuff. Just give me the regular kind.” “I don’t have the regular kind,” his sister retorted, pulling out a pitcher of citrus-colored tea. “You can try some of the mango.” “What’s wrong with tea-flavored tea?” “Quit complaining, Jack. Hardy tried this a few times and he likes it.” “Honey, Hardy would like it if you picked up grass clippings from the yard and brewed them. He’s pussy-whipped.” Haven bit back a smile. “I dare you to say that to his face.” “Can’t,” came the laconic reply. “He’s pussy-whipped, but he could still kick the crap out of me.” My eyes widened as I wondered what kind of man could manage to kick the crap out of Jack Travis. “My fiancé used to be a welder on a drilling rig and he’s tough as hell,” Haven informed me, her eyes twinkling. “Which is a good thing. Otherwise my three older brothers would have run him off by now.” “We’ve done everything short of giving him a medal for taking you on,” Jack retorted.

The slap of flesh on flesh, flesh on wood, and wet hot cunt drove him. Fingers scratched his skin. Teeth bit his lips. She whimpered, then screamed, grinding into him. The muscles of her cunt convulsed, clasping each thrust of his shaft. His ass tingled, and his stomach clenched tight. A grunt ripped from his throat as his cock burst forth, spilling his seed within her smoldering wetness. Knees weakening, they toppled to the tile floor.   Hannah could not believe the intensity of her spend. Every muscle in her body clamped tight around Kenny’s penis. He lay atop her, phallus lodged inside her, panting heavily. Their passion was wonderful. Heavenly. She wanted more. His hands cupped her bum. Her legs wrapped wantonly around his hips, her hands tangled in his hair. So intimate, so amazing. Tears welled in her eyes as she felt every muscle, every bone, every breath of him. She wouldn’t change this first with him. Even with the pain from earlier, she would cherish this act. “Kenny?” Leaning forward, she nibbled the soft flesh below his ear. “Did I pleasure you?” She needed to hear him say yes, even if the pain no longer resided in her womb. The air swirled and feet padded past them. They behaved like animals. Her cheeks grew warm. It felt good to let her body follow her own desire. “Good God, sweet. What do you think? We are lying on the floor in the hall.” His head lifted from her, and he grinned with lazy eyes. “Yes!” She couldn’t contain her smile. He enjoyed her. A tear slid from the corner of her eye and down her cheek, and her lip trembled. She pleased him. She could please a man. Simon was wrong. “Yes,” he said between pants. “I want more, Hannah.” His finger brushed away the tear. “I want this all night. After the ceremony, will you allow me?” What was the ceremony? She didn’t care. “Yes, oh yes!” That was why she had come.

Lex, Bone could have been just some idiot kid with no respect for library property, with nothing to distinguish him or garner any mention in a book. It’s probably not even his real name.” Lex frowned. “That’s true.” “Plus, what makes him a bandit? And why is he sick?” He shook his head. “It’s like he wrote the signature using Mad Libs. He may as well have signed it Spleen, the toasty orange tugboat.” “You’re right,” Lex said, slowly putting something together. “It doesn’t make any sense!” “You say that like it’s a good thing.” “It is!” Goosebumps rippled up her arms as she grabbed a nearby pen and scrap of paper. “It’s a code!” “Or that. Sure.” Lex’s hands were a blur as she wrote. “A simple substitution cipher? One letter for another? Or maybe it needs a keyword. Maybe Bone is the keyword. Is Bone the keyword?” Driggs raised an eyebrow as she scribbled. “This is an interesting side of you I’ve never seen.” “My mom’s a teacher,” she said, staring at the paper without blinking. “Instead of cartoons and video games we got work sheets and word puzzles.” “I see.” He reached in. “Maybe—” “Don’t touch!” “Wow. Okay.” He backed away, stifling a snicker. “I just think you’re overthinking this.” She looked peeved. “Oh, am I, Sherlock?” She offered him the paper. “What do you think it is, just a simple anag—” Her eyes went wide. Next thing Driggs knew, Lex was rummaging around in the closet. “Are you looking for your sanity?” he called after her. “Because I do believe it showed itself out a while ago.” She emerged with a Scrabble box in hand. “Silence,” she said, dumping the tiles on the table. “Let me think.

