Today I Realised Quotes

I was once weak, I was always afraid, I hidden my tears, but I kept on going, I kept on believing, I followed my heart, I found my courage, and I realised if I hadn't believed in myself, then I wouldn't have become the person I am today

Is today the first time you’ve been beaten in an okton?’ ‘Technically, it was a draw,’ said Damen. ‘Technically. I told you I was quite good at riding. I used to beat Auguste all the time when we raced at Chastillon. It took me until I was nine to realise he was letting me win. I just thought I had a very fast pony. You’re smiling.

And I come to realise that all my small todays, the way I act, will lead into my tomorrows.

God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.

I don’t think people realise how vital libraries are or what a colossal danger it would be if we were to lose any more. Having had a truncated school life myself, all of my education from the age of 17 has been self-taught. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn’t for the opportunities the library gave me.

I've realised that sometimes you get no second chance and that it's best to accept the gifts the world offers you. Of course it's risky, but is the risk any greater than the chance of the bus that took forty-eight hours to bring me here having an accident? If I must be faithful to someone or something, then I have, first of all, to be faithful to myself. If I'm looking for true love, I first have to get the mediocre loves out of my system. The little experience of life I've had has taught me that no one owns anything, that everything is an illusion - and that applies to material as well as spiritual things. Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever (as has happened often enough tome already) finally comes to realise that nothing really belongs to them. And if nothing belongs to me, then there's no point wasting my time looking after things that aren't mine; it's best to live as if today were the first (or last) day of my life.

Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale -- a daydream." "Which I can and will realise. I shall begin today.

It could be yesterday when I was less in love I think For I didn’t see you in the mirror behind me while getting dressed. The way your hands couldn’t stay away and our bodies always found their ways back to each other as if they were meant to be together Close. But then it was today and I saw you again in the mirror behind me while getting dressed So I go to sleep tonight alone without actually falling asleep because I’m scared of the moment I will wake up and realise it was just a dream You’re actually gone. Now all I can do is get through to another tomorrow hoping that I will be less in love again Like yesterday But not today. I was never really well with things at all.

God takes care of us; he thinks of us every minute, and he gives us instructions that are sometimes very precise. Those surges of love that flow into our chests and take our breath away -- those illuminations, those ecstasies, inexplicable if we consider our biological nature, our status as simple primates-- are extremely clear signs. And today I understand Christ's point of view and his repeated horror at the hardening of people's hearts: all of these things are signs, and they don't realise it. Must I really, on top of everything else, give my life for these wretches? Do I really have to be explicit on that point? Apparently so.

I am sorry for when I do it hopefully one day you'll realise why. Please do not be angry; just understand that today I tried.

I wish the choice I have to make today was so simple. I realise I have the choice to believe in two terrible things. Either Damian is a murderer or Beckett arrested an innocent man. Just thinking about it is making my head hurt. Well then forget your head, listen to your heart.

Since I've started living out my dreams, since I've become the contemporary of the centuries to come, I no longer know death under the annihilating guise it has maintained in today's society. Only in my moments of deepest depression do I realise that in that world of swine into which I was born I shall be forced to die, just as out in the street I'm obliged to rub shoulders with priests and cops.

Eric, you need to look at the whole picture," the PM said. "You look at the jobless as a huge pile of scrap and you're looking for what can be recycled. That's good. That's your job. But what you don't realise is that this pile of scrap itself serves a purpose. I need my zeros, Eric. They put fear in people; fear of crime and terrorism. They are a stark reminder to the stakeholders that what they despise today, they may end up joining tomorrow. It keeps them obedient. Remember that!

It’s impossible to repay something that has no price. Some say everything in the world–everything, with no exception–has a price. It’s not true. There are things with no price, things that are priceless. But you realise it belatedly: when you lose them, you lose them forever and nothing can get them back for you. I have lost many such things. Which is why I can’t help you today.

There is no "tropical island paradise" I know of which remotely matches up to the fantasy ideal that such a phrase is meant to conjure up, or even to what we find described in holiday brochures. It's natural to put this down to the discrepancy we are all used to finding between what advertisers promise and what the real world delivers. It doesn't surprise us much any more. So it can come as a shock to realise that the world we hear described by travellers of previous centuries (or even previous decades) and biologists of today really did exist. The state it's in now is only the result of what we've done to it, and the mildness of the disappointment we feel when we arrive somewhere and find that it's a bit tatty is only a measure of how far our own expectations have been degraded and how little we understand what we've lost. The people who do understand what we've lost are the ones who are rushing around in a frenzy trying to save the bits that are left.

Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have though much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else -something it never entered your head to conceive- comes crasing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.

This afternoon I walked through the city, making for a café where I was to meet Raphael. It was about half-past two on a day that had never really got light. It began to snow. The low clouds made a grey ceiling for the city; the snow muffled the noise of the cars until it became almost rhythmical; a steady, shushing noise, like the sound of tides beating endlessly on marble walls. I closed my eyes. I felt calm. There was a park. I entered it and followed a path through an avenue of tall, ancient trees with wide, dusky, grassy spaces on either side of them. The pale snow sifted down through bare winter branches. The lights of the cars on the distant road sparkled through the trees: red, yellow, white. It was very quiet. Though it was not yet twilight the streetlights shed a faint light. People were walking up and down on the path. An old man passed me. He looked sad and tired. He had broken veins on his cheeks and a bristly white beard. As he screwed up his eyes against the falling snow, I realised I knew him. He is depicted on the northern wall of the forty-eighth western hall. He is shown as a king with a little model of a walled city in one hand while the other hand he raises in blessing. I wanted to seize hold of him and say to him: In another world you are a king, noble and good! I have seen it! But I hesitated a moment too long and he disappeared into the crowd. A woman passed me with two children. One of the children had a wooden recorder in his hands. I knew them too. They are depicted in the twenty-seventh southern hall: a statue of two children laughing, one of them holding a flute. I came out of the park. The city streets rose up around me. There was a hotel with a courtyard with metal tables and chairs for people to sit in more clement weather. Today they were snow-strewn and forlorn. A lattice of wire was strung across the courtyard. Paper lanterns were hanging from the wires, spheres of vivid orange that blew and trembled in the snow and the thin wind; the sea-grey clouds raced across the sky and the orange lanterns shivered against them. The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

My plans for today are to hang about hoping for a glimpse of her, to have my heart eaten away by the thought of her; to feel my blood bounding maddeningly, ridiculously, like a young boy's; to despair; to realise the weight of my misery and hunger with each step I take.

Some people have tried to strangle the love out of my life, not realising that I am a "love weed". I can suck up love wherever I am, from anything I touch. I can even soak it up from my own eyes in the mirror! I'm the love weed, that's me. I'll always have more love today than yesterday.

Today, I saw an owl with broken eyes. A blind owl with eyes that look like a dark night filled with bright stars. I used to think that no one could really love a person so broken in so many places. But the broken owl has two eyes filled with a starry universe, and that's when I realised, that you can be loved for your brokenness. Not just despite it. It only takes someone who knows what a starry universe would feel like. Broken is beautiful, too. And sometimes even more beautiful.

Going ahead with world-conquering today! And then I realised I overslept. Oops!

The only memory I have was how the wrestler’s balls that were thrust into my face left a saltiness on my lips. At first I assumed it was from the tacos, and then I realised I’d not eaten any today. I

But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.

It's the fear of damaged people. You hold back. You hide yourself. Protect yourself. It's like you have been submerged in a barrel of black tar. No amount of cleaning and therapy seems to wash it all off. You remain fragile and you damage others whether you realise it or not.

One of the best feelings in the world is waking up and thinking, Ohmygod, I’m late for school! That isn’t the good bit obviously. The good bit comes in a sudden rush a few seconds later when you realise that you don’t have to go to school after all because today isn’t an ordinary Monday—it’s the first day of the summer holidays!

The great Stephen King once wrote don’t sweat the small stuff, which I mulled over for long enough to realise that I don’t entirely agree with it. I get what he means: we all have enough major sorrow in our lives without freaking out over the day-today hangnails and such, but sometimes sweating the small stuff helps you make it through the big stuff.

At Cambridge I took minor (John major) part in a Virginia Woolf centenary conference. As I hadn’t read any VW since school (possibly college) days, I felt bound to reread at least all the novels. It’s super to wake up now in the morning and realise I don’t have to read a Virginia Woolf novel today. I am prepared to admire some of the stuff but do not like either it or her

I sat there on that Wednesday evening in my pokey fucking living room, looked at myself on the TV screen being a massive, odious cunt, and realised that nothing has really changed. Deep down, like most of us, still now at the age of thirty-eight, I have this empty, black hole inside of me that nothing and no one seems capable of filling. I say like most of us because, well, look around you. Our society, our businesses, our social constructs, habits, pastimes, addictions and distractions are predicated on vast, endemic levels of emptiness and dissatisfaction. I call it self-hatred. I hate who I was, am and have become and, as we are taught to, I constantly chastise myself for the things I do and say. And such are the global levels of intolerance, greed, entitlement and dysfunction it is evidently not just confined to a small, wounded section of society. We are all in a world of pain. If it was ever any different way back in the past, it has, by now, most certainly become normalised. And I am as angry about that as I am about my own past. There is an anger that runs underneath everything, that fuels my life and feeds the animal inside me. And it is an anger that always, always prevents me, despite my best efforts, from becoming a better version of myself. My goddamn head seems to have a life of its own, quite beyond my control, incapable of reason, compassion or bargaining. It shouts at me from deep inside. As a kid the words didn’t make sense. As an adult it’s waiting at the end of my bed and starts talking an hour or two before I wake up so that when my eyes open it is in full-on rage mode, blaring this shit at me about how glad it is I’m finally awake, how fucked I am today, how there won’t be enough time, I’ll fuck everything up, my friends are plotting against me, trust no one, I must try as hard as I can to salvage everything in my life while knowing it’s already a lost cause. I’m exhausted all the time. It’s a kind of toxic ME – corrosive, pervasive, penetrative, negative, all the bad -ives.

My Darling Child Yesterday, I was a child Today, I am a Mother So much like your Grandmother I realised another life Was growing inside of me I had to embrace another being As part of my daily living That is how I found my healing You are my precious gift My love for you is so deep When I held you in my arms I could not help but admire Such a beautiful Soul I sang you a song To express my joy Of being a parent to you I knew there was a reason You were chosen To journey with me So, here is my promise Will be the best Mom I can ever be I will stand by you forever And no one can take on The role I play My darling child

Today, I give myself the freedom to be everything I really am, to experience this day as it was my most precious possession. Because it is... Today, I allow myself the liberty to feel through everything I've ever tried to be to make everything alright, realising the only true responsibility I'll ever have is one of me. Today, I give myself permission to breathe this life in its entirety, freeing those closest to me from ever understanding me, freeing myself from ever trying to please and conform. Today, I realise I am a soul on my path, just like everybody else, dancing my dreams into reality anyway I freaking choose. I give myself this freedom and with that, I give it to you. May this be a brimming day.

This is one of the great charms of Poirot’s investigations, for they reveal a world where manners and morals are quite different from today. There are no overt and unnecessary sex scenes, no alcoholic, haunted detectives in Poirot’s world. He lives in a simpler, some would say more human, era: a lost England, seen through the admiring eyes of this foreigner, this little Belgian detective. For me, that makes the stories all the more appealing, for although the days he lives in seem far away, they are all the more enchanting because of it." "In those first days after the series had begun on ITV, I realised for the first time that Poirot touches people’s hearts in a way that I had never anticipated when I started to play him. I cannot put my finger on precisely how he does it, but somehow he makes those who watch him feel secure. People see him and feel better. I don’t know exactly why that is, but there is something about him. My performance had touched that nerve." "The more Poirot welcomes his fellow characters, the more the audience sympathise with him, and the more he extends his gentle control over everything around him, as if wrapping it all in his own personal glow. I believe he is unique in fictional detectives in that respect, because he carefully welcomes everyone – be they reader, viewer, or participant character – into his drama. He then quietly explains what it all means and, in doing so, he becomes what one critic called ‘our dearest friend’.

