Torn Shoes Quotes

If I did not wear torn pants, orthopedic shoes, frantic disheveled hair, that is to say, if I did not tone down my beauty, people would go mad. Married men would run amuck.

1. Replace upstairs hall bathroom lightbulb. 2. Get online and research Ferragamo shoes, then email someone named Kell to see if he could convert Ferragamos into weapons. 3. Order a replacement coat for the one that was torn. (see closet for coat) Make sure it matches exactly. 4. Wash Cars. 5. Take out trash for Rosa 6. Most important, don't bitch.

War seems like a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. Then they get a taste of battle. For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe. They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now, They take the wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron half helm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the small folk whose land they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad in all steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world. And the man breaks.

Wordlessly, she slipped off her shoes. Gently, she placed a palm on the floor, shifted to stand, but that was when Macey felt another hand pressing down on hers.Hard. Too Hard. "Just what do you think you're doing ?" Hale hissed in her ear. His fingers burned into her skin. And Macey knew if she was going to take out the gunman, she was first going to have to neutralize the boy beside her. "Why don't you let me go and I'll show you," she said with only a modicum of flirt in her voice. "Why don't you put your fancy shoes back on and sit there like a good little girl?" "First of all, I'm good at a lot of things. Taking orders from bored billionaires isn't one of them. Second of all, he's alone, and I can take him," Macey said. "No!" Hale said. "You don't know anything about this guy." "I know he's left handed and has an old injury to his right knee---probably a torn ACL at some point but the details don't matter. And the way he keeps his finger purposefully away from the safety of that gun means he's never fired it. And he doesn't want to." "You're kinda scary.

Come to the jacaranda tree at seven o'clock and you will hear something to your advantage. Destroy this note.' No signature, no clue to the identity. Just what sort of heroine do you think I am? Phryne asked the air. Only a Gothic novel protagonist would receive that and say, 'Goodness, let me just slip into a low-cut white nightie and put on the highest heeled shoes I can find,' and, pausing only to burn the note, slip out of the hotel by a back exit and go forth to meet her doom in the den of the monster - to be rescued in the nick of time by the strong-jawed hero (he of the Byronic profile and the muscles rippling beneath the torn shirt). 'Oh, my dear,' Phryne spoke aloud as if to the letter-writer. 'You don't know a lot about me, do you?

is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less." Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chicken's, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world... "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them...but he should pity them as well

And was it not perhaps more childlike and human to lead a Goldmund-life, more courageous, more noble perhaps in the end to abandon oneself to the cruel stream of reality, to chaos, to commit sins and accept their bitter consequences rather than live a clean life with washed hands outside the world, laying out a lonely harmonious thought-garden, strolling sinlessly among one's sheltered flower beds. Perhaps it was harder, braver and nobler to wander through forests and along the highways with torn shoes, to suffer sun and rain, hunger and need, to play with the joys of the senses and pay for them with suffering. At any rate, Goldmund had shown him that a man destined for high things can dip into the lowest depths of the bloody, drunken chaos of life, and soil himself with much dust and blood, without becoming small and common, without killing the divine spark within himself, that he can err through the thickest darkness without extinguishing the divine light and the creative force inside the shrine of his soul.

Finn stood a few feet from the window, his eyes blazing and his shoulders tense. But when the figure climbed through the window, Finn only scoffed. The kid coming in tripped on the windowsill. He wore skinny jeans and purple shoes with the laces untied. Finn towered over him, looking down at him wearily.

He'd already put a shirt on each leg and had stacked every shoe I owned into a precarious pyramid. The room looked like a small, overly curious tornado had torn it apart. "You have got to be kidding me," I said. "Maybe I should give you to Shamus.

In every house there ought to be an art table on which, one by one, things are placed, so that everybody in that house might look at the things very carefully, and see them.' 'What would you put on a table like that?' 'A leaf. A coin. A button. A stone. A small piece of torn newspaper. An apple. An egg. A pebble. A flower. A dead insect. A shoe.' 'Everybody's seen those things.' 'Of course. But nobody looks at them, and that's what art is. To look at familiar things as if they had never before been seen... A necktie. A pocketknife... a walnut.

I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further — for time is the longest distance between two places. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box. I left Saint Louis. I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father’s footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out! For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura — and so goodbye. . .

In the alley where I last saw Justine, there was no sun. The storefronts displayed carnation bouquets and orthopedic shoes and hearing aids, but in the alley, these same stores were just dark walls, and looking at them was like looking at the back of someone who has turned and walked away from you.

I am torn in two but I will conquer myself. I will dig up the pride. I will take scissors and cut out the beggar. I will take a crowbar and pry out the broken pieces of God in me. Just like a jigsaw puzzle, I will put Him together again with the patience of a chess player. How many pieces? It feels like thousands, God dressed up like a whore in a slime of green algae. God dressed up like an old man staggering out of His shoes. God dressed up like a child, all naked, even without skin, soft as an avocado when you peel it. And others, others, others. But I will conquer them all and build a whole nation of God in me - but united, build a new soul, dress it with skin and then put on my shirt and sing an anthem, a song of myself.

There is a remarkable picture called 'Contemplation.' It shows a forest in winter and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. he stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking: he is "contemplating." If anyone touched him he would start and look bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has hidden within himself, the impression which dominated him during that period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and he probably hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. Or he may suddenly set fire to his native village. Or he may do both.

Every heart has a story to tell. Some dreams have wings, some are torn at the seams and just sit there on the shelf. If you were to walk in my shoes, you would see that we are all the same. So find the love inside yourself because every heart has a story to tell.

That was when Estefania, who had made her pain the world’s pain, stood up, her knees dirty, shaking, her tights torn. She took a distanced look around and then she started tearing her tights even more. She kicked her expensive shoes through the wind, then she ripped off her dress, screaming as if it were burning, her second skin, her role as an actress, her one-woman show, as if she herself were on fire, as if her clothes were drenched in acid and abandoned love.

Little thorn in my soul, pebble in my shoe, jewel of my life, the passionate doll who has torn my heart in two, tell me, cruel beauty that I adore, why you torment me. I have the misfortune of being both poor and without your affection. When the hope of your caresses flowered in my soul, happiness blossomed in my tomorrows. But now that you have yanked my golden dreams from me, I shiver from this chalice of pain like a tender white flower tossed in rain. Return my life to me, and end this absurd pain. If not, Rogelio Velasco will have loved in vain.