Lily’s head fell back with her broken keen filling the air. “Holy shit!” Hal came running flat out, Lily’s cry still reverberating. He skidded to a halt on the slippery deck, his panicked rescue unfortunately bringing him quite near to where Sean and Lily were fused together. As comprehension dawned, embarrassment colored his face a flaming pink blush. Instinctively, Sean shoved Lily behind him, shielding her with his body. He could feel her tremble against him. Were her tremors the aftermath of blazing passion, or were they from horrified mortification? he wondered. He wished he could see her face. “Sorry we gave you a scare, Hal. I, uh, fell into the water. Then somehow, Lily and I got caught up in a water fight to the death. Guess I forgot how ticklish she is.” He coughed. It was a pathetic story, but the best he could do right now. At his words, Hal looked up from his seemingly rapt examination of the deck’s tiles. Although his face was still as pink as Evelyn Roemer’s dyed hair, his lips parted in a smile of relief. “Oh, yeah,” he nodded, more than willing to play along. “Everyone needs a good tickle now and again.” He cleared his throat and loudly said, “Sorry to break up the fun, but you two have probably had enough water sports for one night.” Hal’s gaze moved past Sean. “You okay there, Lily?” Behind Sean, Lily froze. What to say? That she’d been nanoseconds away from a soul-shattering orgasm when Hal came barreling poolside. Bereft of Sean’s intoxicating kisses to drug her senseless, Lily hardly recognized herself. Had she gone mad? Probably. She wondered whether she would ever recover from what was undoubtedly the most intensely erotic experience of her life. Oh, God! Of all the people to have interrupted her and Sean in the pool! Hal Storey was as close to a father as Lily would ever have. He’d always supported her, believed in her. . . “Lily?” “I’m fine, Hal. Just a bit achy.” She cringed, sure Hal would guess that the parts of her that ached and throbbed had nothing to do with swimming.

What’s wrong?” Jake’s voice, deep as thunder, unsettled her. Why did he have to be so handsome? She wanted to fall right inside those brown eyes. “I saw you in the living room with Ben . . . earlier.” His lips pulled upward, no doubt remembering Ben’s belly laughs. “He’s a fun kid.” She hated to wipe the smile from his face. “I know you mean well, Jake, but I think it’s best if you avoid spending time with the children.” The smile slid south. “We were just playing around.” “The children are getting attached to you. I don’t think it’s healthy.” His jaw flexed, his shoulders squared. “They need relationships now more than ever.” “Not from someone who’ll soon exit their lives.” He flinched. She hated to hurt his feelings, had a physical ache from wounding him. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said finally. “I don’t want to exit their lives. I don’t want to exit your life.” Maybe he thought they could be some happy family or something. It was time to tell him everything. “I’m selling Summer Place. We’ll be leaving the island soon. The Goldmans—our guests over the daffodil weekend—made an offer, and I accepted. I haven’t told the children yet, so I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t mention it. We’ll stay through closing in late June.” Jake’s lips parted. A second later they pressed together. He walked to the end of the porch and back. He reminded her of a caged tiger, constricted by the boundary of the porch. She hadn’t expected him to be so upset. When he passed, she set her hand on his bare arm, stopping him. The muscles flexed beneath her palm. He was so strong. She had the sudden image of him hitting Sean, using those muscles to protect her. She pulled her hand away as if his skin burned her. “They’ve had enough loss. They’ve already become attached to you, and that’s only going to hurt them more when we leave.” His face softened as he stared, his lips slackening, his eyes growing tender. His face had already darkened under the sun. Faint lines fanned the corner of his eyes. He reached toward her and ran his finger down the side of her face. “Don’t leave.” His touch left a trail of fire. She pressed her spine to the column. How could she want to dive into his arms and run away at the same time? Inside a riot kicked up. She was back in the apartment on Warren Street, coming home from school, slipping in the door, unsure if she’d find her mom racing around the kitchen, slumped on the bathroom tile, or just gone. The same uncertainty roiled in her now. “I have to.” “This is their home. Your engagement is over,” he said gently. “Is what you’re going back to as important as what you’re leaving?” He didn’t have to say he meant them. Us. She shook her head, dislodging his hand. How had he turned this all around? She

