Time Capsules Quotes

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologize years after an offense, whisper, fear themselves, interpret dreams, hide their genitalia, shave, bury time capsules, and can choose not to eat something for reasons of conscience. The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often identical: we are not them.

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like. I have prepared one of my own. I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like.

My heart is like a time capsule—it keeps safe the memory of you. I know it’s harder with you gone than if you had never been here at all—but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Our mother tongue, then, is no mother at all—but an orphan. Our Vietnamese a time capsule, a mark of where your education ended, ashed. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.

I just want to be floating, suspended here in my California time capsule with neither yesterday's dusk or tomorrow's dawn anywhere on the horizon.

As a girl, you watched, from a banana grove, your schoolhouse collapse after an American napalm raid. At five, you never stepped into a classroom again. Our mother tongue, then, is no mother at all—but an orphan. Our Vietnamese a time capsule, a mark of where your education ended, ashed. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.

The mature brain is a time capsule. History resides in its structure.

We're all trapped. It's always 1734. All of us, we're stuck in the same time capsule, the same as those television shows where the same people are marooned on the same desert island for thirty seasons and never age or escape. They just wear more makeup. In a creepy way, those shows are maybe too authentic.

Even if it were possible to cast my horoscope in this one life, and to make an accurate prediction about my future, it would not be possible to 'show' it to me because as soon as I saw it my future would change by definition. This is why Werner Heisenberg's adaptation of the Hays Office—the so-called principle of uncertainty whereby the act of measuring something has the effect of altering the measurement—is of such importance. In my case the difference is often made by publicity. For example, and to boast of one of my few virtues, I used to derive pleasure from giving my time to bright young people who showed promise as writers and who asked for my help. Then some profile of me quoted someone who disclosed that I liked to do this. Then it became something widely said of me, whereupon it became almost impossible for me to go on doing it, because I started to receive far more requests than I could respond to, let alone satisfy. Perception modifies reality: when I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick.

The movie creaked along, obvious and mediocre plot. Mediocre script, mediocre music. They ought to have sealed the thing in a time capsule and marked "Late 20th Century Mediocrity" and buried it somewhere.

We try so hard to make these little time capsules. Memories strung up just so, like holiday lights, casting the perfect glow in the perfect tones. But that picking and choosing what to look at, what to put on display—that’s not the true nature of remembering.

Children are not like us. They are beings apart: impenetrable, unapproachable. They inhabit not our world but a world we have lost and can never recover. We do not remember childhood -- we imagine it. We search for it, in vain, through layers of obscuring dust, and recover some bedraggled shreds of what we think it was. And all the while the inhabitants of this world are among us, like aborigines, like Minoans, people from elsewhere safe in their own time-capsule.

What is it with you and time capsules?" "I like the idea of a permanent record," he explains. "Something to say, This Is Who I Am, even when I'm not that person anymore...

Fairy tales are more than moral lessons and time capsules for cultural commentary; they are natural law. The child raised on folklore will quickly learn the rules of crossroads and lakes, mirrors and mushroom rings. They’ll never eat or drink of a strange harvest or insult an old woman or fritter away their name as though there’s no power in it. They’ll never underestimate the youngest son or touch anyone’s hairpin or rosebush or bed without asking, and their steps through the woods will be light and unpresumptuous. Little ones who seek out fairy tales are taught to be shrewd and courteous citizens of the seen world, just in case the unseen one ever bleeds over.

Our Vietnamese, a time capsule, a work of where your education ended, ashed. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.

An old book was a time capsule. When you opened the front cover, you opened a door to another world—a world accessible through a kind of looking glass made of hard-board and cloth. The author’s voice resonated in the reader’s head with the same words that had resonated in his own as he wrote them. He spoke to the reader from the past. What he had witnessed, experienced, learned, and discovered would live forever. You only had to turn a page to travel in time.

A Time Capsule This is where, I began to care, where I was befriended. This is where, my soul was bared, where all my rules were bended. This is where, a moment we shared, was stolen and expended. Now this is where, this is where, this is where we've ended—

By a time capsule, I mean any fixed pattern that creates or encodes the appearance of motion, change or history.

when a loved one dies young your perception of them is placed in a time capsule. You’re only able to remember them as they were then, not as they would be today.

For you time-capsule types, MoPo was something called a convenience store, as in, 'The soda is conveniently located right next to the doughnuts and lottery tickets.' People who want to understand better how the human race was conquered so easily need to study those stores. Almost everything inside was filled with sugar, cheese, or weight-loss tips

And here is where I’m humbled. I’m humbled by my feebleness in helping this person. Humbled that I had the arrogance to believe I’d seen and heard it all. You can never see and hear it all because, for all their sordid similarities, each story in the Downtown Eastside unfolded in the particular existence of a unique human being. Each one needs to be heard, witnessed, and acknowledged anew, every time it’s told. And I’m especially humbled because I dared to imagine that Serena was less than the complex and luminous person she is. Who am I to judge her for being driven to the belief that only through drugs will she find respite from her torments? Spiritual teachings of all traditions enjoin us to see the divine in each other. Namaste, the Sanskrit holy greeting, means, “The divine in me salutes the divine in you.” The divine? It’s so hard for us even to see the human. What have I to offer this young Native woman whose three decades of life bear the compressed torment of generations? An antidepressant capsule every morning, to be dispensed with her methadone, and half an hour of my time once or twice a month.

Why are Muslims being “preserved” in some time capsule of centuries gone by? Why is it okay that we continue to live in a world where our women are compared to candy waiting to be consumed? Why is it okay for women of the rest of the world to fight for freedom and equality while we are told to cover our shameful bodies? Can’t you see that we are being held back from joining this elite club known as the 21st century? Noble liberals like yourself always stand up for the misrepresented Muslims and stand against the Islamophobes, which is great but who stands in my corner and for the others who feel oppressed by the religion? Every time we raise our voices, one of us is killed or threatened. . . . What you did by screaming “racist!” was shut down a conversation that many of us have been waiting to have. You helped those who wish to deny there are issues, deny them. What is so wrong with wanting to step into the current century? There should be no shame. There is no denying that violence, misogyny and homophobia exist in all religious texts, but Islam is the only religion that is adhered to so literally, to this day. In your culture you have the luxury of calling such literalists “crazies.” . . . In my culture, such values are upheld by more people than we realise. Many will try to deny it, but please hear me when I say that these are not fringe values. It is apparent in the lacking numbers of Muslims willing to speak out against the archaic Shariah law. The punishment for blasphemy and apostasy, etc, are tools of oppression. Why are they not addressed even by the peaceful folk who aren’t fanatical, who just want to have some sandwiches and pray five times a day? Where are the Muslim protestors against blasphemy laws/apostasy? Where are the Muslims who take a stand against harsh interpretation of Shariah?7

The life I chose when I promised my six-year-old self never to forget being a child, never to grow frightened and dishonest like the grownups I saw, nodding politely to each other without affection, and decided to put my true self in a time capsule for later use.