...As I lie there in this position, letting my eyes wander down my breast and legs, I notice the twitching motion made by my foot at each beat of my pulse. I sit up halfway and look down at my feet, and at this moment I experience a fantastic, alien state I’d never felt before; a delicate, mysterious thrill spreads through my nerves, as though they were flooded by surges of light. When I looked at my shoes, it was as though I had met a good friend or got back a torn-off part of me: a feeling of recognition trembles through all my sense, tears spring to my eyes, and I perceive my shoes as a softly murmuring tune coming toward me. Weakness! I said harshly to myself, and I clenched my fists and said: Weakness. I mocked myself for these ridiculous feelings, made fun of myself quite consciously; I spoke very sternly and reasonably, and I fiercely squeezed my eyes shut to get rid of my tears. Then I begin, as though I’d never seen my shoes before, to study their appearance, their mimicry when I move my feet, their shape and the worn uppers, and I discover that their wrinkles and their white seams give them an expression, lend them a physiognomy. Something of my own nature had entered into these shoes --- they affected me like a breath upon my being, a living, a breathing part of me…

It soothed me to imagine a cavernous space inside the earth where missing or lost valuables—the cracked teapots, broken dolls, torn photos, bronzed baby shoes, dead turtles—made their habitation, a place where all our losses came to rest. I was not sure the dead lived among these things, but I was perfectly willing to suppose that they did or that they at least stopped in, as if visiting a ghostly pawnshop, to retrieve what had once, through

If I tell you that Mrs. Robbins had bad teeth and looked like a horse, you will laugh at me as a cliché-monger; yet it is the truth. I can do nothing with the teeth; but let me tell you that she looked like a French horse, a dark, Mediterranean, market-type horse that has all its life begrudged to the poor the adhesive-tape on a torn five-franc note - that has tiptoed (to save its shoes) for centuries along that razor-edge where Greed and Caution meet.

The sparkling smile became enormous. ‘Do you think she has a dagger there? Do you? Ask her, M. Francis? For,’ said the most noble and most powerful Princess Mary Stewart, Queen of Scotland, delving furiously under all the stiff red velvet, showing shift, hose and garters, shoes, knees and a long ribboned end of something recently torn loose, and emerging therefrom with a fist closed tight on an object short and hard and glittering, ‘for I have!’ And breathlessly, flinging back her head, with the little knife offered like a quill, ‘Try to stab me!’ she encouraged her visitor. There was a queer silence, during which the eyes of Oonagh O’Dwyer and her love of one night met and locked like magnet and iron. The child, waiting a moment, offered again, the ringing, joyful defiance still in her voice. ‘Try to stab me! … Go on, and I’ll kill you all dead!’ Her throat dry, Oonagh spoke. ‘Save your steel for those you trust. They are the ones who will carry your bier; the men who cannot hate, nor can they know love. Send away the cold servants.’ The red mouth had opened a little; the knife hung forgotten in her hand. ‘I would,’ said Mary, surprised. ‘But I do not know any.’ And, anxiously demonstrating her point, she caught Lymond by the hand.

In The Garret Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg' on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life-- Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo' on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Half-writ poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain-- 'Be worthy, love, and love will come,' In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine-- The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy' in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spirit-stirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain

We pass the apartment we rented five years ago, when I swore off Florence. In summer, wads of tourists clog the city as if it's a Renaissance theme park. Everyone seems to be eating. That year, a garbage strike persisted for over a week and I began to have thoughts of plague when I passed heaps of rot spilling out of bins. I was amazed that long July when waiters and shopkeepers remained as nice as they did, given what they had to put up with. Everywhere I stepped I was in the way. Humanity seemed ugly—the international young in torn T-shirts and backpacks lounging on steps, bewildered bus tourists dropping ice cream napkins in the street and asking, “How much is that in dollars?” Germans in too-short shorts letting their children terrorize restaurants. The English mother and daughter ordering lasagne verdi and Coke, then complaining because the spinach pasta was green. My own reflection in the window, carrying home all my shoe purchases, the sundress not so flattering. Bad wonderland. Henry James in Florence referred to “one's detested fellow-pilgrim.” Yes, indeed, and it's definitely time to leave when one's own reflection is included. Sad that our century has added no glory to Florence—only mobs and lead hanging in the air.

I've thought of myself a girl on several occasions because I like to polish shoes and find household tasks amusing. There was once even a time when I insisted on mending a torn suit with my own hands. And in winter I always light the heating stoves myself, as though this were the natural course of things. But of course I'm not a real girl. Please give me a moment to consider all this would entail. The first thing that comes to mind is the question of whether I might possibly be a girl has never, never, not for a single moment, troubled me, rattled my bourgeois composure or made me unhappy. An absolutely by no means unhappy person stands before you, I'd like to put quite special emphasis on this, for I have never experienced sexual torment or distress, for I was never at a loss for quite simple methods of freeing myself from pressures. A rather curious, that is to say, important discovery for me was that it filled me with the most delightful gaiety to imagine myself someone's servant.... My nature, then, merely inclines me to treat people well, to be helpful and so forth. Not long ago I carried with flabbergasting zeal a shopping bag full of new potatoes for a petit bourgeoise. She's have been perfectly able to tote it herself. Now my situation is this: my particular nature also sometimes seeks, I've discovered, a mother, a teacher, that is, to express myself better, an unapproachable entity, a sort of goddess. At times I find the goddess in an instant, whereas at others it takes time before I'm able to imagine her, that is, find her bright, bountiful figure and sense her power. And to achieve a moment of human happiness, I must always first think up a story containing an encounter between myself and another person, whereby I am always the subordinate, obedient, sacrificing, scrutinized, and chaperoned party. There's more to it, of course, quite a lot, but this still sheds light on a few things. Many conclude it must be terribly easy to carry out a course of treatment, as it were, upon my person, but they're all gravely mistaken. For, the moment anyone seems ready to start lording and lecturing it over me, something within me begins to laugh, to jeer, and then, of course, respect is out of the question, and within the apparently worthless individual arises a superior one whom I never expel when he appears in me....