Well hello Liam.” She said like she was just seeing her husband for the first time in years, “You sure know how to make an entrance.” My heart tugged as I recalled stories she had shared with me. The night she first met Liam, it was pouring rain outside and she’d just been about to leave a coffee shop with her girlfriends. Liam opened the door and stepped in, his foot sliding on the wet tile floor and knocking into Carrie causing her to fall on him. They had laughed so hard it took them almost two minutes to finally get standing again and when they did he apologized and held out a hand to her, introducing himself. She took his hand and shook it lightly saying, “Well you sure know how to make an entrance Liam Taylor.” When she turned to leave, Liam looked at her and said, “You’re really going to leave after something brought us together like that?” Instead of leaving with her girlfriends that night, she decided to take a chance on a stranger and had another coffee with him. They talked until the shop closed and were married six months later. That first sentence she spoke to him became a joke in their relationship as well as their family once the boys were born. And now, our little Liam was carrying it on for her. “Sweetheart,

You’re home.” Emmie stopped her puttering, a luminous, beaming smile on her face, a pan of apple tarts steaming on the counter before her. “I am home”—he returned her smile—“though soaked and chilled to the bone.” “I thought I heard the door slam.” Val appeared at Emmie’s elbow. “It looks like a half-drowned friend of Scout’s has come to call. Come along, Devlin.” Val tugged at his wet sleeve. “Emmie had the bathwater heated in anticipation of your arrival. We’ll get you thawed and changed in time for dinner, and then you can regale us with your exploits.” “Behold,” Val announced when they returned forty-five minutes later, “the improved version of the Earl of Rosecroft. Scrubbed, tidied, and attired for supper. He need only be fed, and we’ll find him quite civilized.” Emmie smiled at them both, and Winnie looked up from the worktable where she was making an ink drawing. “I made you a picture,” she said, motioning St. Just over. “This is you.” She’d drawn Caesar and a wet, shivering, bedraggled rider, one whose hat drooped, whose boots sagged, and whose teeth chattered. “We must send this to Her Grace,” St. Just said, “but you have to send along something cheerier, too, Win. Mamas tend to worry about their chicks.” “I thought she wasn’t your mama,” Winnie countered, frowning at her drawing. “She is, and she isn’t.” St. Just tousled Winnie’s blond curls—so like Emmie’s—and blew a rude noise against the child’s neck. “But mostly she is.” “When will you go see her again?” “I just did see her in September. It’s hardly December.” “She’s your mother,” Winnie said, taking the drawing back. “Every now and then, even big children should be with their mothers.” In the pantry, something loud hit the tile floor and shattered. Val and his brother exchanged a look, but Emmie’s voice assured them it had just been the lid to the pan of apple tarts, and no real harm had been done. “That’s fortunate,” St. Just said, going to the pantry and taking the pan from Emmie’s hands. “Watch your step, though, as there’s crockery everywhere.” “I’m sorry.” Emmie stood in the middle of the broken crockery, her cheeks flushed, looking anywhere but at him. “It was my own pan, though, so you won’t need to replace anything of Rosecroft’s.” “Em.” He sighed and set the tarts aside. “I don’t give a tin whistle for the damned lid.” He lifted her by the elbows and hauled her against his chest to swing her out of the pantry. “We’ve a scullery maid, don’t we?” “Joan.” “Well, fetch her in there. I am ravenous, and I will not be deprived of your company while I sup tonight.” “You didn’t stay in York,” Emmie said, searching his eyes. “There is very little do in York on a miserable afternoon that could compare with the pleasure of my own home, your company, and a serving of hot apple tarts.” She blinked then offered him a radiant smile and sailed ahead of him to the dining parlor. “Winnie,” St. Just barked, “wash your paws, and don’t just get them wet. Val, it’s your turn to say grace, and somebody get that damned dog out of here.” Scout slunk out, Winnie washed her paws, Val went on at hilarious length about being appreciative of a brother who wasn’t so old he forgot his apple tart recipe nor how to stay clean nor find his way home. Except

The truth was, only a lucky few got to leave the earth saying everything they would’ve liked to say, exactly how they wanted to say it. I thought of relationships as a mosaic, and I put more stock in the overall picture, not the individual tiles. Life was too damned short to make every moment poignant, and too damned long to make every moment perfect. You fought, you made up, you cried, you laughed, and hopefully, when you stepped back, the picture was still beautiful.