This worship of the nation is extremely attractive, not only because it simplifies many difficult dilemmas, but also because it causes people to think that they belong to the most important and most beautiful thing in the world - their nation. The horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust indicate the terrible consequences of this line of thinking. Unfortunately, when people talk of the ills of fascism they often do a poor job, because they tend to depict fascism as a hideous monster while failing to explain what is so seductive about it. This is why today people sometimes adopt fascist ideas without realising it. People think, I was taught that fascism is ugly, and when I look in the mirror I see something very beautiful, so I cannot be a fascist.

When tadpole was born, I spent a sleepless night on the maternity ward gazing intently into her inky, newborn eyes, grappling to come to terms with the indisputable fact that this was an actual person looking back at me, not just a version of Mr Frog, or me, or both, in miniature. From the outset she seemed to know what she wanted, and I realised I could have no inkling of the paths she would choose to follow. But if I watch her life unfold carefully enough, perhaps I will see clear signposts pointing to who or what she will become. Because when I look backwards, ransacking my own past for clues with the clarity that only hindsight can bring, several defining moments do stand out. Moments charged with significance; snapshots of myself which, if I were to join the dots together, lead me unswervingly to where I stand today.

It was with feelings of pure idealism that I set out for the front in 1914. Then I saw men falling around me in thousands. Thus I learnt that life is a cruel struggle, and has no other object but the preservation of the species. The individual can disappear, provided there are other men to replace him. I suppose that some people are clutching their heads with both hands to find an answer to this question: "How can the Fuehrer destroy a city like St. Petersburg?" Plainly I belong by nature to quite another species. I would prefer not to see anyone suffer, not to do harm to anyone. But when I realise that the species is in danger, then in my case sentiment gives way to the coldest reason. I become uniquely aware of the sacrifices that the future will demand, to make up for the sacrifices that one hesitates to allow to-day.

Even though I didn’t originally buy it for you, because like an idiot I avoided your feelings like the plague, I hadn’t noticed until now that it wasn’t the lucky price that had drawn me to it, but the colour of it.” I heaved a deep breath, preparing myself. I remembered the last time I had said something so cheesy, and how he had laughed but I continued anyway, before my shyness could take over. “Hurry up, before you start regretting.” The taxi man had said. And I did. I looked him square in the eyes, blushing so furiously I was sure even my dark skin wouldn’t hide it. He met my gaze, somewhat shyly, which was a rare sight. “So I’ve decided to give this necklace to you as a symbol for what I realised today. The colour is green, like your… uh, like your eyes… and your eyes are my kryptonite.” I mumbled, looking at him into the eyes right until the end, until his face turned completely red and his jaw dropping so low I was sure it almost hit the counter, his eyes sparkling, wide with shock.

Dietrich Eckart always judged the world of jurists with the greatest clear-sightedness, the more so as he had himself studied law for several terms. According to his own evidence, he decided to break off these studies "so as not to become a perfect imbecile". Dietrich Eckart, by the way, is the man who had the brilliant idea of nailing the present juridical doctrines to the pillory and publishing the result in a form easily accessible to the German people. For myself, I supposed it was enough to say these things in an abbreviated form. It's only with time that I've come to realise my mistake. Thus to-day I can declare without circumlocution that every jurist must be regarded as a man deficient by nature, or else deformed by usage. When I go over the names of the lawyers I've known in my life, and especially the advocates, I cannot help recognising by contrast how morally wholesome, honourable and rooted in the best traditions were the men with whom Dietrich Eckart and I began our struggle in Bavaria.

I remained alone in my room, that room with the too lofty ceiling in which I had been so wretched on my first arrival, in which I had thought with such longing of Mlle de Stermaria, had watched for the appearance of Albertine and her friends, like migratory birds alighting upon the beach, in which I had possessed her with such indifference after I had sent the lift-boy to fetch her, in which I had experienced my grandmother’s kindness, then realised that she was dead; those shutters, beneath which shone the early morning light, I had opened the first time to look out upon the first ramparts of the sea (those shutters which Albertine made me close in case anybody should see us kissing). I became aware of my own transformations by contrasting them with the unchangingness of my surroundings. One grows accustomed to these as to people, and when, all of a sudden, one recalls the different meaning that they used to convey to one and then, after they had lost all meaning, the events, very different from those of today, which they enshrined, the diversity of the acts performed beneath the same ceiling, between the same glazed bookshelves, the change in one’s heart and in one’s life which that diversity implies, seem to be increased still further by the unalterable permanence of the setting, reinforced by the unity of the scene.

I'm sorry.' It was those two words that shattered me. Shattered me in a way I didn't know I could still be broken, a rending of every tether and leash. Stay with the High Lord. The Suriel's last warning. Stay... and live to see everything righted. A lie. A lie, as Rhys had lied to me. Stay with the High Lord. Stay. For there... the torn scraps of the mating bond. Floating on a phantom wind inside me. I grasped at them- tugged at them, as if he'd answer. Stay. Stay, stay, stay. I clung to those scraps and remnants, clawing at the voice that lurked beyond. Stay. I looked up at Tarquin, lip curling back from my teeth. Looked at Helion. And Thesan. And Beon and Kallias, Viviane weeping at his side. And I snarkled, 'Bring him back.' Blank faces. I screamed at them, 'BRING HIM BACK.' Nothing. 'You did it for me,' I said, breathing hard. 'Now do it for him.' 'You were human,' Helion said carefully. 'It is not the same-' 'I don't care. Do it.' When they didn't move, I rallied the dregs of my power, readying to rip into their minds and force them, not caring what rules or laws it broke. I wouldn't care, only if- Tarquin stepped forward. He slowly extended his hand toward me. 'For what he gave,' Tarquin said quietly. 'Today and for many years before.' And as the seed of light appeared in his palm... I began crying again. Watched it drop onto Rhys's bare throat and vanish onto the skin beneath, an echo of light flaring once. Helion stepped forward. That kernel of light in his hand flickered as it fell onto Rhys's skin. Then Kallias. And Thesan. Until only Beron stood there. Mor drew her sword and laid it on his throat. He jerked, having not seen her move. 'I do not mind making one more kill today,' she said. Beron gave her a withering glare, but shoved off the sword and strode forward. He practically chucked that fleck of light onto Rhys. I didn't care about that, either. I didn't know the spell, the power it came from. But I was High Lady. I held out my palm. Willing the spark of life to appear. Nothing happened. I took a steadying breath, remembering how it had looked. 'Tell me how,' I growled to no one. Thesan coughed and stepped forward. Explaining the core of power and on and on and I didn't care, but I listened, until- There. Small as a sunflower seed, it appeared in my palm. A bit of me- my life. I laid it gently on Rhys's blood-crusted throat. And I realised, just as he appeared, what was missing. Tamlin stood there, summoned by either the death of a fellow High Lord or one of the others around me. He was splattered in mud and gore, his new bandolier of knives mostly empty. He studied Rhys, lifeless before me. Studied all of us- the palms still out. There was no kindness on his face. No mercy. 'Please,' was all I said to him. Then Tamlin glanced between us- me and my mate. His face did not change. 'Please,' I wept. 'I will- I will give you anything-' Something shifted in his eyes at that. But not kindness. No emotion at all. I laid my head on Rhysand's chest, listening for any kind of heartbeat through that armour. 'Anything,' I breathed to no one in particular. 'Anything.' Steps scuffed on the rocky ground. I braced myself for another set of hands trying to pull me away, and dug my fingers in harder. The steps remained behind me for long enough that I looked. Tamlin stood there. Staring down at me. Those green eyes swimming with some emotion I couldn't place. 'Be happy, Feyre,' he said quietly. And dropped that final kernel of light onto Rhysand.

In 1933 things were still being taught in the higher educational establishments which had been proven by science to be false as long ago as 1899. The young man who wishes to keep abreast of the times, therefore, had to accept a double load on his unfortunate brain. In a hundred years' time, the number of people wearing spectacles, and the size of the human brain, will both have increased considerably; but the people will be none the more intelligent. What they will look like, with their enormous, bulging heads, it is better not to try to imagine; they will probably be quite content with their own appearance, but if things continue in the manner predicted by the scientists, I think we can count ourselves lucky that we shall not live to see them! When I was a schoolboy, I did all I could to get out into the open air as much as possible—my school reports bear witness to that ! In spite of this, I grew up into a reasonably intelligent young man, I developed along very normal lines, and I learnt a lot of things of which my schoolfellows learnt nothing. In short, our system of education is the exact opposite of that practised in the gymnasia of ancient days. The Greek of the golden age sought a harmonious education; we succeed only in producing intellectual monsters. Without the introduction of conscription, we should have fallen into complete decadence, and it is thanks to this universal military service that the fatal process has been arrested. This I regard as one of the greatest events in history. When I recall my masters at school, I realise that half of them were abnormal; and the greater the distance from which I look back on them, the stronger is my conviction that I am quite right. The primary task of education is to train the brain of the young. It is quite impossible to recognise the potential aspirations of a child of ten. In old days teachers strove always to seek out each pupil's weak point, and by exposing and dwelling on it, they successfully killed the child's self-confidence. Had they, on the contrary, striven to find the direction in which each pupil's talents lay, and then concentrated on the development of those talents, they would have furthered education in its true sense. Instead, they sought mass-production by means of endless generalisations. A child who could not solve a mathematical equation, they said, would do no good in life. It is a wonder that they did not prophesy that he would come to a bad and shameful end! Have things changed much to-day, I wonder? I am not sure, and many of the things I see around me incline me to the opinion that they have not.

Olive,’ Mum said, stroking my fringe. ‘I need you to listen to me, and I need you to be brave.’ Opening my eyes again, I swallowed nervously. ‘What’s happened?’ ‘Your sister didn’t arrive at work today.’ Sukie was a typist for an insurance company in Clerkenwell. She said it was the dullest job ever. ‘Isn’t today Saturday, though?’ I asked. ‘She was due in to do overtime. No one’s seen her since she was with you and Cliff last night. She’s missing.’ ‘Missing?’ I didn’t understand. Mum nodded. The nurse added rather unhelpfully: ‘We’ve had casualties from all over London. It’s been chaos. All you can do is keep hoping for the best.’ It was obvious what she meant. I glanced at Mum, who always took the opposite view in any argument. But she stayed silent. Her hands, though, were trembling. ‘Missing isn’t the same as dead,’ I pointed out. Mum grimaced. ‘That’s true, and I’ve spoken to the War Office: Sukie’s name isn’t on their list of dead or injured but-’ ‘So she’s alive, then. She must be. I saw her in the street talking to a man,’ I said. ‘When she realised I’d followed her she was really furious about it.’ Mum looked at me, at the nurse, at the bump on my head. ‘Darling, you’re concussed. Don’t get overexcited now.’ ‘But you can’t think she’s dead.’ I insisted. ‘There’s no proof, is ther?’ ‘Sometimes it’s difficult to identify someone after…’ Mum faltered. I knew what she couldn’t say: sometimes if a body got blown apart there’d be nothing left to tie a name tag to. It was why we’d never buried Dad. Perhaps if there’d been a coffin and a headstone and a vicar saying nice things, it would’ve seemed more real. This felt different, though. After a big air raid the telephones were often down, letters got delayed, roads blocked. It might be a day or two before we heard from Sukie, and worried though I was, I knew she could look after herself. I wondered if it was part of Mum being ill, this painting the world black when it was grey. My head was hurting again so I lay back against the pillows. I was fed up with this stupid, horrid war. Eighteen months ago when it started, everyone said it’d be over before Christmas, but they were wrong. It was still going on, tearing great holes in people’s lives. We’d already lost Dad, and half the time these days it felt like Mum wasn’t quite here. And now Sukie – who knew where she was? I didn’t realise I was crying again until Mum touched my cheek. ‘It’s not fair,’ I said weakly. ‘War isn’t fair, I’m afraid,’ Mum replied. ‘You only have to walk through this hospital to see we’re not the only ones suffering. Though that’s just the top of the iceberg, believe me. There’s plenty worse going on in Europe.’ I remembered Sukie mentioning this too. She’d got really upset when she told me about the awful things happening to people Hitler didn’t like. She was in the kitchen chopping onions at the time so I wasn’t aware she was crying properly. ‘What sort of awful things?’ I’d asked her. ‘Food shortages, people being driven from their homes.’ Sukie took a deep breath, as if the list was really long. ‘People being attacked for no reason or sent no one knows where – Jewish people in particular. They’re made to wear yellow stars so everyone knows they’re Jews, and then barred from shops and schools and even parts of the towns where they live. It’s heartbreaking to think we can’t do anything about it.’ People threatened by soldiers. People queuing for food with stars on their coats. It was what I’d seen on last night’s newsreel at the cinema. My murky brain could just about remember those dismal scenes, and it made me even more angry. How I hated this lousy war. I didn’t know what I could do about it, a thirteen-year-old girl with a bump on her head. Yet thinking there might be something made me feel a tiny bit better.