I remember a personal experience. Almost in tears from pain (I had terrible sores on my feet from wearing torn shoes), I limped a few kilometers with our long column of men from the camp to our work site. Very cold, bitter winds struck us. I kept thinking of the endless little problems of our miserable life. What would there be to eat tonight? If a piece of sausage came as extra ration, should I exchange it for a piece of bread? Should I trade my last cigarette, which was left from a bonus I received a fortnight ago, for a bowl of soup? How could I get a piece of wire to replace the fragment which served as one of my shoelaces? Would I get to our work site in time to join my usual working party or would I have to join another, which might have a brutal foreman? What could I do to get on good terms with the Capo, who could help me to obtain work in camp instead of undertaking this horribly long daily march? I became disgusted with the state of affairs which compelled me, daily and hourly, to think of only such trivial things. I forced my thoughts to turn to another subject. Suddenly I saw myself standing on the platform of a well-lit, warm and pleasant lecture room. In front of me sat an attentive audience on comfortable upholstered seats. I was giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp! All that oppressed me at that moment became objective, seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science. By this method I succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were already of the past. Both I and my troubles became the object of an interesting psychoscientific study undertaken by myself. What does Spinoza say in his Ethics? —“Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam.” Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.

Elizabeth stood in a model pose, whip thin, with a face beside which the faces of angels are coarse and unappealing, in clothes of rags needing to be hauled off and burned, yet somehow arranged into punk couture. Her black pageboy haircut peeked from under a cloche that appeared to have survived the Crash of ’29. She wore a torn black leotard under a skirt of gossamer net, and the exact shoes Boris Karloff had worn in Frankenstein. Two large lean hounds, one black, one black and white, sported, lunged, and whirled around her. Dave inhaled sharply, in both love and despair.

That’s one of the harsh realities I learned early on about the modeling industry: ultimately, your body doesn’t really belong to you. It belongs to the client. Since they’re paying, they figure they can do pretty much whatever they want to you. They can curl your hair, straighten it, dye it, cut it –even shave it. I’ve seen hair extensions being pulled out by the roots and smoke billowing out of flat irons while the hair inside gets singed and fried. I’ve watched models squeeze their feet into shoes so small their feet literally bled, and I’ve seen false eyelashes torn off so quickly that the natural lashes came off with them. Modeling may look glamorous on the outside, but believe me, beauty can be an ugly business.

When I was an aspiring female poet, in the late 1950s, the notion of required sacrifice was simply accepted. The same was true for any sort of career for a woman, but Art was worse, because the sacrifice required was more complete. You couldn't be a wife and mother and also an artist, because each one of these things required total dedication. As nine-year-olds we'd all been trotted off to see the film The Red Shoes as a birthday-party treat: we remembered Moira Shearer, torn between Art and love, squashing herself under a train. Love and marriage pulled one way, Art another, and Art was a kind of demonic possession. Art would dance you to death. It would move in and take you over, and then destroy you. Or it would destroy you as an ordinary woman.

What is stealing?When is it excusable? When is it a crime?' Thomas looked uncomfortable as he read. Christian perked up. Belle saw Christian listening with interest and looked down at her shoes. 'An action becomes stealing when one of two conditions are met. First, when there is harm to the victim. Second, when the act is done for personal gain.' Thomas looked up and smiled. He seemed happy with where the speech was going, and Belle breathed a sigh of relief. Christian's face had gone white. He stood frozen in his spot. Belle smiled as if to say that things were different with him. That stealing was different in their world. She was torn between excitement for Thomas and embarasment for Christian. 'If both these criteria are met, there is no question where society stands. When of two criteria is in question, society begins to debate. For example, is it wrong when someone takes something that has been thrown away? Perhaps not, since there is no detriment to the victim. Is it wrong when someone takes a loaf of bread to feed a starving baby or taxes the rich to help the poor? Perhaps not, since the motive is unselfish.' Victoria wasn't even looking at Thomas anymore. She was glaring at Belle. She looked like she was about to lunge at her. Belle signaled to her that perhaps she should take notes. But Victoria wasn't used to preparing rebuttals without advanced notice. 'When neither of the criteria is met, however, I propose that there is no crime against ethics. Is it wrong to take a syringe from a drug addict? Of course not.

Chicken Roast Puff your plume in anger and fight, cock, delight the owner of knife smear sting with pollen and flap your wings As I said: Twist the arms and keep them bent roll the rug and come down the terrace after disturbed sleep Shoeboots-rifle-whirring bullets-shrieks The aged undertrial in the next cell weeps and wants to go home Liberate me let me go let me go home On its egg in the throne the gallinule doses asphyxiate in dark fight back, cock, die and fight, shout with the dumb Glass splinters on tongue-breast muscles quiver Fishes open their gills and enfog water A piece of finger wrapped in pink paper With eyes covered someone wails in the jailhouse I can't make out if man or woman Keep this eyelash on lefthand palm- and blow off with your breath Fan out snake-hood in mist Cobra's abdomen shivers in the hiss of female urination Deport to crematorium stuffing blood-oozing nose in cottonwool Shoes brickbats and torn pantaloons enlitter the streets I smear my feet with the wave picked up from a stormy sea That is the alphabet I drew on for letters. (Translation of Bengali original 'Murgir Roast')