You don’t belong on the floor like a dog,” Axel growls, and I can’t help but laugh. “You’ve just met me. You don’t know me at all,” I manage to say through my disbelief. Axel shoves through the door of the office, and in the next second, we’re in another room. I catch sight of a huge bed with black sheets before he takes us to the attached bathroom. Black tiles greet my eyes, and a glance over my shoulder reveals a ginormous shower that is far more luxurious than any I’ve ever used.

groan and tug the button of his jeans open. He lifts his hips so I can work his pants down, pulling them all the way off, along with his underwear and tossing them on the bathroom floor—which happens to be beautifully tiled, if I do say so myself.

It is a huge slab of dark stone, square and rough, like the rocks at the bottom of the chasm. A large crack runs through the middle of it, and there are streaks of lighter rock near the edges. Suspended above the slab is a glass tank of the same dimensions, full of water. A light placed above the center of the tank shines through the water, refracting as it ripples. I hear a faint noise, a drop of water hitting the stone. It comes from a small tube running through the center of the tank. At first I think the tank is just leaking, but another drop falls, then a third, and a fourth, at the same interval. A few drops collect, and then disappear down a narrow channel in the stone. They must be intentional. “Hello.” Zoe stands on the other side of the sculpture. “I’m sorry, I was about to go to the dormitory for you, then saw you heading this way and wondered if you were lost.” “No, I’m not lost,” I say. “This is where I meant to go.” “Ah.” She stands beside me and crosses her arms. She is about as tall as I am, but she stands straighter, so she seems taller. “Yeah, it’s pretty weird, right?” As she talks I watch the freckles on her cheeks, dappled like sunlight through dense leaves. “Does it mean something?” “It’s the symbol of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare,” she says. “The slab of stone is the problem we’re facing. The tank of water is our potential for changing that problem. And the drop of water is what we’re actually able to do, at any given time.” I can’t help it—I laugh. “Not very encouraging, is it?” She smiles. “That’s one way of looking at it. I prefer to look at it another way—which is that if they are persistent enough, even tiny drops of water, over time, can change the rock forever. And it will never change back.” She points to the center of the slab, where there is a small impression, like a shallow bowl carved into the stone. “That, for example, wasn’t there when they installed this thing.” I nod, and watch the next drop fall. Even though I’m wary of the Bureau and everyone in it, I can feel the quiet hope of the sculpture working its way through me. It’s a practical symbol, communicating the patient attitude that has allowed the people here to stay for so long, watching and waiting. But I have to ask. “Wouldn’t it be more effective to unleash the whole tank at once?” I imagine the wave of water colliding with the rock and spilling over the tile floor, collecting around my shoes. Doing a little at once can fix something, eventually, but I feel like when you believe that something is truly a problem, you throw everything you have at it, because you just can’t help yourself.

But it doesn’t matter where I came from. Because we’re here. We found each other,” he says, his hands sliding down my arms until they reach my wrists. He lifts them above my head, sealing them to the tile behind me. “And you won’t live without me now.

As soon as we’d arrived as close to the house as we were allowed to get, a brief Latin phrase came to me. I pronounced it as best I could, and when I saw him staring at me, I explained, “It’s in the tiles above the entryway. It means something like ‘Everyone is welcome here.’” He asked how I knew about that, since I’d never been to the house before, and I told him. “Marilyn’s telling me.” It was a nice surprise. She was definitely on the Other Side, she definitely had a lot to say, and she was ready to say it to me without preferring to talk through Francine. I can’t judge or comment on its accuracy. I’ll just report what she passed along and leave the rest to you. She was adamant about the fact that she did not commit suicide. She described being alone in her bedroom that night, taking too many pills and making some blurry phone calls. But she had a clear memory of a man coming in and sticking a needle of what she believed to be Nembutol into her heart.