The thing for you to do is write something with a delayed reaction like those capsules that take an hour to melt in your stomach. In this way, it could be performed on Monday and not make them vomit until Wednesday, by which time they would not be sure who was to blame. This is the principle I operate under and I find it works very well.

Our Vietnamese a time capsule, a mark of where your education ended. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war. That night I promise myself I'd never be wordless when you needed me to speak for you. So I began my career as our family's official interpreter. From then on, I would fill in our blanks, our silences, our stutters, whenever I could. I code switched. I took off our language and wore my English, like a mask, so that others would see my face, and therefore yours. It's true that, in Vietnamese, we rarely say I love you, and when we do, it is almost always in English. Care and love, for us, are pronounced clearly through service...

I never would have believed I could kiss a boy that way. I thought there were only two types of kissing: the passionate, rip your clothes off kind, and the dry, chaste peck you gave an elderly person because it was expected. But there was another kind of kiss. The kind that sealed a moment in a time capsule, forever: a small moment that branded my soul.

We live within such a tiny capsule of time yet it seems vast until death rudely makes it so insignificant.

I always thought 'love at first sight' was silly and incredibly irresponsible. Then, you came along and you flipped it on me. I understand it now. I do! ~Sheriff Derrick Decker

Books from the ancients, or the yogis and shamans, are your time capsules from yourselves to yourselves…

We try so hard to make these little time capsules. Memories string up just so, like holiday lights, casting the perfect glow in the left tones. But picking and choosing what to look at, what to put on display- that's not the true nature of remembering. Memory is a mean thing, slicing at you from the harshest angles, dipping your consciousness into the wrong colors again and again. A moment of humiliation, or devastation, or absolute rage, to be rewound and replayed, spinning a thread that wraps around the brain, knotting itself into something of a noose. It won't exactly kill you, but it makes you feel the squeeze of every horrible moment. How do you stop it? How do you work the mind free?

If powerful enough, I believe moments can leave an emotional imprint on all things in the universe, clinging to a song, a scent, a brush of the wind. And like a song, a book becomes a time capsule of these chapters in a writer’s life.

It's nice to meet you, Evay.' I hold out my hand. She just stares at it - like it's a spider crawling out of the shower drain. 'I don't make direct female-to-female contact. It depletes the beautification cells.' O-kay. I glance at Billy. He seems unperturbed. I hook a thumb over my shoulder. 'So...do you guys want to eat? How about a booth?' When Evay answers, her tone is airy, dazed, like a concussion victim. Or an acting coach - *be the tree.* 'I have my lunch right here.' She opens he realm to reveal an assortment of capsules that make my prenatals look like baby candy. 'But I need water. Do you have clear water from a snowy mountain spring?' Wow. Somebody call Will Smith - aliens really have landed. 'Uh...we don't get much snow around here, this time of year. We have Greenville's finest tap water, though.' She shakes her head. And she still hasn't blinked. Not one freaking time. 'I only drink snowy mountain spring water.

You could argue—as I have more than enough times, as part of my Film History lecture—that, no matter its actual narrative content, every movie is a ghost story. A film's production forms a time capsule, becoming a static window into a particular moment of a particular era.

When this house was built, people used daggers and their fingers,” he said. “And it’ll probably last until the days when men dine off capsules.” “Fancy asking friends to come over for capsules,” I said. “Oh, the capsules will be taken in private,” said Father. “By that time, eating will have become unmentionable. Pictures of food will be considered rare and curious, and only collected by rude old gentlemen.

He welcomes the chance to do fatherly things with the little girl, and those ten morning minutes with dear little four-year-old Ruby, with her deep soulful eyes, and the wondrous things she sees with them, and her deep soulful voice, and the precious though not entirely memorable things she says with it, and the smell of baby shampoo and breakfast cereal filling the car, that little shimmering capsule of time is like listening to cello music in the morning, or watching birds in a flutter of industry building a nest, it simply reminds you that even if God is dead, or never existed in the first place, there is, nevertheless, something tender at the center of creation, some meaning, some purpose and poetry.

Last-Minute Message For a Time Capsule I have to tell you this, whoever you are: that on one summer morning here, the ocean pounded in on tumbledown breakers, a south wind, bustling along the shore, whipped the froth into little rainbows, and a reckless gull swept down the beach as if to fly were everything it needed. I thought of your hovering saucers, looking for clues, and I wanted to write this down, so it wouldn't be lost forever - - that once upon a time we had meadows here, and astonishing things, swans and frogs and luna moths and blue skies that could stagger your heart. We could have had them still, and welcomed you to earth, but we also had the righteous ones who worshipped the True Faith, and Holy War. When you go home to your shining galaxy, say that what you learned from this dead and barren place is to beware the righteous ones.

What do you remember about your life? When was the last time you felt joyful? What about devastated? Research shows you’re much more likely to be able to answer the second question than the first. Negative emotions carve deep ruts in our brains and are memorized by our bodies so they can be replayed over and over and over again. Positive emotions like joy and peace and love don’t always have the same impact. Do you want to get to the end of your life and remember only the negative? What parts do you want to remember? What we write down is what we remember. It’s like a time capsule in a way, a lifeline back to the best parts of ourselves. A little popcorn trail of words we can follow so that we never lose sight of the path we’re on. Words help us see ourselves more clearly. They help us remember who we are and what we’re here for. They help others remember us, too.

You can send invitations and it can be a fun little thing. An unveiling.” I spit out toothpaste. “I mean, in theory. But Allie moved, and Genevieve is a--” “Witch with a b,” she supplies. I giggle. “Definitely a witch with a b.” “She’s scary. One time when I was little, she locked me in the towel closet!” Kitty flushes the toilet and gets up. “You can still have a party, just don’t invite Genevieve. It doesn’t make sense for you to invite your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend to a time capsule party anyway.” As if there were some set etiquette for who to invite to a time capsule party! As if there were really such a thing as a time capsule party!

The switch in my heart was off, so I didn’t feel anything. I held my breath waiting for time to pass. I shut myself up in a pod, like a time capsule in the earth, and held myself absolutely still, barely managing to take my life forward into the future. How far into the future would I need to take my life so that I would be able to survive?