It was so obvious, I saw her controlling tears and walk down the path in the weakest times of pain. Still when she saw the small kid waving at her from a school bus window, or the old couple realised you as the blossomed flower yesterday but today you are all dry leaf.. the postman delivers a letter on the corner of the road and everything collapses to the ground. When she couldn’t move on with all the people around her, she was selective with the people choose to be around her. She had realised life is too big to think about people who don’t care a laugh. She held her eyes up in the breeze to the chirping birds she could only smile at the nature at her host of tear. When you lose the curve on your lips.. the chaos of life drags you down.. keep smiling!

I am not super-attached to my career,' Audrey Tautou says in that sultry, Gallic voice of hers, a glint of recklessness in her big brown eyes. 'I have several plan Bs: I want to become a sailor; I like to draw; I would love to learn many things, but I don’t have time…' She trails off, leaving an uncertain silence hanging over the Kensington hotel room where we’ve met to discuss her latest film, a delightful comic confection called Beautiful Lies. 'That is the problem, you know,' she continues, more carefully. 'That is the reason why I will quit acting very soon.' She lets out a strange little laugh, a creaky exhalation, as if her own admission has taken her by surprise... 'I didn’t want to have this power,' she says, with a shrug. 'I would rather have freedom; and to find that you have to stop being in big, exposed movies. I don’t surf on the big waves. When I see them coming, I take my board and go straight back to the beach.'... 'I am always surprised to be chosen by a director for a role because I never understand why they like me,' she says. Surely, I suggest, that is false modesty, coming from one of Europe’s most bankable stars. 'Oh no, really, I am serious,' she says, leaning forward and planting her feet back on the carpet. 'I am always surprised to be cast.' Does her track record – in Jeunet’s hits; or in Stephen Frears’s acclaimed Dirty Pretty Things, or as a compellingly self-possessed Coco Chanel in Anne Fontaine’s 2009 biopic – not give her at least a little confidence? 'No,' she says with a scowl, 'pas du tout.' 'A few months ago, I watched one of my old movies and I thought to myself, 'Oh, Jesus!’ Thank God that at the point I made that film I didn’t realise the extent to which I was terrible. Oh, mon dieu! Mon dieu!' But surely, I say, she can take from that the reassurance that she has only improved as an actress. 'Or,' she says, jabbing a finger in the air, 'I say to myself, does it simply mean that if in another 10 years I rewatch the films I am making today I will say, 'Oh mon dieu, how terrible I was then.’ She laughs that odd, breathy laugh again and then looks me dead in the eye. 'You have to be very careful in this life.

At that time, I had a big poster with ‘I’ll start again tomorrow’ up on the wall—a leftover from my constant battles with a sugar-fuelled diet. The aim of it was to keep trying every day. But I realised the promise of ‘tomorrow’ (there is always tomorrow and—thank goodness, it’s not today) was creating more problems that it helped. I didn’t know about the WTH effect then, but I had a sense it was a way of procrastinating. So I took the poster down and replaced it with a ‘Start again from now’ note.

The experience of darkness has been essential to my coming into selfhood, and telling the truth about that fact helps me to stay in the light. But I want to tell that truth for another reason as well: many young people today journey in the dark, as the young always have, and we elders do them a disservice when we withhold the shadowy parts of our lives. When I was young, there were very few elders willing to talk about the darkness; most of them pretended that success was all they had ever known. As the darkness began to descend on me in my early twenties, I thought I had developed a unique and terminal case of failure. I did not realise that I had merely embarked on a journey toward joining the human race.

I realised that it was for show. What I really want is you and me and our friends and family, and I want forever to start today.

Time traveller He calls himself a time traveller, He travels anywhere and anytime, He is a very adept traveller, Who knows how to bypass time, We once met suddenly, When the traveller was travelling the highway of life, He was pacing very efficiently, And that day I happened to be on the same highway of life, As I was about to cross a junction, He stopped there too, And enquired if I knew how this highway of life did function? “I may not know that better than you,” Was my polite and slow answer, “Ah haa, you appear to be a stranger on this highway, Come let me introduce you to few tricks old and quite a few newer, So, come let us go this way.” Said the traveller as we both stepped on the highway, And paced towards a destination of his choosing, It was a beautiful experience anyway, Though his few ways were very amusing, Then we stopped at a far away corner, And he pulled something from his bag, He was smart but this thing seemed smarter, He opened it and removed the safety tag, Now he turned to me and said, “Look at the sky, what do you see?” And I without being reticent said, “The sky, the Sun, that is all I see,” Looking at me he replied, “I thought so, and here is the fact, You see the sky and just the Sun, But you miss the real act, Time invested cannot be undone, You see I am a time traveller and I travel with it, Today on this highway, tomorrow on another, But I never miss the destination even by a bit, And as we were walking together, I asked you what you see when you look at the sky, You should have said, nothing, I have no time for it, Because the Sun will be there, so will be the sky, Being the time travellers we are not allowed to sit, We have to keep on moving and always seeking, Until we reach our destiny, Now this for you is my lesson worth heeding, If you are to find your final destiny, So let the Sun be, let the stars shine, and let the sky spread its magical blue, You keep travelling, moving, from one destination to another, Then you shall be a time traveller too, Like none other, like none other, So we switched lanes on the highway, He rode in a direction new, And now I was a lone rider on my life’s highway, Having realised what is known to just a few, That to be the time traveller, We should not wander but travel with a fixed aim, Because a true traveller is like a true lover, Who knows love and destiny are not a game, So for the real time traveller, it is always one destiny and one love, Though crossing many destinations is a part of it all, But the passion for love and to love, Supercedes the lure of destinations all! Now I often see the time traveller on the highways that I cross, We just bow our heads and move ahead, Because we have a destination to cross, To reach the final destiny of love, and in this pursuit we shall always stay ahead!

Xavier and Catalina sat in the VIP box, waving down at us enthusiastically and I waved back before giving Darius my full attention. The entire right side of his face was covered in mud, not to mention the rest of him and his torn jersey fell open to reveal the firm cut of his abs and that perfect V which dipped beneath his waistband. “You’re killing it out there,” I told him truthfully, flashing a sweet smile which instantly had him narrowing his eyes in suspicion. We hadn’t exactly talked much since the whole three way thing and I was really curious about how he was feeling about that. But I was even more curious as to how he was going to react when he realised I’d been playing with the sack of treasure I stole from him oh so long ago. There were plenty of times when I’d thought about the little stash we’d hidden out in the woods and wondered why he hadn’t asked for it back and there was only one reason that made any sense – he assumed I didn’t have it anymore. I didn’t know if he thought I’d sold it or destroyed it, but I was about to remind him that I still had it and see how nice he was when his temper flared. I was pretty sure there was a guide book or two out there about not poking a Dragon, but I guessed I was just too stupid to care. “Thanks. Are you looking for me to make some cheesy statement like I’m thinking of you every time I tackle someone?” he teased and I laughed, tossing my hair. He frowned at me and I had to admit that might have been overkill, but whatever. “Nice to know I’m on your mind every time you have someone pinned beneath you in the mud,” I purred. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Mildred rising to her feet in the stands with a face like an angry Koala which had been hit by a car. I didn’t have long before she came over here to stake her claim on her Dragon, but I didn’t need much time. “I think I’ve made my desire to pin you beneath me pretty clear,” Darius replied in a low voice which had my toes curling, but I wasn’t here to flirt, I was here to poke a Dragon. “Good luck for the second half,” I said in a sweet voice, reaching out touch his bicep, making sure that the gold rings pressed against his skin. Darius looked down the moment he felt his magic stir in response to the gold and his eyes widened in surprise which was quickly followed by a flash of fury as he recognised the jewellery from his stash which I’d stolen. I whirled away from him with a dark laugh before he could do any more than suck in an angry breath and I jogged out to join my squad just as they started up a chant. V – E – G – A! She’ll wipe the floor with you today! Veeeeega! Veeeeega! I fell into the moves of the chant, clapping my hands as some of the others rustled pom-poms and Darcy offered me an appreciative smile from the side of the pitch. We had little chants like that for all of the team members, but we often forgot to call out for the Heirs. The music suddenly dropped and 7 Rings by Ariana Grande burst from speakers around the stadium as we moved into a full routine filled with dance moves and tricks. The song choice turned out to be perfect for taunting a gold obsessed Dragon as well as performing a badass routine to and I couldn’t help but smirk like a psychopath throughout. Darius stood glaring at me from the side of the pitch even when Seth tried to drag him into the locker rooms and my heart thundered at the pure fury in his eyes. Remind me again why I thought poking the Dragon was a good idea because he looks ready to shit a brick! I turned my eyes from him, grinning out at the crowd as I moved between my girls, running forward as I performed a set of hand springs which ended in me throwing a huge blast of multicoloured petals up into the air so that they fell over the crowd. (Tory)

I’d unleash every ounce of venom on our enemy and show them what happened to people who attacked our family. My heart panged as I accepted that that was what we were now. A bonded unit. Dead Man, Hellfire, AJ, Bruty-tooty and little old me. I’d been alone for so long that I’d been waiting for this all to disappear, for me to return to my life on the streets where no one even cared to learn my name. But here, among these beasts of fury, I was somehow at the heart of their wants and desires, and I realised they weren’t going to leave. I’d die defending them. I’d bleed and rot and turn to dust for them. But not today.