Art is not construction, artifice, meticulous relationship to a space and a worldnexisting outside. It is truly the "inarticulate cry,* as Hermes Trismegistus said, "which seemed to be the voice of the light." And once it is present it awakens powers dormant in ordinary vision, a secret of pre-existence. When through the water's thickness I see the tiling at the bottom of a pool, I do not see it despite the water and the reflections there; I see it through them and because of them. If there were no distortions, no ripples of sunlight, if it were without this flesh that I saw the geometry of the tiles, then I would cease to see it as it is and where it is—which is to say, beyond any identical, specific place. I cannot say that the water itself—the aqueous power, the sirupy and shimmering element—is in space; all this is not somewhere else either, but it is not in the pool. It inhabits it, it materializes itself there, yet it is not contained there; and if I raise my eyes toward the screen of cypresses where the web of reflections is playing, I cannot gainsay the fact that the water visits it, too, or at least sends into it, upon it, its active and living essence. This internal animation, this radiation of the visible is what the painter seeks under the name of depth, of space, of color.

RAIN AT NIGHT This is what I have heard at last the wind in December lashing the old trees with rain unseen rain racing along the tiles under the moon wind rising and falling wind with many clouds trees in the night wind after an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of this mountain as money and cut the trees that were here in the wind in the rain at night it is hard to say it but they cut the sacred ‘ohias then the sacred koas then the sandalwood and the halas holding aloft their green fires and somebody dead turned cattle loose among the stumps until killing time but the trees have risen one more time and the night wind makes them sound like the sea that is yet unknown the black clouds race over the moon the rain is falling on the last place

And because you are of a kind, the house knows you. When you cry out, the lights flicker, ghostly blue and ragged. When she says you are shut off, the light switches nod their white tiny heads. Tiles creak yes beneath her edicts—something bad must have happened to make you this way, the way where you don’t want her. But the windows rattle, disagree. In their honeyed, blindless light, they see it—something bad is happening.

I don't think you two have even tried to beat me," says Albie with obvious dissatisfaction as he declares "Mahjong" for a final time. "Sorry, Albie," she says. "It just wasn't going my way today. Well done." She reaches across the table and begins to stack the tiles to pack them away, her hand accidentally brushing against Jack's as he simultaneously returns his pieces to the centre of the table. She glances at him, wondering if he too felt the surge of energy pass between them. "I'd like a rematch," says Jack, his eyes fixed firmly on Lillian's. "I feel sure I can only improve my performance with practice.

Now I am standing, yet I feel so woozy and woosy. My belly cramps in knots, worse than when I am on my period. I stumble to the bathroom bumping into everything down the hallway, the bathroom is by my mom and dad’s bedroom, I am holding my mouth. My legs trembling over what I have done, certainly, I’m going to throw up or shut myself, or both… I didn’t even think about closing the door when I got there or turn on the light… I barfed in the scarp can while side-saddling one leg on either of the toilets, as it runs coming out of me from both ends at the same time. I reached for the sink after I thought it was all over and brushed my teeth and then shower to wash off. My shower is way too hot and there’s thick steam everywhere, fogging up the mirror, drops are budding upon the tiles. I hear voices in the hallway, but the water rushing down on me, and it feels wonderful, it’s falling so hard on my head and body I can’t make them out, yet I'm sure if the mother says nasty things to me, dad. I stop the water flow overhead. I hear dad looking in at me saying: ‘Get out of the shower, and get going, your friend is out there waiting for you. I said- What? Oh my god, close the door dad, and don’t look at me. Yet he did not remember to close the door all the way. I step out of the shower stall dripping wet, I blot the remainder off with a towel, and there is no time for makeup or doing my hair. Jenny, early I thought… it has to be a miracle. I feel there is like an electric current running through my body, coming deep inside me when I look up and see my little sis looking up at me, saying- ‘Are you okay?’ Her fingers brushed against my lower back skin, as I was staring at her without expression on my face. My eyes widen in the phenomenon, yet I hide no idea why it was in such utter shock to me. She is always sneaking up on me. Yet you would think I saw a ghost by the look within my unconscious feeling eyes. I look into my hand mirrors, pulling it off the countertop, and- I see that my irises are surrounded by a jade green- a glowing circle of light, let me know that I have made it… the powers at be are letting me have my do-overs. My eye was always green but never like this, they're so alluring now, almost like glowing the light of the other universe above, letting me know that I am echoing the final days of my life.