The Vietnamese I own is the one you gave me, the one whose diction and syntax reach only the second-grade level....Our mother tongue, then, is no mother at all-- but an orphan. Our Vietnamese a time capsule, a mark of where your education ended, ashed. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.

One snake wasn’t enough. Time for Perl’s suggestion. I handed everyone two capsules and a pin. “Get as close to the guards as you can. Poke a small hole in the capsule and squirt the liquid near them. Don’t get it on you,” I instructed. “Why not?” Leif asked. “You’ll have a necklace snake trying to mate with you.” “Gee, Yelena. I’m so glad you’re home,” Leif grumbled. “It’s good to know Mother is doing something useful with her time.” “I thought your mother madeperfumes,” Moon Man said. “It all depends on how you look at it

Whoever’d think, Mr. Wong, they could put nine hours and maybe ten of good, good darkness into such a tiny time-capsule, a gelatin spaceship bound for the stars.

But why not have both? Why not at least try to create both the career you love and a life filled with love?

Death threats and obscure obscenities floated gently through the afternoon air.

I don’t think she would’ve clubbed the guy’s head in with anything. Too quick, and not painful enough.

To the rest of the world she was just a high school girl. But to Peter, she was a nightmare. A tragic miracle. A wrong place at the right time.

That’s right. Ain’t no crime to have a teddy bear in your toolbox.

The lesson we learned from Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo is here very relevant. They persuaded us, against what seemed to be overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the Earth moves. They taught us to see motion where none appears. The notion of time capsules may help us to reverse that process-to see perfect stillness as the reality behind the turbulence we experience.

It was perhaps even more of a remarkable phenomenon for being so inconspicuous, so entirely understated. Nothing else had moved backwards, only time. There had been no Charlie Chaplin moments. No pile of broken dishes had reassembled themselves in a stack. No steps had been retraced, no events had repeated themselves, and no stretch of road had been the same. The sun had stayed still or had swung back and forth, and time had travelled backwards as though in a capsule apart from the rest of the world, while every earthly action it encompassed had unfolded with unstoppable forward momentum.

Everywhere I looked, I saw how seeds were holding the world together. They planted forests, covered meadows with wildflowers, sprouted in the cracks of sidewalks . . . Seeds breathed and spoke in a language all their own. Each one was a miniature time capsule, capturing years of stories in its tender flesh. How ignorant I felt compared to the brilliance contained in a single seed. The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

Britches,” John Cabot murmured. To Vanderbilt, he said in a low voice, “It’s fascinating—the connections of their speech with Elizabethan England, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as Africa, significantly. Their speech, the construction of their homes, their methods of farming, their musical instruments, all of it hardly evolved from earlier eras across oceans. Like a time capsule here in the hollows of the Blue Ridge.

And such a moment it was when I met the man who would turn one of those compact tiny capsules of time into a full lifetime stretched long and rich over decades, who would become the very half of my heart I hadn’t

What is life anyway? Is it a bridge between thoughts and emotions? Is it a reflection of brilliant and foolish notions? Is it a system that provides methods to find roots? Is it a map of many illusions and absolute truths? What is life anyway? Is it a gate to worlds that are not yet known? Is it a farm where ideas are planted and grown? Is it a tiny seed that blooms into a beautiful rose? Is it a time capsule of experiences that you chose?

Everywhere I looked, I saw how seeds were holding the world together. They planted forests, covered meadows with wildflowers, sprouted in the cracks of sidewalks, or lay dormant until the long-awaited moment came, signaled by fire or rain or warmth. They filled the produce aisle in grocery stores. Seeds breathed and spoke in a language all their own. Each one was a miniature time capsule, capturing years of stories in its tender flesh. How ignorant I felt compared to the brilliance contained in a single seed.

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologise years after an offence, whisper, fear themselves, interpret dreams, hide their genitalia, shave, bury time capsules, and can choose not to eat something for reasons of conscience. The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often identical: we are not them.

​In the light of Sister White’s counsel, it is clear drugs can bequeath a legacy of disease upon the human race. Unfortunately, most Adventists reading these statements have locked them into a time capsule, making them only applicable to medicine of the 19th century. Such a perspective is not cognizant of the facts. For example, an article published in the Polish Archives of Internal Medicine points out that prescription drugs kill approximately 200,000 Americans each year, making it the 3rd leading cause of death after cancer and heart disease.

The Second Really Big Problem: my parents! They wanted to know everything! They wanted to call their lawyer! They wanted to call Mr. Stark, the private detective I had been talking to! They wanted to call the school! They wanted to call the parents of any kid from school I mentioned!

Collins was in the space capsule all alone. While his partners were down there collecting rocks, Collins was manning the wheel. Twenty-six times he circled the moon—solo. Imagine? He was completely out of radio contact. Couldn’t talk to his partners. Couldn’t talk to NASA. He was cut off from every living soul in the universe. If he panicked, if he fucked up, if he pushed the wrong button, he’d strand Armstrong and Aldrin. Or if they did something wrong, if their lunar car broke down, if they couldn’t restart the thing, if they couldn’t blast off and reconnect with Collins forty-five miles above the moon, he’d have to head back to earth all by himself. Leave his partners to die. Slowly running out of air. While watching earth in the distance. It was such a real possibility, Collins returning to earth by himself, that Nixon wrote up a speech to the nation. Collins—now that’s one stone-cold wheelman. That’s the guy you want sitting at the wheel of a gassed-up Ford while you’re inside a bank.

In one such shop I saw lots of books in the window. I was reminded that humans have to read books. They actually need to sit down and look at each word consecutively. And that takes time. Lots of time. A human can’t just swallow every book going, can’t chew different tomes simultaneously, or gulp down near-infinite knowledge in a matter of seconds. They can’t just pop a word-capsule in their mouth like we can. Imagine! Being not only mortal but also forced to take some of that precious and limited time and read. No wonder they were a species of primitives. By the time they had read enough books to actually reach a state of knowledge where they can do anything with it they are dead.

The time capsule is a characteristically twentieth-century invention: a tragicomic time machine. It lacks an engine, goes nowhere, sits and waits. It sends our cultural bits and bobs traveling into the future at snail's pace. At our pace, that is. They travel through time in parallel with the rest of us, at our standard velocity of one second per second, one day per day... Builders of time capsules are projecting something forward into the future, but it's mainly their own imaginations. Like people who buy lottery tickets for the momentary dreams of riches, they get to dream of a time to come when, though long dead, they will be the cynosure of all eyes... Clear the airwaves: Dr. Thornwell Jacobs, Oglethorpe University, AD 1936, has something to say.