Standing at a distance ( Part 2 ) continued ............... Until then let time circle around her beauty, Let sunshine drape her and let the rain drops make her wet, I am sure someday she will realise my piety, What if not yet, not yet, Because I know someday it will be cloudy, When there is no sunshine, no moon and not even drops of rain, That day I shall not act cowardly, With no adversaries in the arena of love, I shall let her feel my pain, Perhaps then she will turn and wink her eyes, As soon as I shall close mine, To trap her in them under the bright skies, And be with her beauty hiding her from the rain drops, the Moon and the Sunshine, Then she shall live in my eyes, there forever to be, Atleast, now for me, there shall be no need to stand there and wait, Because now she seeks her beautiful form inside me, As for the Sun, the Moon and the raindrop, it will be there turn to wait, So I shall lie there with my eyes closed, To feel you with the eyes of my soul and heart, And as to you I shall have all my feelings disclosed, Then I shall let you depart, Now, if you forsake the Sun, the raindrop and the Moon too, And walk into my eyes once again, Then you truly love me too, And end my pain, Today the Sun was there, the Moon shone too, it rained as well, And suddenly she looked at me, & walked into the perceivable circle of my feelings, I could easily tell, And confessed, “this is where I forever wish to be!” Now the sunshine covers me and the moonlight seeks me, The raindrop kisses my skin, But now through me this world you see, Because now I am your destiny and your life’s final inn, And as we surge like waves of feelings, You flow within me and I keep kissing you, They wonder what are these love’s new dealings, Where I have become a part of you, and only you, So I let the Sunshine and Moonlight peer into my eyes, And ah their joy to be with you, And the hasty raindrop that falls from the skies, Once again kisses you, just you, And I close my eyes too, And I let you sleep within me, With nothing left to feel or do, Because now it is forever just you and me, The Sun, the Moon and the raindrop, Trapped in the eternity, Where the Sunshine, the Moonlight and the rain never stop, As we all lie willingly enslaved to you, and your beauty!

Never forgotten Never forgotten, not even for a while, That laughter, that holding hands and that sudden smile, Out to face the reality of a Sunny day, With you it just seemed a lovely and a beautiful day, As the day advanced and we walked unto a far away land, Away from the town, away from every occupying bustle, feeling the touch of your hand, I looked at you and then at our shadows, Frolicking and walking past the happy meadows, Then at the top of a hill as we rested, I realised with you life’s every moment is so well spent and nothing is wasted, As we watched the Sun set behind those ebbing and rising sequences of peaks, We stood silent as we heard the voice of our hearts and we understood how love speaks, Just like the Sun, silently perishing behind those mountains and hills, It was then I realised Irma that your presence like this Sun, my landscape of life fills, With brightness, with joys, with your beautiful memories, Today, I remember the last kiss and I tell my still beating heart our love stories, You holding my hand, the sky, the mountains, the hills and the Sun, I still go the top of the hill, the sun still sets, the meadows look the same, but beside me there is no hand to hold. None, And the horizon turns blood red seeing me there thinking of you, Your hand, your smile, your kiss, everything else and you, Then when the horizon turns dark and night falls, I get up, take a long look at the once red sky and I ignore my heart’s calls, I walk away, back to the town, to the bustle, to the place that was familiar but now appears unknown, And I wait for the night to pass, so that I return again to the hill, to the meadow, to the setting sun, and once again feel the sensation of the only place that seems known, To the old echoes of our heart beats, to the hand, to the surroundings, to everything, It is this feeling of love, your memories, that for now is my world, my everything, And whenever I am here Irma I feel certain you shall hold my hand someday, And I hope the Sun, the mountains, the hills and the meadows last till that day!

One breath, the study was intact. The next, it was shards of nothing, a shell of a room. None of it had touched me from where I had dropped to the floor, my hands over my head. Tamlin was panting, the ragged breaths almost like sobs. I was shaking- shaking so hard I thought my bones would splinter as the furniture had- but I made myself lower my arms and look at him. That was devastation on that face. And pain. And fear. And grief. Around me, no debris had fallen- as if he had shielded me. Tamlin took a step toward me, over that invisible demarcation. He recoiled as if he'd hit something solid. 'Feyre,,' he rasped. He stepped again- and that line held. 'Feyre, please,' he breathed. And I realised that the line, that bubble of protection... It was from me. A shield. Not just a mental one- but a physical one, too. ... 'Feyre,' Tamlin groaned a third time, pushing a hand against what indeed looked like an invisible, curved wall of hardened air. 'Please. Please.' Those words cracked something in me. Cracked me open. Perhaps they cracked that shield of solid wind as well, for his hand shot through it. Then he stepped over that line between chaos and order, danger and safety. He dropped to his knees, taking my face in his hands. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' I couldn't stop trembling. 'I'll try,' he breathed. 'I'll try to be better. I don't... I can't control it sometimes. The rage. Today was just... today was bad. With the Tithe, with all of it. Today- let's forget it, let's just move past it. Please.' I didn't fight as he slid his arms around me, tucking me in tightly enough that his warmth soaked through me. He buried his face in my neck and said onto my nape, as if the words would be absorbed by my body, as if he could only say it the way we'd always been good at communicating- skin to skin, 'I couldn't save you before. I couldn't protect you from them. And when you said that, about... about me drowning you... Am I any better than they were?' I should have told him it wasn't true, but... I had spoken with my heart. Or what was left of it. 'I'll try to be better,' he said again. 'Please- give me more time. Let me... let me get through this. Please.' Get through what? I wanted to ask. But words had abandoned me. I realised I hadn't spoken yet. Realised he was waiting for an answer- and that I didn't have one. So I put my arms around him, because body to body was the only way I could speak, too. It was answer enough. 'I'm sorry,' he said again. He didn't stop murmuring it for minutes. You've given enough, Feyre. Perhaps he was right. And perhaps I didn't have anything left to give, anyway. I looked over his shoulder as I held him. The red paint had splattered on the wall behind us. And as I watched it slide down the cracked wood panelling, I thought it looked like blood.

I'll spare you the escort duties tomorrow,' he said, shrugging as he walked to the cell door. 'But the night after, I expect you to be looking your finest.' He gave me a grin that suggested my finest wasn't very much at all. He paused by the door, but didn't dissolve into darkness. 'I've been thinking of ways to torment you when you come to my court. I'm wondering: Will assigning you to learn to read be as painful as it looked today?' He vanished into shadow before I could launch myself at him. I paced through my cell, scowling at the eye in my hand. I spat every curse I could at it, but there was no response. It took me a long while to realise that Rhysand, whether he knew it or not, had effectively kept me from shattering completely.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, [Thomas Hylland Eriksen] said, our economies have been built around a new and radical idea - economic growth. This is the belief that every year, the economy - and each individual company in it - should get bigger and bigger. That's how we now define success. If a country's economy grows, its politicians are likely to get reelected. ...If a country or a company's share price shrinks, politicians or CEOs face a greater risk of being booted out. Economic growth is the central organising principle of our society. It is at the heart of how we see the world. Thomas explained that growth can happen in one of two ways. The first is that a corporation can find new markets - by inventing something new, or exporting something to a part of the world that doesn't have it yet. The second is that a corporation can persuade existing consumers to consume more. If you can get people to eat more, or to sleep less, then you have found a source of economic growth. Mostly, he believes, we achieve growth today primarily through this second option. Corporations are constantly finding ways to cram more stuff into the same amount of time. To give one example: they want you to watch TV and follow the show on social media. Then you see twice as many ads. This inevitably speeds up life. If the economy has to grow every year, in the absence of new markets it has to get you and me to do more in the same amount of time. As I read Thomas' work more deeply, I realised this is one of the crucial reasons why life has accelerated every decade since the 1880s: we are living in an economic machine that requires greater speed to keep going - and that inevitably degrades our attention over time. If fact, when I reflected on it, this need for economic growth seemed to be the underlying force that was driving so many of the causes of poor attention that I had learned about - our increasing stress, our swelling work hours, our more invasive technologies, our lack of sleep, our bad diets.

So I lived in their midst, always on the fringes, insignificant, and they spoke freely in my presence. I saw how little regard they had for us, how much they held us in low esteem. They did not know us, and were not really interested in knowing us either. By virtue of their faith, their mission, and their biases, they did not have to: they knew better than us, both what we needed and how we should live. I cannot discount the unparalleled work they did in education and healthcare. I would not have had a formal education had it not been part of their plan. The free dispensary was always full, rolling back childhood diseases in the region. I saw them clean the most putrid wounds with a straight face. Yet, their mission required locals to forfeit ancestral practices, including our indigenous languages, which we were forbidden from using in their presence. The essence of our being in the world, its core tenet, ingrained in us across generations, was being violently questioned. Their work demanded allegiance, utter surrender, from us. I did not realise this then, but these demands threw us off balance, divided us, made us doubt ourselves and weakened us. They birthed a cruel conflict in us, putting our loyalty to the test. We were inhabited by this childish and conflicting desire to please and resist them all at the same time. Our people claimed neither detachment from the world nor dominion over it. We did not have the universe and its mysteries, meant to be conquered, subjugated on one side, and humankind, the mighty owner of it all, on the other. We were the world and the world was us: water, wind, sand, the past, the future, the living, the dead... we were all woven into the fabric of the world. They, however, had appropriated it, simplified it to make it intelligible and malleable. They had invented words and concepts that dismissed our more complex and comprehensive intuitive understanding of reality. There is no denying that, seen through their eyes, conceptualised in their terms, the world was unmistakeably coherent, logical. For those of us who embraced the mysteries of the world, the encounter was a matter of course, and a tragedy. I doubt we will ever fully grasp the exact extent of our distress. Today, I believe Western knowledge is both simple and despotic. There is only one God and he is present in church. Education is found only in textbooks. Art is separate from spirituality, confined to specific spaces. The law applies equally to everyone and all values have a price. The sole measure of success is material. Our paths in life are already charted, marked out, and you can choose to follow... the path assigned to you. A promise of comfort, a ready-made life so enticing it warrants universalisation; a dream no human should be denied. Masters, gurus travel the world to guide lost peoples towards this path of salvation, readily resorting to violence to crush every resistance, driven by the firm conviction that their philosophy is the philosophy and their religion the religion. Perhaps it spread so far and wide due to the active proselytism inherent to the Western vision of the world, or maybe it was so easy to replicate because it was the most simplistic doctrine ever developed by humans—it did a better job of dismissing our diversity and disregarding the complexity of our being. Our material realities would become more bearable, that was the promise. It mattered not that this would devastate nature and leave our inner beings shuddering with anxiety.

stood like this for an hour, maybe two. The train snaked through the desert and steppe at forty or fifty kilometres an hour. Kazakhstan covers an area of 2,724,900 square kilometres, which is bigger than Western Europe. It is the ninth largest country in the world, and the largest one without a coast. And there, by the dusty train window, I started to realise just how big 2,724,900 square kilometres is. Kazakhstan is more than twice the size of the four other Central Asian countries combined. The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, today’s Kazakhstan, accounted for twelve per cent of the total area of the Soviet Union, which was a staggering 22,402,200 square metres. By comparison, Russia is currently 17,075,200 square kilometres. In other words, Kazakhstan alone accounts for more than half the territory lost by Russia in the breakup of the Soviet Union.

WHAT IS SUCCESS AND FAILURE – Today there are many definitions what success means however people practice short cuts to success for me success is simple I understood the real truth there are no short cuts to success when I understand my limitation and many matters of success are directly related to our hard work There is no greater success than to have Faith in spite of adversity, criticism Love in spite of hatefulness of others and compassion for ignorance, My tolerance to life has increased when I learnt to tolerate the ignorance Today many do not put hard work to succeed and live by chances to attain the success So the bottom line is that people don’t use enough resources and do not believe in Time management I realised late that success and failures are my own creation however we blame others for our failures Dr.T.V.Rao MD Free thinker

But today, for some reason, Ella’s words sting a little. Perhaps it’s the fact that since she first conquered the route up the rope climbing frame on Monday with Mum watching, Dad, Alex and even Otis have all seen her repeat the feat. Or maybe it’s the fact that today is her last weekday of freedom. Ella starts school on Monday. And although she is excited about it now, I am well aware that when she realises she also has to go to school on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, not just the first week but every week from now on, she will be furious at being denied the chance of spending her afternoons in the park, as she has this week.