When it begins it is like a light in a tunnel, a rush of steel and steam across a torn up life. It is a low rumble, an earthquake in the back of the mind. My spine is a track with cold black steel racing on it, a trail of steam and dust following behind, ghost like. It feels like my whole life is holding its breath. By the time she leaves the room I am surprised that she can’t see the train. It has jumped the track of my spine and landed in my mothers’ living room. A cold dark thing, black steel and redwood paneling. It is the old type, from the western movies I loved as a kid. He throws open the doors to the outside world, to the dark ocean. I feel a breeze tugging at me, a slender finger of wind that catches at my shirt. Pulling. Grabbing. I can feel the panic build in me, the need to scream or cry rising in my throat. And then I am out the door, running, tumbling down the steps falling out into the darkened world, falling out into the lifeless ocean. Out into the blackness. Out among the stars and shadows. And underneath my skin, in the back of my head and down the back of my spine I can feel the desperation and I can feel the noise. I can feel the deep and ancient ache of loudness that litters across my bones. It’s like an old lover, comfortable and well known, but unwelcome and inappropriate with her stories of our frolicking. And then she’s gone and the Conductor is closing the door. The darkness swells around us, enveloping us in a cocoon, pressing flat against the train like a storm. I wonder, what is this place? Those had been heady days, full and intense. It’s funny. I remember the problems, the confusions and the fears of life we all dealt with. But, that all seems to fade. It all seems to be replaced by images of the days when it was all just okay. We all had plans back then, patterns in which we expected the world to fit, how it was to be deciphered. Eventually you just can’t carry yourself any longer, can’t keep your eyelids open, and can’t focus on anything but the flickering light of the stars. Hours pass, at first slowly like a river and then all in a rush, a climax and I am home in the dorm, waking up to the ringing of the telephone. When she is gone the apartment is silent, empty, almost like a person sleeping, waiting to wake up. When she is gone, and I am alone, I curl up on the bed, wait for the house to eject me from its dying corpse. Crazy thoughts cross through my head, like slants of light in an attic. The Boston 395 rocks a bit, a creaking noise spilling in from the undercarriage. I have decided that whatever this place is, all these noises, sensations - all the train-ness of this place - is a fabrication. It lulls you into a sense of security, allows you to feel as if it’s a familiar place. But whatever it is, it’s not a train, or at least not just a train. The air, heightened, tense against the glass. I can hear the squeak of shoes on linoleum, I can hear the soft rattle of a dying man’s breathing. Men in white uniforms, sharp pressed lines, run past, rolling gurneys down florescent hallways.

...and the handsome jester, Devil’s Gold, is shaking his bead-covered rattle, making medicine and calling us by name. We are so tired from our long walk that we cannot but admire his gilded face and his yellow magic blanket. And, holding each other’s hands like lovers, we stoop and admire ourselves in the golden pool that flickers in the great campfire he has impudently built at the crossing of two streets in Heaven. But we do not step into the pool as beforetime. Our boat is beside us, it has overtaken us like some faithful tame giant swan, and Avanel whispers: “Take us where The Golden Book was written.” And thus we are up and away. The boat carries us deeper, down the valley. We find the cell of Hunter Kelly,— . St. Scribe of the Shrines. Only his handiwork remains to testify of him. Upon the walls of his cell he has painted many an illumination he afterward painted on The Golden Book margins and, in a loose pile of old torn and unbound pages, the first draft of many a familiar text is to be found. His dried paint jars are there and his ink and on the wall hangs the empty leather sack of Johnny Appleseed, from which came the first sowing of all the Amaranths of our little city, and the Amaranth that led us here. And Avanel whispers:—“I ask my heart: —Where is Hunter Kelly, and my heart speaks to me as though commanded: ‘The Hunter is again pioneering for our little city in the little earth. He is reborn as the humblest acolyte of the Cathedral, a child that sings tonight with the star chimes, a red-cheeked boy, who shoes horses at the old forge of the Iron Gentleman. Let us also return’.” It is eight o’clock in the evening, at Fifth and Monroe. It is Saturday night, and the crowd is pouring toward The Majestic, and Chatterton’s, and The Vaudette, and The Princess and The Gaiety. It is a lovely, starry evening, in the spring. The newsboys are bawling away, and I buy an Illinois State Register. It is dated March 1, 1920. Avanel of Springfield is one hundred years away. The Register has much news of a passing nature. I am the most interested in the weather report, that tomorrow will be fair. THE END - Written in Washington Park Pavilion, Springfield, Illinois.

APRIL 6 Don’t be discouraged at the spiritual war you’re called to fight every day. The Lord almighty is with you and wars on your behalf. Between the “already” and the “not yet,” life is war. It can be exhausting, frustrating, and discouraging. We all go through moments when we wish life could just be easier. We wonder why parenting has to be such a continual spiritual battle. We all wish our marriages could be free of war. We all would love it if there were no conflicts at our jobs or in our churches. But we all wake up to a war-torn world every day. It is the sad legacy of a world that has been broken by sin and is constantly under the attack of the enemy. The way the apostle Paul ends his letter to the Ephesian church is interesting and instructive. Having laid out the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ and having detailed their implications for our street-level living, he ends by talking about spiritual warfare: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Eph. 6:10–20) When you get to this final part of Paul’s letter, it’s tempting to think that he has entirely changed the subject. No longer, it seems, is he talking about everyday Christianity. But that’s exactly what he’s talking about. He is saying to the Ephesian believers, “You know all that I’ve said about marriage, parenting, communication, anger, the church, and so on—it’s all one big spiritual war.” Paul is reminding you that at street level, practical, daily Christianity is war. There really is moral right and wrong. There really is an enemy. There really is seductive and deceptive temptation. You really are spiritually vulnerable. But he says more. He reminds you that by grace you have been properly armed for the battle. The question is, will you use the implements of battle that the cross of Jesus Christ has provided for you?

Long ago there was a little boy who lived in the wood with his father and his sister. One night, the three of them were out collecting firewood when they heard a low, delicate whimper. The father realised it was an injured animal and ordered the children to fetch water from the lake, whilst he followed the sound. Hours past but the father did not return. The children became fearful for their father’s safety and in their moment of fright, they disobeyed their father in order to find him. And find him they did. However, he was no longer the man he once was. Both his eyes were slit through their centre, oozing blood down the paleness of his face. His neck had been torn open. The entirety of his midsection was split but nothing, not one, single organ, seemed to be left within. Each limb still remained, however they had been dragged, with some exceptional force, in the opposite direction to which they were designed. The children screamed and ran, though the image of their father’s mangled corpse seemed to chase after them. They slept. Within the whisper of the wind came the sweet tune of a woman’s song. The little girl awoke to the feeling of happiness, security and motherly love that the song carried with it. She needed to find the woman it had come from. Leaving her brother, she took off into the wood to try and find the singer. The little boy quickly entered into a spit of panic when he found his sister missing. He didn’t know whether he should call out for her, look for her or wait. But waiting could mean the worst, he thought, and so he took off into the woods after her. He had searched everywhere, every dark corner and decrepit tree, before reaching the lake. The moon reflected off its black surface, which drew his attention to something bobbing within the ripples. It was a leg. When he caught sight of the foot, the boy fell to his knees. He recognised the shoe. It was his sister’s shoe; his sister’s leg. Soon enough, the other body parts came drifting to join the leg, forming a rough manifestation of what was once his sister’s living body. Firstly, there was a head facing down in the water, then arms seemingly blue under the moonlight, and lastly a torso coated in her favourite dress. He felt sick, lost, terrified to his very core. Just as thoughts of never being whole again began to pain his chest, the boy heard the snapping of a twig behind him. He dared to turn around but all he found was a small, black-furred wolf. The wolf approached him timidly, whining deep in its throat to say to the boy that he too was lonely and afraid. The boy put out his hand for the wolf to join him and they sat together. Perhaps he would be OK. Perhaps all that had happened had led to this; something new. He rustled the fur of his new friend, starting with its back then its ear before going under its snout. His hand touched something wet and sticky. He drew it from the wolf to get a better look, only to find a crimson substance now clinging to his small hands. Blood. The wolf turned on the boy as its eyes became a pale blue before thwack! He tore the boy’s face from his head…