We continued through the dark, quiet waters of the river, feeling we owned it, as far as the estuary. We passed industrial buildings, their lights muted, faint as stars, as if we were in a time capsule of the war years when blackouts and curfews had been in effect, when there was just warlight and only blind barges were allowed to move along this stretch of river. I watched the welterweight boxer whom I once had perceived as harsh and antagonistic turn and look towards me, talking gently as he searched for the precise words about the ankles of Olive Lawrence, and about her knowledge of cyan charts and wind systems. I realised he had probably stored away that information for some aspect of his work, even as it also diverted him from that slow blue pulse at her neck.

I won't waste your time with the injuries of my childhood, with my loneliness, or the fear and sadness of the years I spent inside the bitter capsule of my parents' marriage, under the reign of my father's rage, after all, who isn't a survivor from the wreck of a childhood? I have no desire to describe mine; I only want to say that in order to survive the dark and often terrifying passage of my life I came to believe certain things about myself.

Migraines are described as “one of the most common” pain syndromes, affecting as much as 12 percent of the population.63 That’s common? How about menstrual cramps, which plague up to 90 percent of younger women?64 Can ginger help? Even just one-eighth of a teaspoon of ginger powder three times a day dropped pain from an eight to a six on a scale of one to ten, and down further to a three in the second month.65 And these women hadn’t been taking ginger all month; they started the day before their periods began, suggesting that even if it doesn’t seem to help much the first month, women should try sticking with it. What about the duration of pain? A quarter teaspoon of ginger powder three times a day was found to not only drop the severity of menstrual pain from about seven down to five but decrease the duration from a total of nineteen hours in pain down to about fifteen hours,66 significantly better than the placebo, which were capsules filled with powdered toast. But women don’t take bread crumbs for their cramps. How does ginger compare to ibuprofen? Researchers pitted one-eighth of a teaspoon of powdered ginger head-to-head against 400 mg of ibuprofen, and the ginger worked just as effectively as this leading drug.67 Unlike the drug, ginger can also reduce the amount of menstrual bleeding, from around a half cup per period down to a quarter cup.68 What’s more, ginger intake of one-eighth of a teaspoon twice daily started a week before your period can yield a significant drop in premenstrual mood, physical, and behavioral symptoms.69 I like sprinkling powdered ginger on sweet potatoes or using it fresh to make lemon-ginger apple chews as an antinausea remedy. (Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve suffered from motion sickness.) There is an array of powerful antinausea

Rosie’s heart swelled with pride. She had poured her heart, her soul, and her life savings into this venture. Rosie had spent hours painstakingly deliberating over every inch of the shop. Her past life as an interior designer meant she knew just how to make the shop into the welcoming time capsule that made her heart soar every time she stepped inside. There was a herringbone floor, finished with a walnut stain, which was complimented by the dark wallpaper adorning the walls, covered with floral blooms in muted pinks, blues, yellows, oranges, and whites. It was dramatic - the perfect backdrop to selling snippets of people’s lives. Velvet pink lampshades with tassels hanging from the ceiling flooded the shop with light. Rosie had displayed the vintage clothes, jewellery, shoes, bags, and accessories in several ways. From shelves made of driftwood, an up-cycled antique sideboard, and brass clothes rails.

What is especially striking about the earth is the way in which it contains time capsules nested within time capsules, like a Russian doll. Individual biological cells (properly interpreted) are time capsules from which biologists read genetic time. Organs within the body are again time capsules, and contain traces of the history and morphogenesis of our bodies. The body itself is a time capsule. History is written in a face, which carries a date - the approximate date of our birth. We can all tell the rough age of a person from a glance at their face. Wherever we look, we find mutually consistent time capsules - in grains of sand, in ripe cherries, in books in libraries. This consistent meshing of stories even extends far from the Earth and into the outermost reaches of the universe. The abundances of the chemical elements and isotopes in the gas of stars and the waters of the oceans tell the story of the stars and a Big Bang that created the lightest elements. It all fits together so well.

Winding her arms close around his neck, she closed her eyes. To be embraced, safe in a man’s arms when she had never expected it to happen again, this would be enough. Time sheltered their embrace, enfolding them within a summer scented capsule that felt endless and theirs alone. The fragrance of grass and sunlight and nearby water sweetened each breath. Theirs was the music of birds ans the lazy buzz of insects and the beating of two hearts. Yes, she thought, she didn’t need more. This would be enough.

You look…exactly the same.” Gulp. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? “I do?” I get up on my tiptoes. “I think I’ve grown at least an inch since eighth grade.” And my boobs are at least a little bigger. Not much. Not that I want John to notice--I’m just saying. “No, you look…just like how I remembered you.” John Ambrose reaches out, and I think he’s trying to hug me but he’s only trying to take my bag from me, and there’s a brief but strange dance that mortifies me but he doesn’t seem to notice. “So thanks for inviting me.” “Thanks for coming.” “Do you want me to take this stuff up for you?” “Sure,” I say. John takes the bag from me and looks inside. “Oh, wow. All of our old snacks! Why don’t you climb up first and I’ll pass it to you.” So that’s what I do: I scramble up the ladder and he climbs up behind me. I’m crouched, arms outstretched, waiting for him to pass me the bag. But when he gets halfway up the ladder, he stops and looks up at me and says, “You still wear your hair in fancy braids.” I touch my side braid. Of all the things to remember about me. Back then, Margot was the one who braided my hair. “You think it looks fancy?” “Yeah. Like…expensive bread.” I burst out laughing. “Bread!” “Yeah. Or…Rapunzel.” I get down on my stomach, wriggle over to the edge, and pretend like I’m letting down my hair for him to climb. He climbs up to the top of the ladder and passes me the bag, which I take, and then he grins at me and gives my braid a tug. I’m still lying down but feel an electric charge like he’s zapped me. I’m suddenly feeling very anxious about the worlds that will be colliding, the past and the present, a pen pal and a boyfriend, all in this little tree house. Probably I should have thought this through a bit better. But I was so focused on the time capsule, and the snacks, and the idea of it--old friends coming back together to do what we said we’d do. And now here we are, in it. “Everything okay?” John asks, offering me his hand as I rise to my feet. I don’t take his hand; I don’t want another zap. “Everything’s great,” I say cheerily. “Hey, you never sent back my letter,” he says. “You broke an unbreakable vow.” I laugh awkwardly. I’d kind of been hoping he wouldn’t bring that up. “It was too embarrassing. The things I wrote. I couldn’t bear the thought of another person seeing it.” “But I already saw it,” he reminds me.