Two writings of al-Hassār have survived. The first, entitled Kitāb al-bayān wa t-tadhkār [Book of proof and recall] is a handbook of calculation treating numeration, arithmetical operations on whole numbers and on fractions, extraction of the exact or approximate square root of a whole of fractionary number and summation of progressions of whole numbers (natural, even or odd), and of their squares and cubes. Despite its classical content in relation to the Arab mathematical tradition, this book occupies a certain important place in the history of mathematics in North Africa for three reasons: in the first place, and notwithstanding the development of research, this manual remains the most ancient work of calculation representing simultaneously the tradition of the Maghrib and that of Muslim Spain. In the second place, this book is the first wherein one has found a symbolic writing of fractions, which utilises the horizontal bar and the dust ciphers i.e. the ancestors of the digits that we use today (and which are, for certain among them, almost identical to ours) [Woepcke 1858-59: 264-75; Zoubeidi 1996]. It seems as a matter of fact that the utilisation of the fraction bar was very quickly generalised in the mathematical teaching in the Maghrib, which could explain that Fibonacci (d. after 1240) had used in his Liber Abbaci, without making any particular remark about it [Djebbar 1980 : 97-99; Vogel 1970-80]. Thirdly, this handbook is the only Maghribian work of calculation known to have circulated in the scientific foyers of south Europe, as Moses Ibn Tibbon realised, in 1271, a Hebrew translation. [Mathematics in the Medieval Maghrib: General Survey on Mathematical Activities in North Africa]

1 week ago i wrote: I asked God for decades "Who am i?" he finally answered: To know who you are, you must first realise what you are.” I have turned and twisted this in my mind and today i finally found the answer... ..who i am does not matter my beloved God ..what i am does not matter my beloved God those i "love" is the only thing that matters. you are so beautifull my beloved God i thank you.

saw those dead presidents today but wen i blinked they vanished. then i realise i was on the floor alone from society .....this shit dont happen to everybody

Sometimes I feel like I have the spines of a hedgehog. They are a spiky barrier I just can’t retract. I thought I’d managed to lower them a little over the last few months, or at least to thin them out. But then, this week, there they were again: abrupt, prickly, impenetrable. I’ve had a weird, frustrated, angry week. Nothing in particular has happened, but it’s hot, I’m insanely busy at work and not everyone’s being co-operative. But more than that, I feel as though my body’s drawn in on itself. Everything feels and smells wrong. Quite often, just the sound of the radio has been too much for me. If Herbert has tried to talk to me at the same time that it’s on, I’ve barked at him. I can’t bear to be touched. I feel like my skin is too thin. Twice this week I’ve rushed out of bed in the middle of the night, convinced I’ve felt a glut of blood surge out over my legs. Twice I’ve realised I was only dreaming. The mind is slow to catch up with the body. Mine, it seems, is fearfully protective of it. I’m a meditator, and I know that these phases are necessary. Meditation is like the slow action of water on rock. Gradually, it wears through layers and layers of sediment, and every now and then something unknown is exposed to the light, a deposit of ancient bones. These too are eased away in time, but they must be revealed to be soothed away. Over the years, I’ve learned how my body holds an imprint of my fears, a physical defence against them that over the years becomes an immovable ache. This morning, for example, I went to yoga class, only the second one since my gynaecological problems made me give up. Once, I could fold myself in half like a deck-chair, not because of my yogi prowess, but because I had double-jointed hips. Today, I was shocked to discover that I couldn’t bend at all, that my pelvic girdle had tightened itself into a rigid knot. Once I’d got over the flush of humiliation (a seventy-year-old woman was performing a perfect forward bend next to me), I saw just how much I’ve been imagining my body as a fragile thing in need of protection. I have been curled inwards like that hedgehog, and even the parts of my body that I can’t command have joined in. But even realising this, what do I do with the information? It is one thing to understand that my body has rolled up to protect itself, but how can I make it unfurl?

1 week ago i wrote: “I asked God for decades "Who am i?" he finally answered: To know who you are, you must first realise what you are.” I have turned and twisted this in my mind and today i finally found the answer... ..who i am does not matter my beloved God ..what i am does not matter my beloved God those i "love" is the only thing that matters. you are so beautifull my beloved God i thank you.

March 9 The Time of Relapse Will ye also go away? John 6:67 A penetrating question. Our Lord’s words come home most when He talks in the most simple way. We know Who Jesus is, but in spite of that He says—“Will ye also go away?” We have to maintain a venturing attitude toward Him all the time. “From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.” They went back from walking with Jesus, not into sin, but they relapsed. Many to-day are spending and being spent in work for Jesus Christ, but they do not walk with Him. The one thing God keeps us to steadily is that we may be one with Jesus Christ. After sanctification the discipline of our spiritual life is along this line. If God gives a clear and emphatic realisation to your soul of what He wants, do not try to keep yourself in that relationship by any particular method, but live a natural life of absolute dependence on Jesus Christ. Never try to live the life with God on any other line than God’s line, and that line is absolute devotion to Him. The certainty that I know I do not know—that is the secret of going with Jesus. Peter only saw in Jesus Someone to minister salvation to him and to the world. Our Lord wants us to be yoke-fellows with Him. Verse 70: Jesus answers the great lack in Peter. We cannot answer for others.

February 13 The Devotion of Hearing Speak; for Thy servant heareth. 1 Samuel 3:10 Because I have listened definitely to one thing from God, it does not follow that I will listen to everything He says. The way in which I show God that I neither love nor respect Him is by the obtuseness of my heart and mind towards what He says. If I love my friend, I intuitively detect what he wants, and Jesus says, “Ye are My friends.” Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord’s this week? If I had realised that it was a command of Jesus, I would not consciously have disobeyed it; but most of us show such disrespect to God that we do not even hear what He says, He might never have spoken. The destiny of my spiritual life is such identification with Jesus Christ that I always hear God, and I know that God always hears me (John 11:41). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God by the devotion of hearing all the time. A lily, or a tree, or a servant of God, may convey God’s message to me. What hinders me from hearing is that I am taken up with other things. It is not that I will not hear God, but that I am not devoted in the right place. I am devoted to things, to service, to convictions, and God may say what He likes but I do not hear Him. The child attitude is always “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” If I have not cultivated this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God’s voice at certain times; at other times I am taken up with things—things which I say I must do, and I become deaf to Him, I am not living the life of a child. Have I heard God’s voice to-day?

ARE YOU AFRAID OF YOUR DOCTOR? - I realised today Medical profession has changed so much, When I was a kid I am afraid of Doctor he may give me an injection, and frightened, when I was young I am afraid of the Doctor he is learning Medicine from me, for his future benefit, With my complex problems I am afraid of Doctors, as they are experimenting with my life without, knowledge, ethics for his faster prosperity. Never forget Doctors are great people till you need them. Today I am not afraid as there must be reason to die, my beloved Doctor will take care of me.

January 31 Do You See Your Calling? Separated unto the Gospel. Romans 1:1 Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the Gospel of God. The one thing that is all important is that the Gospel of God should be realised as the abiding Reality. Reality is not human goodness, nor holiness, nor heaven, nor hell, but Redemption; and the need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker to-day. As workers we have to get used to the revelation that Redemption is the only Reality. Personal holiness is an effect, not a cause, and if we place our faith in human goodness, in the effect of Redemption, we shall go under when the test comes. Paul did not say he separated himself, but—“when it pleased God, who separated me. . . .” Paul had not a hypersensitive interest in his own character. As long as our eyes are upon our own personal whiteness we shall never get near the reality of Redemption. Workers break down because their desire is for their own whiteness, and not for God. “Don’t ask me to come into contact with the rugged reality of Redemption on behalf of the filth of human life as it is; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes.” To talk in that way is a sign that the reality of the Gospel of God has not begun to touch me; there is no reckless abandon to God. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul is unconscious of himself, he is recklessly abandoned, separated by God for one purpose—to proclaim the Gospel of God (cf. Romans 9:3).

I guess what I’ve learnt is lots of us (me included) try to change the things that make us, well, us. But we shouldn’t, we should just embrace it. It is crazy that I have only just realised that as I’ve got older, even though I read these words as a young child so many times: ‘Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is you’er than you.’ I have a lot to thank Dr Seuss for.

We agree that it is too late to think of visiting Cousin Ellen today – in fact if we do not hurry home we shall be late for dinner (an eventuality which cannot be contemplated with equanimity). As we near home and the hour advances, I beseech Tim to hurry. He replies indignantly that he will do nothing of the kind; why should we race home, jeopardising our very lives, for the sake of a cantankerous old woman (only he does not say ‘woman’)? Do I realise – he says bitterly – that I am becoming absolutely under the creature’s thumb? Reply that I do realise it. He then says why on earth don’t I get rid of the brute? Reply that I am too frightened of her. Tim says the thing is absolutely preposterous, Cook must go. Fortunately, we arrive just in time for dinner, and it is such an excellent meal that Tim’s heart is softened, and he says we had better give her another chance, but I must take a strong line with her and stand no nonsense. Make no reply to this command as I feel in my bones I shall not be able to comply with it.

Men of today are no longer surprised. They have seen come true so many miraculous solutions: telephones, wireless telegraphy, dirigibles. All these surprises of human genius have accustomed us to expect the unexpected, to smile at the impossible, because we have the certitude of seeing it realised.

Spooning (2021) I realise there are much bigger hardships in lockdown but right now I really miss naked spooning. i want to spoon you and watch Star Wars tonight today has been a long day that’s how the saying goes i do not want to talk i do not want us wearing clothes i want to be the front spoon lamp off; duvet up yoda and a spaceship race some kisses on the nubbin at the bottom of your neck your crotch nudging my buttocks with that hint of maybe sex warm semi on my backbone arm loped across my chest i want a second chance for Anakin that mask still makes me weep i want a fondle of at least one breast then, silently to sleep

The crowd Passing through the crowded places, Witnessing life’s contours appearing on unknown people’s faces, They all chase someone or something, Almost like seasons changing, Where spring chases the summer, summer chases the autumn, that loves to chase the winter, In crowded places life acts like seasons, sometimes in ways unfair and at times in ways fairer, Because few faces display real smiles, while many act to smile, It is obvious when they cant recognise their own reflections in mirrors, exuding their life’s snippets of million miles, As they go past me and I walk past a lot of these men and women. I feel a common thread of life with which we all are woven, It shows in their glances and it shows in my brief scans of their appearances, But they go past me and I walk past them to chase our own desires and our new chances, After a while the crowd forgets about me and I too forget everything about the crowd, A feeling of silence overcomes the scene and I can hear my own heart beats clear and loud, Then as I walk through the multitude of life’s representations, I feel I am walking towards some lesser known feelings, life’s new sensations, But the crowd does not stop moving or enjoy a moment of pause, Because everyone in the crowd has life’s contours to cross and fulfil fate’s daily clause, That needs them in the arena of life everyday, in the form of crowd that is always moving and sometimes winning and at times losing, But riding the life’s lure and its ocean of uncertainties the crowd relentlessly keeps cruising, How far will each one go and how long will each one last, Is what life wants to know, it is so today and it has been so in the past, That is why life invented crowds where it walks beside each one of them without being recognised, And it tried to evict me from the rhythm of the crowd because her presence I had realised, The crowd keeps getting bigger and the pacing steps never stop, It is autumn now, leaves are falling and many a flowers drop, But the true season of life can be witnessed in the movement of the crowd, Where you always have to move in some direction, whether you are someone who is hated or someone who is loved!