The seventh day, and no wind—the burning sun Blister’d and scorch’d, and, stagnant on the sea, They lay like carcasses; and hope was none, Save in the breeze that came not; savagely They glared upon each other—all was done, Water, and wine, and food,—and you might see The longings of the cannibal arise (Although they spoke not) in their wolfish eyes. At length one whisper’d his companion, who Whisper’d another, and thus it went round, And then into a hoarser murmur grew, An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound; And when his comrade’s thought each sufferer knew, ’Twas but his own, suppress’d till now, he found: And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood, And who should die to be his fellow’s food. But ere they came to this, they that day shared Some leathern caps, and what remain’d of shoes; And then they look’d around them and despair’d, And none to be the sacrifice would choose; At length the lots were torn up, and prepared, But of materials that much shock the Muse— Having no paper, for the want of better, They took by force from Juan Julia’s letter. The lots were made, and mark’d, and mix’d, and handed, In silent horror, and their distribution Lull’d even the savage hunger which demanded, Like the Promethean vulture, this pollution; None in particular had sought or plann’d it, ’Twas nature gnaw’d them to this resolution, By which none were permitted to be neuter— And the lot fell on Juan’s luckless tutor. He but requested to be bled to death: The surgeon had his instruments, and bled Pedrillo, and so gently ebb’d his breath, You hardly could perceive when he was dead. He died as born, a Catholic in faith, Like most in the belief in which they’re bred, And first a little crucifix he kiss’d, And then held out his jugular and wrist. The surgeon, as there was no other fee, Had his first choice of morsels for his pains; But being thirstiest at the moment, he Preferr’d a draught from the fast-flowing veins: Part was divided, part thrown in the sea, And such things as the entrails and the brains Regaled two sharks, who follow’d o’er the billow The sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo. The sailors ate him, all save three or four, Who were not quite so fond of animal food; To these was added Juan, who, before Refusing his own spaniel, hardly could Feel now his appetite increased much more; ’Twas not to be expected that he should, Even in extremity of their disaster, Dine with them on his pastor and his master. ’Twas better that he did not; for, in fact, The consequence was awful in the extreme; For they, who were most ravenous in the act, Went raging mad—Lord! how they did blaspheme! And foam and roll, with strange convulsions rack’d, Drinking salt water like a mountain-stream, Tearing, and grinning, howling, screeching, swearing, And, with hyaena-laughter, died despairing. Their numbers were much thinn’d by this infliction, And all the rest were thin enough, Heaven knows; And some of them had lost their recollection, Happier than they who still perceived their woes; But others ponder’d on a new dissection, As if not warn’d sufficiently by those Who had already perish’d, suffering madly, For having used their appetites so sadly. And if Pedrillo’s fate should shocking be, Remember Ugolino condescends To eat the head of his arch-enemy The moment after he politely ends His tale: if foes be food in hell, at sea ’Tis surely fair to dine upon our friends, When shipwreck’s short allowance grows too scanty, Without being much more horrible than Dante.

A grey-suited figure with badly-scuffed shoes was squatted over a woman’s body, obscuring her face and upper torso. A loose, white dress; torn, now mostly red. A pattern of rose petals, drenched in blood. One of her sandals was missing, scarlet streaks and spatters on her jade-green polished toenails and pale, slender ankles. Another step took him around the hunched and twitching figure. It ignored him, intent on its work. Then its victim came fully into view … and he saw her ruined face.

grabbed his shoes, and left the hut without his coat.*

Opening her eyes, Eva placed her palm in the center of William's chest. "You're next." With her wee push, he obliged her and sat on the edge of the bed. Kneeling, she untied his shoes and removed his hose. When she stood, William had already untied the lace of the arming doublet he wore atop his shirt. Eva held up her finger. "Tsk, tsk. You don't want to spoil my fun do you?" He shrugged out of the doublet with a look of defiance. "It canna hurt to help a bit." "Come here." She pulled him up by the cord of his chausses. Fingers working quickly, she untied them and his braies, and let them drop to the floor. Then, with a sultry giggle, she slowly tugged the tie on his linen shirt, staring at his eyes while she tortured him, pulling oh so very slowly. "This bit of linen is all that's left between us, William." He growled though straight white teeth. "And it will be torn to shreds if ye dunna haste to rip it from my torrid flesh.

. . .a peal of laughter sounded from within the room where the firelight was. . . .it was a boy’s laughter, and the joy of it called to the unhappy Marianne as nothing in her life had ever called to her before. He was standing on the hearthrug as a lord of creation should, his legs straddling arrogantly, his arms above his head as he stretched himself, his laughter caught up upon a prodigious yawn. He was broad-shouldered, strong, yet possessed of an elegance that was strangely mature, taller than she was but much younger. . .the brilliance of it was entangled in the wildly untidy shock of red-gold curly hair and there seemed sparks in his tawny eyes. His face was round and ruddy, with freckles on the nose, but finely featured. He had full red lips and a deep cleft in his chin, and he showed a great deal of pink tongue as he yawned. His coat and waistcoat of vivid emerald green cloth were stained with seawater and torn linings protruded from the pockets. His white cravat was soiled, the straps that should have fastened his long peg-top trousers beneath his instep had snapped, so that they coiled round his legs like delirious green snakes, and his shoes needed a polish. Never was a male so much in need of female attention or so blissfully unaware of his need. . . .she stood with her back against the door, stiff and ungainly, staring at him with great dark eyes that seemed to devour his face with the intensity of her gaze, and she could not move or speak because her heart was beating so madly that it made her feel sick and faint. Her figure might have delayed to plump itself out into the womanly roundness proper to her age, but her heart did not delay to claim this male creature for her own. She was in love, in love at sixteen, desperately in love, as Juliet was, and with a boy who for all his height and strength and maturity was only a child of thirteen years. It was absurd. But then Marianne was never at any time in the least like other girls.