Diablo had rounded up this band of standout demons for his plan—and Rimuru, oblivious to all this, just casually gave them names after a moment’s thought, an incredibly reckless move. As a result, every demon reborn here had obtained power beyond the natural ways of the world. They were now an unimaginable force, a great assemblage of demons feared by all. Despite numbering less than a thousand, they were an army all by themselves. They would later come to be known as the Black Corps, Tempest’s most powerful military and a horrifying symbol of fear. And the Black Corps was born the moment they were unleashed from their capsules.

This journey by time capsule to the early 1940s is not always a pleasant one. It affords us a glimpse at the pre-civil rights South. This was true in the raw copy of the guidebooks as well. The Alabama guidebook copy referred to blacks as “darkies.” It originally described the city of Florence struggling through “the terrible reconstruction, those evil days when in bitter poverty, her best and bravest of them sleep in Virginia battlefields, her civilization destroyed . . . And now when the darkest hour had struck, came a flash of light, the forerunners of dawn. It was the Ku Klux Klan . . .” The Dover, Delaware, report stated that “Negroes whistle melodiously.” Ohio copy talked of their “love for pageantry and fancy dress.” Such embarrassingly racist passages were usually edited out, but the America Eats manuscripts are unedited, so the word darkies remains in a Kentucky recipe for eggnog. In the southern essays from America Eats, whenever there is dialogue between a black and a white, it reads like an exchange between a slave and a master. There also seems to be a racist oral fixation. Black people are always sporting big “grins.” A description of a Mississippi barbecue cook states, “Bluebill is what is known as a ‘bluegum’ Negro, and they call him the brother of the Ugly man, but personal beauty is not in the least necessary to a barbecue cook.

No, I don't really think there's a "golden age" of anything. I think now is pretty fucking amazing. I'm probably the least nostalgic person. I don't think there was a golden time for music. There's always been people making great music standing here on Earth and saying, "This is where I stand, and this is what I've got to say, and this is how I feel about it." The industry of music has always been lousy. The stuff on the top, the stuff that rises, it's always been bad, right from when we first started getting into music. You just have to dig deeper. You have to look inward and outward. And then, when you make music, you can't just copy people. You can't just say, "This is how this was done, I'll do the same." You have to find what makes it good and kind of drag that kicking and screaming into your own world. Music is like a time capsule with no bearing. It doesn't really carry a message from the time when it was made. 1930s blues music doesn't really give you a sense of what it was like to live in America in 1930. It relates to your heartbeat now and where you are and what you're doing. I've said this in other interviews, but when I listen to Iggy Pop singing "Search And Destroy," it has no reference to Vietnam in my world. How could it? I'm from a small town in the middle of England. That's how music works. Looking back in music isn't even really looking back. Music's traveled to where you are.

Dad takes a step back, one hand still on my shoulder, and reaches into his pocket. He draws out a little blue capsule, and I feel every molecule in my body screaming to run. Dad must catch the panic in my eyes - he squeezes my shoulder and holds out the capsule. "Cas, it's fine. It's going to be fine. This is just in case." Just in case. Just in case the worst happens. The ship falls. Durga fails, I fail, and the knowledge I carry as a Reckoner trainer must be disposed of. That information can't fall into the wrong hands, into the hands of people who will do anything to take down our beasts. So this little capsule holds the pill that will kill me if it comes to that. "It's waterproof," Dad continues, pressing it into my hand. "The pocket on the collar of your wetsuit, keep it there. It has to stay with you at all times." It won't happen on this voyage. It's such a basic mission, gift-wrapped to be easy enough for me to handle on my own. But even holding the pill fills me with revulsion. On all my training voyages, I've never had to carry one of these capsules. That burden only goes to full-time trainers. "Cas." Dad tilts my chin up, ripping my gaze from the pull. "You were born to do this. I promise you, you'll forget you even have it." I suppose he ought to know - he's been carrying one for two decades. It's just a right of passage, I tell myself, and throw my arms around his neck once more.

A fatal mistake in the history of the world which at the current moment still continues to be made is the confusion of the nation with its ethnicity. A nation can be made of many enthicities; tribes unite and divide all the time, and they go from one nation to another; or they just live on the territories of two or other nations, which further helps with the process of fusion of other different countries altogether. The examples are almost everywhere you look. But when a certain type of ethnicity gets confused that it is the nation, it almost certainly leads to discrimination, conflicts, racism and over all pretty bad and nasty things. The same thing happens when an ethnicity which lives in the territory of a certain nation starts to capsulate itself (to deny its belongings to any type of nation), or to seek a national identity elsewhere—then we have separatism.

SUPPLEMENTS FOR LONGEVITY ReMag: (Picometer-ionic)150 mg 2–3 times a day and/or Magnesium citrate: 300 mg two times per day Magnesium oil applied to the skin (don’t rub in), 10–20 sprays per day (each spray carries about 20 mg of magnesium). Calcium: dietary and/or bone broth, 700mg (see this page for food lists and this page for bone broth recipe) ReLyte: Mineral-Electrolyte Solution. ½ tsp three times a day Vitamin E as mixed tocopherols: 400 IU daily Vitamin C: 1,000 mg twice per day Vitamin B complex: 2 per day. Food-based, Grown by Nature Vitamin B12: 1,000 mcg intramuscularly weekly Vitamin D, A, and K2 from Blue Ice Royal (fermented cod liver oil and butter oil: 2 capsules per day) Vitamin D: 20 minutes of sun exposure daily if possible Lecithin granules: 2 tbsp per day Flaxseed oil: 1–2 tbsp per day Ginkgo biloba and gotu kola are two herbs that can improve cerebral circulation.

Is that what we do? We pitch our tents, do our little clown shows, and then take off up the road to the next town ahead? Leaving our science-fictional debris on the blasted dirt to poison the minds of future generations, like the alien litter in STALKER and ROADSIDE PICNIC. Flying cars rusting out like Saturn Five rockets propped up as roadkill talismans at Kennedy, leaking toxins into the soil. Jetpacks oozing fuel from cracks in their tanks and poisoning the grass. Three-ring moonbases crumbling in the solar wind. Birdshit on the time machines. Big fat rats scavenging broken packs of food capsules, Best Before Date of 1971. A Westinghouse Robot Smoking Companion, vintage of 1931, slumped up against a tree, tin fingers still twitching for a cigarette. Vines growing through a busted cyberspace deck. The shreds of inflatable furniture designed for the space hospitals of 1955. Lizards perched atop a weather control cannon. Atomic batteries mouldering inside the grips of laser pistols abandoned in the weeds.