Heart’s deviation Let us travel from now to then, from today to tomorrow, Let us fulfill our desires and wishes in a row, Because they lie sequenced in the order only you and I know, And you can see them all over my face while I see them appearing on your beautiful brow, Let me take you into the clouds and get wet, Let me take you there where I first saw you and then our hearts met, Because in that place everything is still wet, Although there are no clouds and the sky is clear, I wonder from where it could such a cover of wetness get, Let me take you there and together discover its secret, Let us know what no one else knows about it, Because the place is mysteriously always wet and it is beyond my wit, Or it could be it is just my false impression of it, Let me then make a confession, that since you left nothing has returned, Let me reveal to you the world that appears deceptively wet as it is actually the world that has endlessly burned, Because when from the distance you see fields of burned desires and wishes turned to ash, they look like wet surfaces where everything is frozen in stillness and unturned, And it is from ash covered places like these life has all its ploys learned, Let me take you away from here too, somewhere far, very far, where burning is not required, Let us travel there where heart’s find whatever they have wished for and desired, Because they say utopia is somewhere where human feelings are never by desperate moments mired, And in this outlandish possibility let us seek each other and never feel tired, Let me love you behind the clouds and beyond the blue sky, Let us go there where everything burns: the sun, the stars, the universe, and everything that flies by, Because there, maybe when you see them burning in the fire of eternity and cry, You might realise why few places appear to be always wet long after their fires die, Let me look at your face, your eyes; and understand you a bit more, Let me see you in reality’s dress and then let me your every sentiment explore, Because when we realise what burning feels like it is then your true soul peeps from your skin’s every pore, Then let me kiss you and see if you too ever felt wet, and feel the corner of your heart where all your feelings you store, Let me let you explore me in the same ways, Let me let you experience the wetness of my soul, that has burned endlessly for nights and days, Because only then you might be able to see what you could never feel because you knew not how to deal with heart’s ways, As it is with all of us, in the beginning we let our minds dictate the darkness of our nights and the brightness of our days, Let me cover you with my desires and their fires and everything that you wish to feel, Let me show you how human lives turn and spin on the fate’s wheel, Because sometimes what appears to be the reality is actually not real, Maybe it will be the misadventure of our hearts but then if you look at the world and the universe even real sometimes seems unreal, Let me introduce you to the world where everything is real because there is no fake dimension, Let us then live in this romantic moment this romantic sensation, Because in the miscellany of my feelings, desires, and endless wishes, your feelings appear to be my heart’s only native creation, So let me, my love Irma, make you feel what true impenitence feels like when you do not obey your mind but you follow your heart’s every selfless deviation!

The challenges facing Palestinians are harder than anything we could have imagined; the moment the challenge isn’t just ‘how to survive today’, a whole world of future suffering will open up to us. I remembered my early thought, when I was in the north, that the real war starts when the military operations end. It’s true, both politically and at the level of human drama. When the guns are shut down, the pain and despair of ordinary people will come to the surface. It will be that moment of realisation: both of the loss they’ve suffered and the new conditions they have to live with. In this sense, thinking of tomorrow is more difficult than thinking of today.

Fish and the old woman An old woman, selling fish, Crying at all those who passed by, “Try my fish that you shall relish,” Most of them ignored her calls but many asked why? She answered all whys, all ifs, all questions, As long as you were someone she thought would buy, And I stood there listening to her witty quotations, That addressed all doubts and answered every why, Her greasy hands often patted and placed the fish in order, In the round wicker basket that was wet but clean, And in this fish market she looked much wiser and older, Her face was round, her eyes sharp, with a body frame that was lean, Few minutes passed, unlike the fish she was unable to catch a reliable prospect, Then a man stopped and looked at her basket full of fish, And she had found her much needed suspect, The providence had granted her her wish, She turned the fish around and showed him the best ones, Her greasy hands held them with twin feelings, A feeling that still wanted to retain the best ones, And a feeling that was willing to let go of the few in her commercial dealings, And there was her struggle, and her eyes revealed it clearly, She shuffled the best ones around and then mixed them with the rest, And she did this with a professional dexterity, Creating a mix of the good fish and the best, Because to her all customers are the same, They all deserve to savour the fish that she thinks are the finest, So she had to indulge in this necessary hypnotic game, And she performed it in ways sharp and tidiest, She scrubbed off the scales carefully, And cleaned them with a unique fondness, And when ready she handed them to the man lovingly, He held them with a sense of quickness, And walked away, leaving behind the old woman and her basket full of fish, Who once again shouted in her typical melody, “Try my fish that you shall relish, The fish that will make the tastiest dish, The fish from the lake that breeds the best fish!” While I watched her and her teary eyes, Because she missed the fish that were being taken away, Away from her everyday, with her daily lot gone a part of her in that basket dies, But she does not let her feelings give in or sway, Because this is who she is, the seller of life and joy, Who shouts on the bridge on a cold November day, For she too has a home, where she has to feed her girl and her always waiting boy, It has been so for many decades, and was so today, In the evening when the wicker basket is dry with no fish left in it, She lifts the basket, mops the floor, and places it on her head, Well I guess not all of us can do it, Because she carries the physical load over the head that with a million thoughts is also fed, Yet she walks with a smile and vivaciousness that is radiant, Because she sells the fish that are the best, And in the wicker basket they look magnificent and brilliant, I guess for her, the fish and the basket are her test, Where fate pushes her to the extreme every day, But she never gets tired to shout and say, “Try my fish that you shall relish any day, Why not let that day be today, your luckiest day!” With the old woman gone, the bridge is still crowded but the spot is empty, So, I turn around and look at it, and I hear her echoes, And I feel a wave of humility induced by my realisation of her piety, Towards a different God, the God she invokes often in her melody that resides there in the form of her echoes, I may never see her again, or maybe I will, Whenever I cross the bridge, the bridge that leads people to their destinations, But for me it begins there and it ends there too, there time holds still, Because we all respect her courage and we love her melodious incantations!

Amazing beauty After a while, that seemed longer than the longest moment of time, There she stood in her shy beauty, but now in its prime, It seemed sun beams bathed her soul, To make her a true personification of beauty whole, That is as beautiful inside as it is outside, And between these facts her true personality did somewhere reside, And I wanted to locate it and end my predicament, To seek for myself a new realisation, a new sense of fulfillment, That of loving someone who exists beyond the palpable dimensions, Even beyond the known scale of human sensations, Because whenever I look at her, whether it is day or night, I wish to touch her part of beauty that FEELS differently bright, because it is always out of sight, And today when she stands right in front of me, By diving into her eyes I wish to find her true source of glee, And when I dived in them with my closed eyes but an open heart, I realised, it is beautiful feelings and pure thoughts that to her their beauty impart, Now I live in them, with them, and maybe for them too, Because only then I manage to love her invisible beauty, her reality, her beauty true, So, I have a new address of existence now, her eyes, her thoughts and her dreams, Where I lie covered in beauty’s imagination and its beautiful beams, And this moment that I have been experiencing for infinity now, Is our well preserved secret of our feelings of love!

Broken boat! The small boat was anchored, where the lake ended, It stood there over the water and nothing at all pretended, The silently lapping water showed no hurry, Just like the still boat that today had no reason to worry, The boat, the water, everything appeared to be at ease, They had no reason to rush, and nobody to please, Just themselves and their anchored state, That steadfastly cast them into this feeling of never being tired to wait, Wait for the sunrise, wait for the moon rise, wait for the morning, Wait for the boatman, wait for a new wave, wait for the birds to sing, It seemed the boat and the lake could wait forever and for everything, And just like the boat I too waited for someone, that feeling beautiful, that special something, The lake spreads far and wide, And the boat stands anchored between this divide, To wait or to drift at the wind’s will, The prospect is attractive but the boat has a promise to fulfill, Towards the boatman, towards the anchor, towards the lake too, And towards something or maybe someone, nobody knows who, Maybe it is her secret affair, With the shore, with the security it offers her, While she is romancing the shore and it erotically kisses her hull, And an onlooker like me feels she wants to break free from this life so dull, But maybe she does not regard the weight of the anchor to be a boundation, For it holds her close to the erotic shore and it's wet and muddy sensation, As time passes by, the boat begins to rot, The kiss of the shore that enticed her and felt so hot, Was actually fooling her to feel what was not real, By the time the boat realised the kiss of the shore was unreal, The hull of the boat had perforated and crumbled, And as it lay there in this state of uselessness and now humbled, The shore no longer kissed it, Because now a new boat stood anchored there, and the shore was erotically kissing it, The boat has decomposed, and its wood drifts freely in the lake now, And it wanders endlessly to seek that real feeling of love, But in pieces, one here, one there, one somewhere unknown, In pieces trying to find love that it never had actually felt or known, So, whenever I see a broken piece of a boat, I think of you my love, and then with these pieces I and my feelings float, Where? Only every broken piece of the boat can tell, But unlike the boat, I feel our love is real and it is for nobody except us to judge and tell!

Your summer! Like the Summer that resides in everything, That in Spring sprouted from nowhere and today is the most beautiful thing, The Summer of beautiful imaginations, Where your thoughts are the Summer like sensations, That grow over me from everywhere, And I often think of you whether I am everywhere or just somewhere, Like the Summer that spreads and grows profound, In you all my joys I have found, So let the seasons pass and redefine beauty’s sensations, In you I shall always discover beauty’s original passions and feel its true realisations. But for now let me enjoy this Summer and your presence, And bathe in your every essence!

Rhys brushed a hand down my arm. 'You are, as always, free to go wherever and whenever you wish. But what I think Mor is saying is... try to leave a note the next time.' The words were casual, but that was panic in his eyes. Not- not the controlling fear Tamlin had once succumbed to, but... genuine terror of not knowing where I was, if I needed help. Just as I would want to know where he was, if he needed help, if he vanished when our enemies surrounded us. 'I'm sorry,' I said. To him, to the others. Mor didn't so much as look at me. 'You have nothing to be sorry for,' Rhys replied, hand sliding to cup my cheek. 'You decided to take things into your own hands, and got us valuable information in the process. But... ' His thumb stroked over my cheekbone. 'We have been lucky,' he breathed. 'Keeping a step ahead- keeping out of Hybern's claws. Even if today... today wasn't so fortunate on the battlefield. But the cynic in me wonders if our luck is about to expire. And I would rather it not end with you.' They all had to think me young and reckless. No, Rhys said through the bond, and I realised I'd left my shields open. Believe me, if you knew half of the shit Cassian and Mor have pulled you'd get why we don't. I just... Leave a note. Or tell me the next time. Would you have let me go if I had? I do not let you do anything. He tilted my face up, Mor and Azriel looking away. You are your own person, you make your own choices. But we are mates- I am yours, and you are mine. We do not let each other do things, as if we dictate the movements of each other. But... I might have insisted I go with you. More for my own mental well-being, just to know you were safe. You were occupied. A slash of a smile. If you were hell-bent on going into the Middle, I would have unoccupied myself from battle.

You and your thoughts! The vagueness of the future, the memories of yesterday and the promises of today, Remind me of you, everyday, and whenever it is today, In the last moment of wakeful mind before falling asleep, It is you I think of and you I dream of when I am fast asleep, In the view of the busy and at times relaxed world and the perspectives thereof, I look for you in everything, in its corners, in its open spaces, and live off the memories thereof, In the mind’s silence and in the heart’s endless beatings to keep kissing life, I listen to them both while thinking of you in my every passing moment of life, In the present that rushes to meet the future and shorten my span of dreams and desires, I smile silently because it does not know my life is but an endless bloom of your memories and your desires, In this moment while I am thinking of you Irma and my mind weaves a tapestry of known feelings, I wish you knew, I wish you realised, that all of them are our feelings, those beautiful bygone feelings, In the moments when I exist and yet feel maybe I don’t at all belong in the present, I roll my memories, I wrap my desires, and I slumber in the past, where you and your feelings are the only present! In this state I never realise when it is midday, when it is night and when it is today, Because now you become my only dream, my only memory, my only feeling and an everlasting today!