I have a twitch sometimes. I keep my left eye open in my sleep. That hole in the bathroom door was not me. The scar on my forearm, an accident. Burst vessel in my eye, the blackened palms, tire marks on I-25—not me. The patch of scalp, doorknob through a bedroom wall, knife wound across the cabinet’s face, the sixth time we replaced a set of wine glasses, TV hurled like a dodge ball, the cell phone torn in half—I am not crazy, this is just Thursday. I live alone, pay rent and taxes. I cook and fold laundry. There are no monsters here, I don’t see ghosts. I did not sleep with a razor in my teeth last night. I do not keep count of my 16-year pill collection. Haven’t had a drink in 43 hours. I have four alarm clocks and too many shoes. This morning, I ripped open a tin can with my own hands, cursed a man at the bagel cart. One time, I said, Ma, calm down, and she slapped me so hard I forgot her name.

Dear Prudence, I’m sitting in this dusty tent, trying to think of something eloquent to write. I’m at wit’s end. You deserve beautiful words, but all I have left are these: I think of you constantly. I think of this letter in your hand and the scent of perfume on your wrist. I want silence and clear air, and a bed with a soft white pillow… Beatrix felt her eyebrows lifting, and a quick rise of heat beneath the high collar of her dress. She paused and glanced at Prudence. “You find this boring?” she asked mildly, while her blush spread like spilled wine on linen. “The beginning is the only good part,” Prudence said. “Go on.” …Two days ago in our march down the coast to Sebastopol, we fought the Russians at the Alma River. I’m told it was a victory for our side. It doesn’t feel like one. We’ve lost at least two thirds of our regiment’s officers, and a quarter of the noncommissioned men. Yesterday we dug graves. They call the final tally of dead and wounded the “butcher’s bill.” Three hundred and sixty British dead so far, and more as soldiers succumb to their wounds. One of the fallen, Captain Brighton, brought a rough terrier named Albert, who is undoubtedly the most badly behaved canine in existence. After Brighton was lowered into the ground, the dog sat by his grave and whined for hours, and tried to bite anyone who came near. I made the mistake of offering him a portion of a biscuit, and now the benighted creature follows me everywhere. At this moment he is sitting in my tent, staring at me with half-crazed eyes. The whining rarely stops. Whenever I get near, he tries to sink his teeth into my arm. I want to shoot him, but I’m too tired of killing. Families are grieving for the lives I’ve taken. Sons, brothers, fathers. I’ve earned a place in hell for the things I’ve done, and the war’s barely started. I’m changing, and not for the better. The man you knew is gone for good, and I fear you may not like his replacement nearly so well. The smell of death, Pru…it’s everywhere. The battlefield is strewn with pieces of bodies, clothes, soles of boots. Imagine an explosion that could tear the soles from your shoes. They say that after a battle, wildflowers are more abundant the next season--the ground is so churned and torn, it gives the new seeds room to take root. I want to grieve, but there is no place for it. No time. I have to put the feelings away somewhere. Is there still some peaceful place in the world? Please write to me. Tell me about some bit of needlework you’re working on, or your favorite song. Is it raining in Stony Cross? Have the leaves begun to change color? Yours, Christopher Phelan

driveway, her hip scraping as she tumbled, her skin torn and bleeding. She knew she should have worn trousers. The world rocked to a stop, balanced itself out and she opened her eyes. The Infected were standing looking at her, and Dusk strode through them, his eyes narrowed and his lips curled in hatred. And then Valkyrie was up and running. She was sore, she felt blood on her legs and arms, but she ignored the pain. She looked back, saw the mass of Infected surge after her. She passed the club gates and took the first road to her left, losing a shoe in the process and cursing herself for not wearing boots. It was narrow, and dark, with fields on one side and a row of back gardens on the other. She came to a junction. Up one way she could see headlights, so she turned down the other, leading the Infected away from any bystanders. She darted in off the road, running behind the Pizza Palace and the video store, realising her mistake when she heard the voices around the next corner. The pub had a back door that smokers used. She veered off to her right, ran for the garden wall and leaped over it. She stayed low, and wondered for a moment if she’d managed to lose the Infected so easily. Dusk dropped on to her from above and she cried out. He sent her reeling. “I’m not following the rules any more,” he said. She looked at him, saw him shaking. He took a syringe from his coat and let it drop. “No more rules. No more serum. This time, there’ll be nothing to stop me tearing you limb from limb.” He grunted as the pain hit. “I’m sorry I cut you,” Valkyrie tried, backing away. “Too late. You can run if you want. Adrenaline makes the blood taste sweeter.” He smiled and she saw the fangs start to protrude through his gums. He brought his hands to his shirt, and then, like Superman, he ripped the shirt open. Unlike Superman, however, he took his flesh with it, revealing the chalk-white skin of the creature underneath. Valkyrie darted towards him and his eyes widened in surprise. She dived, snatched the syringe from the ground and plunged it into his leg. Dusk roared, kicked her on to her back, his transformation interrupted. He tried to rip off the rest of his humanity, but his human skin tore at the neck. This wasn’t the smooth shucking she’d seen the previous night. This was messy and painful. Valkyrie scrambled up. The Infected had heard Dusk’s anguished cries, and they were closing in. he Edgley family reunion was taking up the main function hall, at the front of the building, leaving the rear of the golf club in darkness. That was probably a good thing, Tanith reflected, as she watched Skulduggery fly backwards through the air. The Torment-spider turned to her and she dodged a slash from one of his talons. She turned and ran, but he was much faster. Tanith jumped for the side of the building and ran upwards, a ploy that had got her out of a lot of trouble in the past, but then, she had never faced a giant spider before. His talons clacked as he followed her up, chattering as he came.

Empathy: “Let me hold the door for you. I may have never walked in your shoes, but I can see your soles are worn, your strength is torn under the weight of a story I have never lived before. Let me hold the door for you. After all you've walked through, It's the least I can do.