DIET FOR LONGEVITY Avoid all junk food and salty, fried, and fatty foods. Stay away from meat, alcohol, coffee, caffeine, and sugar. Check for food sensitivities, particularly wheat and dairy. Therapeutic foods include cilantro, onion, seaweeds, and ginger, which help bind and excrete heavy metals. SUPPLEMENTS FOR LONGEVITY ReMag: (Picometer-ionic)150 mg 2–3 times a day and/or Magnesium citrate: 300 mg two times per day Magnesium oil applied to the skin (don’t rub in), 10–20 sprays per day (each spray carries about 20 mg of magnesium). Calcium: dietary and/or bone broth, 700mg (see this page for food lists and this page for bone broth recipe) ReLyte: Mineral-Electrolyte Solution. ½ tsp three times a day Vitamin E as mixed tocopherols: 400 IU daily Vitamin C: 1,000 mg twice per day Vitamin B complex: 2 per day. Food-based, Grown by Nature Vitamin B12: 1,000 mcg intramuscularly weekly Vitamin D, A, and K2 from Blue Ice Royal (fermented cod liver oil and butter oil: 2 capsules per day) Vitamin D: 20 minutes of sun exposure daily if possible Lecithin granules: 2 tbsp per day Flaxseed oil: 1–2 tbsp per day Ginkgo biloba and gotu kola are two herbs that can improve cerebral circulation.

Colby was quietly shocked to find Tate not only at his door the next morning, but smiling. He was expecting an armed assault following their recent telephone conversation. “I’m here with a job offer.” Colby’s dark eyes narrowed. “Does it come with a cyanide capsule?” he asked warily. Tate clapped the other man on the shoulder. “I’m sorry about the way I’ve treated you. I haven’t been thinking straight. I’m obliged to you for telling me the truth about Cecily.” “You know the baby’s yours, I gather?” Tate nodded. “I’m on my way to Tennessee to bring her home,” he replied. Colby’s eyes twinkled. “Does she know this?” “Not yet. I’m saving it for a surprise.” “I imagine you’re the one who’s going to get the surprise,” Colby informed him. “She’s changed a lot in the past few weeks.” “I noticed.” Tate leaned against the wall near the door. “I’ve got a job for you.” “You want me to go to Tennessee?” Colby murmured dryly. “In your dreams, Lane,” Tate returned. “No, not that. I want you to head up my security force for Pierce Hutton while I’m away.” Colby looked around the room. “Maybe I’m hallucinating.” “You and my father,” Tate muttered, shaking his head. “Listen, I’ve changed.” “Into what?” “Pay attention. It’s a good job. You’ll have regular hours. You can learn to sleep without a gun under your pillow. You won’t lose any more arms.” He added thoughtfully, “I’ve been a bad friend. I was jealous of you.” “But why?” Colby wanted to know. “Cecily is special. I look out for her, period. There’s never been a day since I met her when she wasn’t in love with you, or a time when I didn’t know it.” Tate felt warmth spread through his body at the remark. “I’ve given her hell. She may not feel that way, now.” “You can’t kill love,” Colby said heavily. “I know. I’ve tried.” Tate felt sorry for the man. He didn’t know how to put it into words. Colby shrugged. “Anyway, I’ve learned to live with my ghosts, thanks to that psychologist Cecily pushed me into seeing.” He scowled. “She keeps snakes, can you imagine? I used to see mine crawling out of whiskey bottles, but hers are real.” “Maybe she’s allergic to fur,” Tate pointed out. Colby chuckled. “Who knows. When do I start?” he added. “Today.” He produced a mobile phone and dialed a number. “I’m sending Colby Lane over. He’s my relief while I’m away. If you have any problems, report them to him.” He nodded as the person on the other end of the line replied in the affirmative. He closed up the phone. “Okay, here’s what you need to do…

Cold Care Capsules One of my favorite recipes for keeping a cold at bay or getting over one more quickly, these Cold Care Capsules are easy to make but pack a big punch. Take the half hour or so that’s required to make a batch, and keep it on hand for the cold season. You can find gelatin or vegetable capsules at most herb shops and natural foods stores, and some pharmacies. 1 part echinacea root powder 1 part goldenseal root powder (organically cultivated) ½ part marsh mallow root powder ¼–½ part cayenne powder (depending on your heattoler ance level) “OO” gelatin or vegetable capsules To make the capsules: Mix the powders together in a small bowl. Scoop the powder into each end of a capsule, packing tight, and recap. It takes only a few minutes to cap 50 to 75 capsules, a winter’s worth for most families. Store in a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. To use: At the first sign of a cold or flu coming on, take 2 capsules every 2 to 3 hours until the symptoms subside, or up to 9 capsules a day. This is a high dose and should not be continued for longer than 2 to 3 days, at which time you should decrease the dose to 2 capsules three times a day (the normal adult dose for most herbal capsules; see pages 46–47 for further information on appropriate

Daily Fertility Protocol GI cleanse formula on days 1–10: Take 1 to 3 a day to cleanse the candida. Probiotic defense formula on days 11–15: Take 1 capsule, three times a day to feed your body the good bacteria and support your immune system. Detoxification complex: 2 a day to help nourish and detox body filters, liver, kidney, spleen. Detoxification gel caps: 2 a day to help open up the liver ducts so it doesn’t become clogged with the cleansing you are about to do. Lemon essential oil in all your water to assist liver in its work. Basic vitality supplements: Take as directed to nourish your body with the perfect amount of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and omega 3s it needs. Women’s estrogen complex: 1 a day to help eliminate bad estrogens in your body. Bone complex: 4 a day for bone and hormone support. Grapefruit essential oil: 10 to 15 drops under tongue or in veggie capsule once a day to help balance progesterone. You can split this up into a dose in the morning and another in the evening. Women’s monthly blend: Apply to low abdomen, wrists, and back of neck to help balance hormones and mood swings. Avoid sugar, grains, dairy, fruit juice, and caffeine. Follow this protocol until pregnant, then discontinue GI cleansing complex and continue everything else.