The corner She sat there crouched in a corner, Her will was broken and nothing in her looked stronger, There were no signs of smiles or moments of joy, Around her an army of misfortunes time did deploy, So she lay there tied to her weariness, And her eyes revealed a deep emptiness, She had a benighted existence, And in her, sadness sought its own permanence, Many passed by her side, But all were busy dealing with their life’s own tide, A few turned and noticed her wretched state, But nobody wanted to uplift her spirits and mend her fate, She resided in a place that is neither hell nor paradise, Because in her state even soul refuses to rise, So she hangs between nowhere and nothing, Between everything and something, Between the Hell that is there and yet it is not anywhere, Between the Paradise that is there but actually nowhere, And her grief deepened every moment, And with every passing day she got cast into hopelessness’s basement, Now she lies there trapped and feelingless, Dealing with the life that is lifeless, Today when I saw her and her stock of misfortunes, I could hear her heart’s sad tunes, I stood there frozen in the moment, As she slipped deeper into despondency’s basement, And by the time I reached out my hand, There was the corner, an endless pile of misfortunes, and my empty hand, The basement had consumed her and everything related to her, It was an empty corner with nothing to offer and nothing to incur, But a realisation that how often we all fail, To sympathise with someone needy and frail, I too extended my hand but it was too late, And now for a lifetime I am caught in a debate, Where the guilt shall push all heedless passers by in the same basement, To clash with their own conscience and the girl’s every sentiment!

In Conversation With The Earth! Hello I am Earth , your home, Hello I am human from Climate summit at Rome, Pleasure meeting you today, Well I thought you met and saw me everyday, Nevermind, human mind is a curious creation, Look at the devastation and your numb sensation, Water levels rising, Frequent wildfires are least surprising, Landslides burying people alive, For the poor Earth is no longer a place to thrive, CO2 emissions creating a blanket of doom, The world looks like a planet draped in agony and gloom, Deforestation has left me naked, By your callousness I feel raped, you humans are so ungrateful and wicked, The rising heat will kill us both, I will manage drifting in the universe but imagine your plight in the cosmic broth? You are the cause of your own extinction, And you seek mercy from me for this inevitable destruction, I am part of the universe the universe is not a part of me, And if there is a cause, an effect too there shall be! But I am wondering why you are still procrastinating, You are more interested in Mars’s Terraforming, Instead of saving your present home, Where there is Italy, Germany, India, America, Russia, China, many others and Rome, You seem to ignore my pleadings and warning signs, And somehow your conscience resigns, Into a slumber of thoughtlessness, And you seem willing to endure this perpetual feeling of restlessness, But refrain from acting now, Sometimes you just need to start, without wasting too much time on thinking how, This maybe my last conversation with you , my dear human being, It is time you believed in what you are seeing, A ravaged soul of mine, I fret and fume, yet you convince yourself I am fine, Because you can still breathe in my air, But how long, because you are offering me a bargain that is unfair, Very soon you may need protected air zones to survive, And then only those with a penny in the pocket shall be alive, Where will your less fortunate brothers and sisters go? I think after the great fall, today humanity has fallen really too low, Not placing restraint on their acts so ignoble, Although you see my scars so fresh and palpable, Anyway, why shall you care as long as you can breathe, And not realise the irony, the day you feel choked I too shall no more be able to breathe! Mars is a distant dream, Pay heed now when I yell and scream, Mars is just a reflection in the mirror, But I am the mirror, you just need to be a heedful observer, And act now before it is too late, And stop wasting time in a bureaucratically complex debate, Maybe this will be the last summer for you and me too, But I am still believing and expecting the best from you! By: Javid Ahmad Tak

Old man and his dead daughter An old aging man, Walks on the promenade everyday, He surely in his years of youth, played and ran, But now he is spending his life slowly and day by day, As life greets him every morning, He looks at it without any surprise, And he treats her like his only darling, For his fulfilling life was his greatest prize, He was aging but somehow not old, He believed in life that is lived everyday, And this realisation had made him bold, So here he is now living his life day by day, But lately he has become meek, His daughter died when the war broke, Now it is her, in everything he loves to seek, And in the darkness he deals with his fate and its cruel stroke, And maybe he wants to know why her, And why not him? When the bullet traveled and hit her, He was happily walking under the moonlight dim, And someone told him about the fateful incident, He fell, he moaned, he grieved, His sobbings were loud and incessant, There was nothing left to love, because his world had died, the world in which he believed, Now he curses the war and the bullets, The killers of joys, the murderers of innocence, And he leads a life of torments, And invain seeks in everything his dead daughter’s essence, That now lies scattered in the air, But as bullets pass through it , the air smells of gunpowder, And it erases all her traces beautiful and fair, And the old man dies every day, as a father who was a lover, Of everything life had to offer, But the bullets have invaded everything, Now they even kill a flower, And that is the most heinous thing, I have known the old man for many decades, But I have never seen him so old, Today a bullet killed him too and ended his life’s facades, He died smiling, looking at the sky, so I am told! Rest in peace wherever you may be now, And be merry that bullets cannot reach there, Because in a place abounding in grace and love, It is just flowers and lovers everywhere!

It's the ugliness of his fucking soul that riles me. I don't care if he calls me a mongrel bastard.' Eris had called him such things today, she realised. Rage rippled through her. 'It's just that, ally or not, I hate him. He's so slick and unruffled and... I can't stand him.' He set down his fork and stared toward the window behind him. 'Eris and his twisted word games and politics are an enemy I don't know how to handle. Every time I meet with him, I feel like he's got the upper hand. Like I can only catch up to him, and he sees through my every fumbling attempt at being clever. Maybe that makes me a stupid brute after all.' True sorrow filled his eyes- and enough self-loathing that Nesta rose from her seat. He went still as she rounded the table, only lifting his head when she leaned against the edge of the table beside his plate. 'Rhys should kill him and be done with it.' 'If anyone is going to kill Eris, it will be Mor or me.' His hazel eyes were nearly pleading. Not with her, she knew, but with fate. 'But killing him would prove him and his ilk right about me. And regardless of how I feel about Eris, he would be a better High Lord than Beron. No matter what I want, there's still the well-being of the Autumn Court to consider.' Cassian was good. In his soul, in his warrior's heart, Cassian was good in a way Nesta knew most people were not. In a way she knew she was not and would never be. He was not a warrior who killed on a whim, but a male who carefully considered every life he had to take. Who'd defend what he loved until death. And Eris... He'd hurt Cassian. With what he'd done to Morrigan, yes, but also with the words so similar to ones that Nesta herself had wielded. The wound lay in Cassian's eyes, as raw as any injury. Shame rushed through her. Shame, and anger, and a wild sort of desperation. She couldn't abide the pain in his eyes, teetering on the brink of despair. Couldn't stand the absence of the grinning and winking and swaggering she knew so well. She'd do anything to get rid of that look in his eyes. Even for a few moments.

I leaned into Tamlin, sighing. 'It feels- feels as if some of it was a dream, or a nightmare. But... But I remembered you. And when I saw you there today, I started clawing at it, fighting, because I knew it might be my only chance, and-' 'How did you break free of his control,' Lucien said flatly from behind us. Tamlin gave him a warning growl. I'd forgotten he was there. My sister's mate. The Mother, I decided, did have a sense of humour. 'I wanted it- I don't know how. I just wanted to break free of him, so I did.' We stared each other down, but Tamlin brushed a thumb over my shoulder. 'Are- are you hurt?' I tried not to bristle. I knew what he meant. That he thought Rhysand would do anything like that to anyone- 'I- I don't know,' I stammered. 'I don't... I don't remember those things.' Lucien's metal eye narrowed, as if he could sense the lie. But I looked up at Tamlin, and brushed my hand over his mouth. My bare, empty skin. 'You're real,' I said. 'You freed me.' It was an effort not to turn my hands into claws and rip out his eyes. Traitor- liar. Murderer. 'You freed yourself,' Tamlin breathed. He gestured to the house. 'Rest- and then we'll talk. I... need to find Ianthe. And make some things very, very clear.' 'I- I want to be a part of it this time,' I said, halting when he tried to herd me back into that beautiful prison. 'No more... No more shutting me out. No more guards. Please. I have so much to tell you about them- bits and pieces, but... I can help. We can get my sisters back. Let me help.' Help lead you in the wrong direction. Help bring you and your court to your knees, and take down Jurian and those conniving, traitorous queens. And then tear Ianthe into tiny, tiny pieces and bury them in a pit no one can find. Tamlin scanned my face, and finally nodded. 'We'll start over. Do things differently. When you were gone, I realised... I'd been wrong. So wrong, Feyre. And I'm sorry.' Too late. Too damned late. But I rested my head on his arm as he slipped it around me and led me toward the house. 'It doesn't matter. I'm home now.' 'Forever,' he promised. 'Forever,' I parroted, glancing behind- to where Lucien stood in the gravel drive. His gaze on me. Face hard. As if he'd seen through every lie. As if he knew of the second tattoo beneath my glove, and the glamour I now kept on it. As if he knew that they had let a fox into a chicken coop- and he could do nothing. Not unless he never wanted to see his mate- Elain- again. I gave Lucien a sweet, sleepy smile. So our game began. We hit the sweeping marble stairs to the fornt doors of the manor. And so Tamlin unwittingly led the High Lady of the Night Court into the heart of his territory.

I leaned into Tamlin, sighing. 'It feels- feels as if some of it was a dream, or a nightmare. But... But I remembered you. And when I saw you there today, I started clawing at it, fighting, because I knew it might be my only chance, and-' 'How did you break free of his control,' Lucien said flatly from behind us. Tamlin gave him a warning growl. I'd forgotten he was there. My sister's mate. The Mother, I decided, did have a sense of humour. 'I wanted it- I don't know how. I just wanted to break free of him, so I did.' We stared each other down, but Tamlin brushed a thumb over my shoulder. 'Are- are you hurt?' I tried not to bristle. I knew what he meant. That he thought Rhysand would do anything like that to anyone- 'I- I don't know,' I stammered. 'I don't... I don't remember those things.' Lucien's metal eye narrowed, as if he could sense the lie. But I looked up at Tamlin, and brushed my hand over his mouth. My bare, empty skin. 'You're real,' I said. 'You freed me.' It was an effort not to turn my hands into claws and rip out his eyes. Traitor- liar. Murderer. 'You freed yourself,' Tamlin breathed. He gestured to the house. 'Rest- and then we'll talk. I... need to find Ianthe. And make some things very, very clear.' 'I- I want to be a part of it this time,' I said, halting when he tried to herd me back into that beautiful prison. 'No more... No more shutting me out. No more guards. Please. I have so much to tell you about them- bits and pieces, but... I can help. We can get my sisters back. Let me help.' Help lead you in the wrong direction. Help bring you and your court to your knees, and take down Jurian and those conniving, traitorous queens. And then tear Ianthe into tiny, tiny pieces and bury them in a pit no one can find. Tamlin scanned my face, and finally nodded. 'We'll start over. Do things differently. When you were gone, I realised... I'd been wrong. So wrong, Feyre. And I'm sorry.' Too late. Too damned late. But I rested my head on his arm as he slipped it around me and led me toward the house. 'It doesn't matter. I'm home now.' 'Forever,' he promised. 'Forever,' I parroted, glancing behind- to where Lucien stood in the gravel drive. His gaze on me. Face hard. As if he'd seen through every lie. As if he knew of the second tattoo beneath my glove, and the glamour I now kept on it. As if he knew that they had let a fox into a chicken coop- and he could do nothing. Not unless he never wanted to see his mate- Elain- again. I gave Lucien a sweet, sleepy smile. So our game began. We hit the sweeping marble stairs to the front doors of the manor. And so Tamlin unwittingly led the High Lady of the Night Court into the heart of his territory.

You ought to be able to stand up today and testify that one of the chief characteristics of God's work in your life is that He has spent these years cleansing you from filthiness and destroying idols in your life. And sometimes He's done it like a wrecking ball. He will take no prisoners. He will do whatever is necessary to purify His people - so the goal is conformity. But I want you to realise something - although it is God who is at work in us, we are also called to be deliberate, and to be disciplined. If you look just for a moment at 1 Timothy 4:7-8.