Then I heard a long, loud ripping sound. It reminded me of a Velcro shoe being torn open. My heart skipped a beat as I moved closer to the shrubs. I heard a moan, soft and weak. And then I stopped when I heard the chewing. The crack of bone breaking. Loud chewing … chewing … chewing … I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to see what was on the other side of the shrub. With a pounding heart, I moved around the bushes, looked down at the ground—and opened my mouth in an endless scream. A deer was sprawled on its side in the tall grass. Its head had been torn off. The head sat straight up a few feet from the body. One eye stared blankly at me. The other eye had been yanked out. The body had been clawed apart. Pale white bones and bright red meat poked out through the torn fur. A swarm of flies already buzzed around the opening.

Eyes of the Cat I wrote this little story for the schoolgirl who said my stories weren’t scary enough. Her comment was ‘Not bad’, and she gave me seven out of ten. Her eyes seemed flecked with gold when the sun was on them. And as the sun set over the mountains, drawing a deep red wound across the sky, there was more than gold in Kiran’s eyes. There was anger; for she had been cut to the quick by some remarks her teacher had made—the culmination of weeks of insults and taunts. Kiran was poorer than most of the girls in her class and could not afford the tuitions that had become almost obligatory if one was to pass and be promoted. ‘You’ll have to spend another year in the ninth,’ said Madam. ‘And if you don’t like that, you can find another school—a school where it won’t matter if your blouse is torn and your tunic is old and your shoes are falling apart.’ Madam had shown her large teeth in what was supposed to be a good-natured smile, and all the girls had tittered dutifully. Sycophancy had become part of the curriculum in Madam’s private academy for girls. On the way home in the gathering gloom, Kiran’s two companions commiserated with her. ‘She’s a mean old thing,’ said Aarti. ‘She doesn’t care for anyone but herself.’ ‘Her laugh reminds me of a donkey braying,’ said Sunita, who was more forthright. But Kiran wasn’t really listening. Her eyes were fixed on some point in the far distance, where the pines stood in silhouette against a night sky that was growing brighter every moment. The moon was rising, a full moon, a moon that meant something very special to Kiran, that made her blood tingle and her skin prickle and her hair glow and send out sparks. Her steps seemed to grow lighter, her limbs more sinewy as she moved gracefully, softly over the mountain path. Abruptly she left her companions at a fork in the road. ‘I’m taking the short cut through the forest,’ she said. Her friends were used to her sudden whims.

Game of Thrones - Feast for Crows. “Ser? My lady?" said Podrick. "Is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less," Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . . "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well.

answered, pulling on his overcoat. All the loneliness of the evening seemed to descend upon her at once then and she said with the suggestion of a whine in her voice, ‘Why don’t you take me with you some Saturday?’ ‘You?’ he said. ‘Take you? D’you think you’re fit to take anywhere? Look at yersen! An’ when I think of you as you used to be!’ She looked away. The abuse had little sting now. She could think of him too, as he used to be; but she did not do that too often now, for such memories had the power of evoking a misery which was stronger than the inertia that, over the years, had become her only defence. ‘What time will you be back?’ ‘Expect me when you see me,’ he said at the door. ‘Is’ll want a bite o’ supper, I expect.’ Expect him at whatever time his tipsy legs brought him home, she thought. If he lost he would drink to console himself. If he won he would drink to celebrate. Either way there was nothing in it for her but yet more ill temper, yet further abuse. She got up a few minutes after he had gone and went to the back door to look out. It was snowing again and the clean, gentle fall softened the stark and ugly outlines of the decaying outhouses on the patch of land behind the house and gently obliterated Scurridge’s footprints where they led away from the door, down the slope to the wood, through which ran a path to the main road, a mile distant. She shivered as the cold air touched her, and returned indoors, beginning, despite herself, to remember. Once the sheds had been sound and strong and housed poultry. The garden had flourished too, supplying them with sufficient vegetables for their own needs and some left to sell. Now it was overgrown with rampant grass and dock. And the house itself – they had bought it for a song because it was old and really too big for one woman to manage; but it too had been strong and sound and it had looked well under regular coats of paint and with the walls pointed and the windows properly hung. In the early days, seeing it all begin to slip from her grasp, she had tried to keep it going herself. But it was a thankless, hopeless struggle without support from Scurridge: a struggle which had beaten her in the end, driving her first into frustration and then finally apathy. Now everything was mouldering and dilapidated and its gradual decay was like a symbol of her own decline from the hopeful young wife and mother into the tired old woman she was now. Listlessly she washed up and put away the teapots. Then she took the coal-bucket from the hearth and went down into the dripping, dungeon-like darkness of the huge cellar. There she filled the bucket and lugged it back up the steps. Mending the fire, piling it high with the wet gleaming lumps of coal, she drew some comfort from the fact that this at least, with Scurridge’s miner’s allocation, was one thing of which they were never short. This job done, she switched on the battery-fed wireless set and stretched out her feet in their torn canvas shoes to the blaze. They were broadcasting a programme of old-time dance music: the Lancers, the Barn Dance, the Veleta. You are my honey-honey-suckle, I am the bee… Both she and

I slumped in my seat, pierced by sunlight magnified by the windshield glass.  What was I fighting?  Everything.  I was fighting where I was, who I was, where I was going.  I’ll be here now, I thought.  I’ll be here, not moving, going nowhere in gridlock on the Santa Monica Freeway.  My heartbeat slowed, my muscles relaxed, and my mind, which had been working hard to be elsewhere, focused on where I was, alongside accumulated debris piled against the concrete barrier: a pair of torn trousers, a doll without a head, and a single sneaker that had lost its laces.  The shoe had been run over until it was tire-black. I got out of the Jeep and picked up the shoe.  It was just a running shoe, but I held it tenderly, examining it in one hand and then turning it over to examine it in the other.  I felt every wound as car after car had run over it, crushing its beauty, rending it into a vague semblance of charcoal canvas.

For the rest of their days, they'd remember the sight of her: the soles of her feet pressing into the earth, the triumphant curve of her back, the set of her shoulders. She vanished into the wheat, and she left them behind with nothing more than a torn telegram, a pair of old dancing shoes, and a hearth full of teeth.

sleepy toddlers back to their own beds, they write thank-you notes and dispose of the torn envelopes of read mail, they put their shoes away, they nail down plans and don’t parent from the couch, they read school emails and listen to voice mails and make dinners and rinse out Keurig machines and remember to use sunflower seed butter and that gymnastics is on Tuesdays and that next week the nanny has off and that this week is a nephew’s graduation. Do you have it? Very good. Now take a deep breath in, exhale. That’s right. Deeper now. Just relax and imagine.