So this is Paris, where my great-grandparents came from...the place that gave me my roots...and new friends! My house has a thousand rooms...one for every place we've passed through! My ceiling is sometimes a dome of stars...other times a fiery sunset...and still other times...the wild dance of storm clouds... My time is that of the seasons... My family speaks all languages... But we don't have to open our mouths to understand each other. One look is enough... We work together to create something that none of us alone would be able to. We mix our diversities with passion and what comes out is infinitely better than what is mine or yours... Grandad Tenzin would say it's alchemy. While it's true that I don't have a tiled roof, brick walls or a fixed address to write on an envelope...if you think about it I have much, much more... Swimming pool with a view... Gymnastics and acrobatic lessons every day... Ethnic cuisines and nightly entertainment... And day after day I can enjoy everything...without possessing anything! I read somewhere --WHERE YOUR TREASURE LIES, THERE YOUR HEART WILL BE. Well my heart lies with this big family of travelers... They are my treasure! That's why I can feel at home anywhere, though I have no home anywhere... Deep down, wanderers are like flowing rivers.. which, with their twists and turns, are always looking for their own way to reach the sea... If you think about it, isn't the same true of everyone? We may go along our separate ways , but our hearts must beat the world over!

But I do feel like I’ve seen tiles like this in other places.” “You have,” says Bronca, grinning, “because back before people with no taste started replacing every beautiful thing in this city with cheap bullshit, it was one of the most distinctive architectural forms in the world—an art movement that was centered in New York. They’re called Guastavino tiles. Obsolete now, but back in the day they were designed to be fireproof and self-stabilizing. Perfect for a city that’s half-underground and full of flammable trash.” She taps the ceiling in the photo. “There’s only a few examples of this left in the city. So…

Bubby’s kitchen is like the center of the world. It is where everyone congregates to chatter and gossip, while Bubby pours ingredients into the electric mixer or stirs the ever-present pots on the stove. Somber talks take place with Zeidy behind closed doors, but good news is always shared in the kitchen. Ever since I can remember, I’ve always gravitated toward the small white-tiled room, often fogged with cooking vapors. As a toddler I crawled down the one flight of stairs from our apartment on the third floor to Bubby’s kitchen on the second floor, edging cautiously down each linoleum-covered step with my chubby baby legs, hoping that a reward of cherry-flavored Jell-O was in it for me at the end of my labors. It is in this kitchen that I have always felt safe. From what, I cannot articulate, except to say that in the kitchen I did not feel that familiar sense of being lost in a strange land, where no one knew who I was or what language I spoke. In the kitchen I felt like I had reached the place from which I came, and I never wanted to be pulled back into the chaos again.

The Year Of The Cat" On a morning from a Bogart movie In a country where they turn back time You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre Contemplating a crime She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running Like a watercolor in the rain Don't bother asking for explanations She'll just tell you that she came In the year of the cat She doesn't give you time for questions As she locks up your arm in hers And you follow till your sense of which direction Completely disappears By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls There's a hidden door she leads you to These days, she says, "I feel my life Just like a river running through" The year of the cat Why she looks at you so coolly? And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea She comes in incense and patchouli So you take her, to find what's waiting inside The year of the cat Well morning comes and you're still with her And the bus and the tourists are gone And you've thrown away your choice you've lost your ticket So you have to stay on But the drumbeat strains of the night remain In the rhythm of the new-born day You know sometime you're bound to leave her But for now you're going to stay In the year of the cat Year of the cat