Summary: Wheat Belly Detox Supplements Look for the supplements we use in the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox in health food stores. Because of regional variation in brands, the reputable brands that are available to you may differ from the ones I list below. Where national brands are widely distributed, I will specify a few quality representative ones. High-potency probiotic supplement: 30 billion to 50 billion CFUs per day for 6 to 8 weeks. My favorite brands include Garden of Life, Renew Life, and VSL#3, all of which contain a long list of preferred bacterial species, as well as high CFU counts. Vitamin D: 4,000 to 8,000 IUs per day to start for adults, as gelcaps or drops; long-term dose adjusted to achieve a 25-hydroxy vitamin D blood level of 60 to 70 ng/mL. Excellent vitamin D preparations are widely available in many brands and surprisingly low in cost. Look for oil-based gelcaps (that look like little fish oil capsules) or liquid drops, but not tablets. Even the big-box stores like Costco and Sam’s Club have excellent preparations. Magnesium: Preferably magnesium malate, 1,200 mg two or three times per day, or magnesium glycinate, 400 mg two or three times per day; or magnesium citrate, 400 mg two or three times per day. (If elemental magnesium—i.e., magnesium without the weight of malate, glycinate, or citrate—is specified on your supplement, aim for around 400 mg magnesium per day.) Source Naturals, NOW, and KAL are excellent brands. Fish oil: 3,000 to 3,600 mg per day of EPA and DHA, divided into two doses. Among my preferred brands are Nordic Naturals, Ascenta Nutra-Sea, and Carlson. Iodine: 500 to 1,000 mcg per day as potassium iodide drops or kelp tablets. Like vitamin D, there are many excellent preparations available at low cost. Iron: Look for supplements in the ferrous form and take only if low ferritin levels or iron deficiency anemia is identified; the dose depends on the severity of anemia and the form chosen. Sundown Naturals, Feosol, and Pure Encapsulations are among preferred brands. Zinc: 10 to 15 mg per day of (elemental) zinc as gluconate, sulfate, or acetate. Twinlab, Thorne, and NOW provide great choices.

Cataract Treatment Advanced by Laser Eye Surgery It is estimated that half of individuals aged 65 and above will grow a cataract at some period in their life. A cataract is an eye condition that may be hazardous to your eyesight. In a healthy eye, there's a clear lens which enables you to focus. For those who have a cataract, the lens slowly deteriorates over a long period of time. Your vision can be blurry as the cataract develops, until the whole-of the lens is muddy. Your sight will slowly get worse, becoming blurry or misty, which makes it tough to see clearly. Cataracts can occur at any age but generally develop as you get older. Cataract surgery involves removing the cataract by emulsifying the lens by sonography and replacing it with a small plastic lens. This artificial lens is then stabilised within your natural lens that was held by the same lens capsule. The results restore clear vision and generally wholly remove the significance of reading glasses. However, years following the surgery, patients can occasionally experience clouding of their sight again. Vision can become blurred and lots of patients have issues with glare and bright lights. What is truly happening is a thickening of the lens capsule that holds the artificial lens. Medically this is known as Posterior Lens Capsule Opacification. This thickening of the lens capsule occurs in the back, meaning natural lens cells develop across the rear of the lens. These cells are sometimes left behind subsequent cataract surgery, causing problems with the light entering the-eye and hence problems with your vision. Laser Eye getlasereyesurgery.co.uk y Treatment Lasers are beams of power which may be targeted quite correctly. Nowadays the technology will be used increasingly for the purpose of rectifying the vision of patients after cataract operation. The YAG laser is a focused laser with really low energy levels and can be used to cut away a small circle shaped area in the lens capsule which enables light to once again pass through to the rear of the artificial lens. A proportion of the lens capsule is retained in order to keep the lens in place, but removes enough of the cells to let the light to the retina. If you want to read more information, please Click Here

A virus particle is a very small capsule made of proteins locked together in a mathematical pattern. The pattern of the interlocking proteins in a virus is far more complicated than a snowflake. The protein capsule is sometimes wrapped in an oily membrane. Inside the capsule there is a small amount of DNA or RNA, the molecules that contain the genetic code of the virus. The genetic code is the virus’s operating system, or wetware, the complete set of instructions for the virus to make copies of itself. Unlike a snowflake or any other kind of crystal, a virus is able to re-create its form. It would be as if a single snowflake started copying itself as it falls, and those copies of the snowflake copy themselves, creating ever-growing numbers of identical copies of the first snowflake, until the air is filled with falling snow, and each flake is a perfect replica of the first flake. Many virologists feel that viruses are not truly living things. At the same time, viruses are obviously not dead. Virologists like to describe them as life forms. The term is a contradiction: How can something be a form of life that isn’t alive? Viruses carry on their existence in a misty borderland that lies between life and death, a gray zone where the things we encounter are neither provably alive nor certainly dead. One way to understand viruses is to think about them as biological machines. A virus is a wet nanomachine, a tiny, complicated, slightly fuzzy mechanism, which is rubbery, flexible, wobbly, and often a little bit imprecise in its operation—a microscopic nugget of squishy parts. Viruses are subtle, logical, tricky, reactive, devious, opportunistic. They are constantly evolving, their forms steadily changing as time passes. Like all kinds of life, viruses possess a relentless drive to reproduce themselves so that they can persist through time. When a virus starts copying itself strongly and rapidly in a host, the process is called virus amplification. As a virus amplifies itself in its host, the host, a living organism, can be destroyed. Viruses are the undead of the living world, the zombies of deep time. Nobody knows the origin of viruses—how they came into existence or when they appeared in the history of life on earth. Viruses may be examples or relics of life forms that operated at the dawn of life. Viruses may have come into existence with the first stirrings of life on the planet, roughly four billion years ago. Or they may have arisen after life started, during the time when single-celled bacteria had already come into existence—nobody knows.

When I was first getting to know her we were in a viewing room at the funeral parlor looking at a new line of cigar-shaped caskets that were called “Time Capsules of the Future.

We call Samantha over so she can hear it too, and I describe what my experience had been last time: As we slammed into the atmosphere, the capsule was engulfed in a bright orange plasma, which is a little disconcerting, sort of like having your face a few inches away from a window while on the other side someone is trying to get at you with a blowtorch.

He said that art was like a time capsule. It was a moment that the artist wanted you to feel, and they'd frozen it for you to experience all those years later.

From my febrile imagination, I conjure a time capsule of the seventies—faux wood paneling, disco records, memorabilia and awards. Maybe a sunken living room. Maybe a sex swing. Maybe a wicker sex swing.