The same year that the third great Viking ship found in Norway was excavated, at Oseberg, the town of Ålesund burned. At that time the Viking ships were displayed in makeshift exhibition halls, and the great Ålesund fire hastened the process of building a separate museum for them. The architect Fritz Holland proposed building an enormous crypt for them beneath the royal palace in Oslo. It was to be 63 metres long and 15 metres wide, with a niche for each ship. The walls were to be covered with reliefs of Viking motifs. Drawings exist of this underground hall. It is full of arches and vaults, and everything is made of stone. The ships stand in a kind of depression in the floor. More than anything it resembles a burial chamber, and that is fitting, one might think, both because the three ships were originally graves and because placed in a subterranean crypt beneath the palace gardens they would appear as what they represented: an embodiment of a national myth, in reality relics of a bygone era, alive only in the symbolic realm. The crypt was never built, and the power of history over the construction of national identity has since faded away almost entirely. There is another unrealised drawing of Oslo, from the 1920s, with tall brick buildings like skyscrapers along the main thoroughfare, Karl Johans Gate, and Zeppelins sailing above the city. When I look at these drawings, of a reality that was never realised, and feel the enormous pull they exert, which I am unable to explain, I know that the people living in Kristiania in 1904, as Oslo was called then, would have stared open-mouthed at nearly everything that surrounds us today and which we hardly notice, unable to believe their eyes. What is a stone crypt compared to a telephone that shows living pictures? What is the writing down of Draumkvedet (The Dream Poem), a late-medieval Norwegian visionary ballad, compared to a robot lawnmower that cuts the grass automatically?

He was the leader of the Prophet David’s army,’ said the Sheikh. ‘David had him killed so that he could marry Nebi Uri’s beautiful wife. Two angels, Mikhail and Jibrael, appeared and asked David why he needed an extra wife when he already had ninety-nine others. You know this story?’ ‘Yes. I think we Christians know Nebi Uri as Uriah the Hittite.’ It was an unlikely tangle of tales: a medieval Muslim saint buried in a much older Byzantine tomb tower had somehow been confused with the Biblical and Koranic Uriah; perhaps the saint’s name was Uriah, and over the passage of time his identity had been merged with that of his scriptural namesake. More intriguing still was the fact that in this city, long famed for the shrines of its Christian saints, the Muslim Sufi tradition had directly carried on from where Theodoret’s Christian holy men had left off. Just as the Muslim form of prayer, with its bowings and prostrations, appears to derive from the older Syriac Christian tradition that I had seen performed at Mar Gabriel, and just as the architecture of the earliest minarets unmistakably derives from the square late-antique Syrian church towers, so the roots of Islamic mysticism and Sufism lie with the Byzantine holy men and desert fathers who preceded them across the Near East. Today the West often views Islam as a civilisation very different from and indeed innately hostile to Christianity. Only when you travel in Christianity’s Eastern homelands do you realise how closely the two religions are really linked. For the former grew directly out of the latter and still, to this day, embodies many aspects and practices of the early Christian world now lost in Christianity’s modern Western incarnation. When the early Byzantines were first confronted by the Prophet’s armies, they assumed that Islam was merely a heretical form of Christianity, and in many ways they were not so far wrong: Islam accepts much of the Old and New Testaments, and venerates both Jesus and the ancient Jewish prophets. Certainly if John Moschos were to come back today it is likely that he would find much more that was familiar in the practices of a modern Muslim Sufi than he would with those of, say, a contemporary American Evangelical. Yet this simple truth has been lost by our tendency to think of Christianity as a Western religion rather than the Oriental faith it actually is. Moreover the modern demonisation of Islam in the West, and the recent growth of Muslim fundamentalism (itself in many ways a reaction to the West’s repeated humiliation of the Muslim world), have led to an atmosphere where few are aware of, or indeed wish to be aware of, the profound kinship of Christianity and Islam.

It sounds weird to be grateful for things that don't turn out the way you want them to. But I realised that there were many blessings that I'm grateful for today which I wouldn't have had if I did not have to make a few u-turns and detours along the way.

ARISTOTLE: All humans are mortal. POPULIST: That is a totalitarian statement. ARISTOTLE: Do you not think that all humans are mortal? POPULIST: Are you interrogating me? Just because we are not citizens like you, but people, we are ignorant, is that it? Maybe we are, but we know about real life. ARISTOTLE: That is irrelevant. POPULIST: Of course it’s irrelevant to you. For years you and your kind have ruled this place, saying the people are irrelevant. ARISTOTLE: Please, answer my question. POPULIST: The real people of this country think otherwise. Our response is something that cannot be found on any elite papyrus. ARISTOTLE: (Silence) POPULIST: Prove it. Prove to me that all humans are mortal. ARISTOTLE: (Nervous smile) POPULIST: See? You can’t prove it. (Confident grin, a signature trait that will be exercised constantly to annoy Aristotle.) That’s all right. What we understand from democracy is that all ideas can be represented in the public space, and they are respected equally. The gods say¦ ARISTOTLE: This is not an idea, it’s a fact. And we are talking about mortal humans. POPULIST: If it were left up to you, you’d kill everybody to prove that all humans are mortal, just like your predecessors did. ARISTOTLE: This is not going anywhere. POPULIST: Please finish explaining your thinking, because I have important things to say. ARISTOTLE: (Sigh) All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human … POPULIST: I have to interrupt you there. ARISTOTLE: Excuse me? POPULIST: Well, I have to. These days, thanks to our leader, it is perfectly clear who Socrates is. We know very well who Socrates is! You cannot deceive us any more about that evil guy. ARISTOTLE: Are you joking? POPULIST: This is no joke to us, Mr Aristotle, as it may be to you. Socrates is a fascist. My people have finally realised the truth, the real truth. The worm has turned. You cannot deceive the people any more. You were going to say, “Therefore Socrates is mortal” right? We’re fed up with your lies. ARISTOTLE: You are rejecting the basics of logic. POPULIST: I respect your beliefs. ARISTOTLE: This is not a belief; this is logic. POPULIST: I respect your logic, but you don’t respect mine. That’s the main problem in Greece today.

Some looked anxious, others scared. And some looked angry, baring their teeth in indignant snarls. ‘You coming?’ Jamie called back up, stepping sideways down the slope in a flood of pebbles. Roper bit his lip, his fingers twitching at his sides as he decided. With an annoyed grunt he followed her, the stone dust caking his black Chelsea boots and turning them grey. ‘Times like this I wished we were carrying,’ he muttered as he got near. Jamie wasn’t sure if it was to her or not. Sure, sometimes it would pay to carry a gun. But she didn’t think that going in there armed was going to yield any positive results. If they didn’t like the police before, increasing the likelihood that they were going to have a pistol shoved in their face wasn’t going to do anything for the relationship. ‘Don’t worry,’ Jamie said back as they levelled out onto the bottom of the line, crushing syringes under their feet. ‘If anything goes wrong I’ll protect you.’ He wasn’t amused and strode forward quickly, keen to get in and out as quickly as he could. Jamie didn’t share his blanket dislike for the homeless, but as they drew closer, she realised just how many people were packed into the little oasis under the bridge, and that among those half-hidden faces, peering out from darkened doorways and from under shadowing hoods, there might have been someone who wasn’t afraid to kill.  Someone who might have done it already. And someone who wouldn’t think twice about doing it again. They could be stepping into the front room of a murderer that didn’t feel like getting caught today and would do whatever it took to make sure they didn’t. But as far as she could see, they didn’t really have any other choice.

People are allowed to be screwed up. That's the most efficient realisation I have ever had. That people are allowed to be screwed up, to fall, and to hardly even make it at all. You're allowed that. Redemption is a part of life. You can be a train wreck today and a few months from now be an absolute winner in life. The problem is when you don't allow life to redeem yourself and others. It's a problem when you're severe and fatalistic. Let the river flow whichever way it may go! Let others die and come back to life again! Don't be hammering nails into coffins. Don't hammer nails into your own coffin, either.

I realise that the tale of my traffic with a mountain is as valid today as it was then. That it was a traffic of love is sufficiently clear; but love pursued with fervour is one of the roads to knowledge

Today would have been my son’s fourteenth birthday, and for all these years, this is what I have put my friends through. I have condemned them to a crippling carefulness in order to spare my feelings, and it has taken Hugo’s big mouth to make me realise it. My grief has become an addiction; a bad habit like a tattered comfort blanket that I have hung on to for far too long. It has to stop. I look in the mirror again, and try to see my face as a stranger would see it. It has all the requisite physical components to make it reasonably attractive; green eyes, full but well-shaped lips and a strong, straight nose. But there is no spark or spirit behind those eyes, and there is an expression of ingrained defeat haunting every gaunt contour of that woman’s face. That woman in the mirror is not me. She is the spectre that I have allowed myself to become and I don’t want to be her any more. I want to be the old Masha; the one I pray to God is still hiding inside me somewhere, hanging on by the tips of her fingernails.

Now that Nazism has become 'they', it is easy to distance ourselves from it, but this was not the case when Nazism was 'we'. If we are to understand what happened and how it was possible, we must understand this first. And we must understand too that Nazism in its various elements was not monstrous in itself, by which I mean that it did not arise as something obviously monstrous and evil, separate from all else in the current society, but was on the contrary part of that current. The gas chambers were not a German invention, but were conceived by Americans who realised that people could be put to death by placing them in a chamber infused with posionous gas, a procedure they carried out for the first time in 1919. Paranoid anti-Semitism was not a German phenomenon either, the world's most celebrated and passionate anti-Semite in 1925 being not Adolf Hitler but Henry Ford. And racial biology was not an abject, shameful discipline pursued at the bottom of society or its shabby periphery, it was the scientific state of the art, much as genetics is today, haloed by the light of the future and all its hope. Decent humans distanced themselves from all this, but they were few, and this fact demands our consideration, for who are we going to be when our decency is put to the test? Will we have the courage to speak against what everyone else believes, our friends, neighbours and colleagues, to insist that we are decent and they are not? Great is the power of the we, almost inescapable its bonds, and the only thing we can really do is to hope our we is a good we. Because if evil comes it will not come as 'they', in the guise of the unfamiliar that we might turn away without effort, it will come as 'we'. It will come as what is right.

It was then I saw on the side of the box – a name, a date: ‘Marcus Epstein: Frankfurt, March 2nd 1940’. It was today’s date, a year ago. And, at the bottom, a specific time. 2:10 p.m. ‘Romantic’, Mrs. Henderson had called Queenie’s clocks; but to me, realising what it probably meant, it made my throat thicken with tears. No wonder Mum had understood what a stopped clock might mean. Something must’ve happened to Marcus Epstein that day, at that time. Something terrible that made Queenie’s life stop dead. My brain tried to fill in the gaps. Perhaps Marcus was a Jew. Perhaps this was why she was so set on helping Hewish people, and had such guts when it came to standing up for what was decent. I didn’t know. In many ways it didn’t matter. It was Queenie’s private business. She was the person who’d thrown stones at German aircraft, and yet protected the injured pilot from more harm. She fought for people, that was what Queenie did. Beneath our race, our religion, we were all human beings. We all hurt in the same ways. Upstairs in front of the hall mirror, I could hear her now repinning her hair and fastening her coat. ‘Right, Olive, I’m ready,’ she called down. I went to join her, taking in her smooth, tearless face, the newly tidied hair. You’d never know from looking at her that her heart was still breaking. But that was the awful thing: life did go on, and so did that horrible empty ache you felt when someone wasn’t there any more.

She quickly realised they ranged from the minor and quotidian ('I regret not doing any exercise today') to the substantial ('I regret not telling my father I loved him before he died').