Shops were beginning to open. In human towns, I would soon learn, everywhere is a shop. Shops are to Earth dwellers what equation booths are to Vonnadorians. In one I saw lots of books in the window. I was reminded that humans have to read books. And that takes time. Lots of time. A human can’t just swallow every book going, can’t chew different tomes simultaneously, or gulp down near-infinite knowledge in a matter of seconds. They can’t just pop a word capsule in their mouth like we can. Imagine! Being not only mortal but also forced to take some of that precious and limited time and read. No wonder they were a species of primitives. By the time they have read enough books to actually reach a state of knowledge where they can do anything with it, they are dead.

To identify a high-quality supplement—whose daily dose probably involves two to three capsules—look for one that has about five to ten times the “daily values” (DVs) of B vitamins and 100 percent of the DVs of minerals. Also take two to three capsules a day of high-quality fish oil, enough to get at least 500 milligrams of both DHA (decosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid); check the label. If you don’t want fish oil, an alternative is a combination of flax oil and DHA from algae, but fish oil is the most effective way to get omega-3 oils into your body and brain.

Front and center, Dahlia kept her Volkswagen bus, a time capsule from an era rooted in flower power and anti-war sit-ins.

NOTE The following comparisons are based on delivering an industry standard of 90 grams of EDTA. EDTA ORAL PILLS & CAPSULES (NOT RECOMMENDED) Less expensive than IV, suppositories, or oral liquid but has a low absorption rate of 5% to 18%. Needs a much longer time measured in years to complete 90 grams delivered. This method is NOT covered by Medicare or private insurance plans.

There are infinite capsules, moments in time, that understand us better than we understand ourselves. They whisper so softly, touch and leave healing marks over the gaping holes. That’s what it’s like between Devlin and me. I comfort his pain and he shoulders mine. A dark kind of peace.

Children are like time capsules that we shoot into the future, hoping there will still be a world for them to inherit. I don’t know if they are chips off the same block, or if one apple has fallen farther from the tree, but what does it matter? They are loved. Longed for. Ours.

Mindful or Mindless? When we last met Harvard professor Ellen Langer, she was astonishing the psychology world by sending seventy-year-old men into a time capsule and bringing them out seemingly younger. But time travel isn’t applicable to everyday life. Having proved her point in spectacular fashion, Langer took up a larger cause: mindfulness. We’ve been using this term also, showing how being mindful reaches beyond the word’s old association with Eastern spiritual practices. Langer has totally Westernized mindfulness with the following definition: Mindfulness, she said before a medical school audience, is the process of actively noticing new things, relinquishing preconceived mindsets, and then acting on the new observations. Our goal here, of unfolding a healing lifestyle, includes the same things. Langer was very blunt—everyday behavior is mindless most of the time. One of her favorite examples, she said, comes from personal experience: “I once went to make a purchase and I gave [the cashier] my credit card, and she saw it wasn’t signed.” Langer dutifully signed the card, and the cashier ran it through the machine. She asked Langer to sign the receipt. “[The cashier] then compared the two signatures to make sure they were the same person,” Langer recalled. She paused, and it took a moment before the audience caught on and started to laugh. Why would two signatures need to be compared when you’ve just witnessed the same person signing both? Small instances of mindless behavior tie us to the past and block the possibility of being alive in the moment, alert to possibilities we will never see. In fact, Langer calls her pursuit of mindfulness “the psychology of possibility.

But that led to the Number One Problem of all Number One Problems: there was no evidence that a serial killer existed. The only thing I had was the memory of a girl in a half-faint that somebody had whispered in her ear: “Don’t tell nobody nothin’!

We had been looking at some land adjoining the zoo and decided to purchase it in order to expand. There was a small house on the new property, nothing too grand, just a modest home built of brick, with three bedrooms and one bathroom. We liked the seclusion of the place most of all. The builder had tucked it in behind a macadamia orchard, but it was still right next door to the zoo. We could be part of the zoo yet apart from it at the same time. Perfect. “Make this house exactly the way you want it,” Steve told me. “This is going to be our home.” He dedicated himself to getting us moved in. I knew this would be our last stop. We wouldn’t be moving again. We laid new carpet and linoleum and installed reverse-cycle air-conditioning and heat. Ah, the luxury of having a climate-controlled house. I installed stained-glass windows in the bathroom with wildlife-themed panes, featuring a jabiru, a crocodile, and a big goanna. We also used wildlife tiles throughout, of dingoes, whales, and kangaroos. We made the house our own. We worked on the exterior grounds as well. Steve transplanted palm trees from his parents’ place on the Queensland coast and erected fences for privacy. He designed a circular driveway. As he laid the concrete, he put his own footprints and handprints in the wet cement. Then he ran into the house to fetch Bindi and me. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s all do it.” We grabbed Sui, too, and put her paw prints in, and then did Bindi, who was just eight months old. It took a couple of tries, but we got her handprints and her footprints as well, and then my own. We stood back and admired the time capsule we had created. That afternoon the rains came. The Sunshine Coast is usually bright and dry, but when it rains, the heavens open. We worried about all the concrete we had worked on getting pitted and ruined. “Get something,” Steve shouted, scrambling to gather up his tools. I ran into the house. I couldn’t find a plastic drop cloth quickly enough, so I grabbed one of my best sheets off the bed. As I watched the linen turn muddy and gray in the rain, I consoled myself. In the future I won’t care that I ruined the sheet, I thought. I’ll just be thankful that I preserved our footprints and handprints. “It’s our cave,” Steve said of our new home. We never entertained. The zoo was our social place. Living so close by, we could have easily gotten overwhelmed, so we made it a practice never to have people over. It wasn’t unfriendliness, it was simple self-preservation. Our brick residence was for our family: Steve and me, Bindi, Sui, and Shasta.

Puns are the lowest form of humor,” he proclaimed the cliché proudly. “Shakespeare used puns,” I observed. “You are not Shakespeare.” I had to agree.

The greatest work of Art, is life. The greatest calling, lifting, sharing that Art. May these hands, this heart, complete its work, mixed in company, and laughter, within the capsule of time gifted, on the canvas one may fill.

You’re talkin’ ‘bout the deaths at the high school, huh?” I nodded and waited to be let in, and then I would ask to open a window. He was still studying me. “You’ve gone to the cops already, huh?” “Like I said, they think my story is just kids over-reacting, teenage hysteria.

The doorbell rang. My long lost cousin Martika came to visit me. “What’ve you been doing?” she asked. I pointed to the stereo and said: “Listening to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and increasing my intelligence. What about you?” “You are so out of it, it’s not even funny.

I’ll admit to not sleeping at all that first night, when the late night news announced her death. She should’ve gone to the police kept rotating in my head.

A comedy about killing people? Like, that is just so awful.