There is a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy, called “Contemplation.” There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he is “contemplating.” If any one touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many “contemplatives” among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why.

There is a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy, called “Contemplation.” There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he is “contemplating.” If any one touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many “contemplatives” among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why.

There is a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy, called “Contemplation.” There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he is “contemplating.” If any one touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many “contemplatives” among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why

There is a remarkable picture called Contemplation. It shows a forest in winter and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking: he is “contemplating.” If anyone touched him he would start and look bewildered. In time he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has hidden within himself, the impression which dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and he probably hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. Or he may suddenly set fire to his native village. Or he may do both. — FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY RUSSIAN NOVELIST

I can’t hear you, people! Make some noise if you want a good show. How about death? Do you wanna see lots and lots of death tonight?” I took in the applause, the hollering, the hammering feet, basking in it. Then my arm shot up, pointing one finger to the ceiling. The guard-tower window exploded. A man plummeted from the tower, slamming on the concrete floor behind me with a splat like someone stomping on a tomato. He’d been torn open from throat to groin, his chest a ragged ruin of splintered, wrenched-back ribs and mangled organs. His dead eyes were still open, jaw wrenched wide in terror. Then came the rain. The second sniper, one piece at a time. Hands. Feet. Arms, wrenched off at the elbows. His severed head bounced like a basketball as it hit the concrete, rolling across the floor and coming to a stop next to Warden Lancaster’s Italian leather shoe. A horrified silence fell across the room. The guards looked at one another, uncertain, hands on their guns but not sure if they should draw. Lancaster stared down at the severed head, frozen like a deer in the headlights. “Well,” I said, “you’re about to get everything you asked for. What do you think, Warden? Is this good and messy enough for you? Wouldn’t want you to think I ‘pussied out’ again.” His gaze snapped toward me. He took a halting step back, away from the carnage. “How? How did you—” A third body dove from the shattered window. Not in a guard’s uniform, but a billowing white leather coat. She landed as graceful as a raptor, absorbing the impact with one knee and the outstretched fingers of a single hand, and slowly rose to her full willowy height. Her eyes blazed like molten copper, as radiant as her twist of scarlet hair. “If anyone in this room believes themselves to be a righteous soul,” Caitlin said, “I suggest you kneel down and pray. If nobody answers…then you belong to me.

I believe trust is a gift from someone, just like love is. Trusting and loving someone says I have faith in you. And I appreciate the depth of that way more than I do material things. I'll take faith over shoes any day of the week.

It was in this environment of entrenched racism that America’s first minstrel shows appeared, and they began attracting large audiences of European immigrants, native Whites, and sometimes even Blacks. By 1830, Thomas “Daddy” Rice, who learned to mimic African American English (today called “Ebonics”), was touring the South, perfecting the character that thrust him into international prominence: Jim Crow. Appearing in blackface, and dressed in rags, torn shoes, and a weathered hat, Jim Crow sang and danced as a stupid, childlike, cheerful Black field hand. Other minstrel characters included “Old darky,” the thoughtless, musical head of an enslaved family, and “Mammy,” the hefty asexual devoted caretaker of Whites. The biracial, beautiful, sexually promiscuous “yaller gal” titillated White men. “Dandy,” or “Zip Coon,” was an upwardly mobile northern Black male who mimicked—outrageously—White elites. Typically, minstrel shows included a song-and-dance portion, a variety show, and a plantation skit. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, blackface minstrelsy became the first American theatrical form, the incubator of the American entertainment industry. Exported to excited European audiences, minstrel shows remained mainstream in the United States until around 1920 (when the rise of racist films took their place).15

Building with Its Face Blown Off How suddenly the private is revealed in a bombed-out city, how the blue and white striped wallpaper of a second story bedroom is now exposed to the lightly falling snow as if the room had answered the explosion wearing only its striped pajamas. Some neighbors and soldiers poke around in the rubble below and stare up at the hanging staircase, the portrait of a grandfather, a door dangling from a single hinge. And the bathroom looks almost embarrassed by its uncovered ochre walls, the twisted mess of its plumbing, the sink sinking to its knees, the ripped shower curtain, the torn goldfish trailing bubbles. It's like a dollhouse view as if a child on its knees could reach in and pick up the bureau, straighten a picture. Or it might be a room on a stage in a play with no characters, no dialogue or audience, no beginning, middle, and end– just the broken furniture in the street, a shoe among the cinder blocks, a light snow still falling on a distant steeple, and people crossing a bridge that still stands. And beyong that–crows in a tree, the statue of a leader on a horse, and clouds that look like smoke, and even farther on, in another country on a blanket under a shade tree, a man pouring wine into two glasses and a woman sliding out the wooden pegs of a wicker hamper filled with bread, cheese, and several kinds of olives.

Ken was absolutely powerless. His clothes were torn to tatters in a twinkling; they were soon torn completely off, leaving only his shoes and socks.

ground. The material of her blouse had been torn at the arms and had been smoothed out in a fan around them. Her legs, still clad in navy blue trousers, were drawn together neatly with the toes of her plain black shoes pointing forward. No, he realised, looking at the scene again and thinking of the note. Not a ballerina. Whoever did this had given her wings. * * * The next book in the DCI Ryan series, Angel, is due to be released in August 2016.

ceremony rehearsal, and one of the groomsmen dared to suggest that Evan might want to take a small sedative before the real wedding, which, as you can imagine, did not go over well. Oh, and Francois threatened to quit halfway through the final menu tasting.” Harmony cringed. “Yikes.” “I think if Francois would have quit, I would have too.” I sighed. “I believe it. I’ve never seen you use the coffee table as an ottoman before.” I smiled and wiggled my toes. “I don’t know why not.” “Well, as you explained to me, this here is an authentic Jason Partillo design,” Harmony replied, a lilt in her voice as she gently needled me with her elbow. I laughed softly. “Are you trying to say that those of us who live in diva houses shouldn’t throw shoes?” She barked a laugh. “No. This Evan guy sounds like he left diva in the dust a long time ago and plowed straight into narcissistic jerk land.” “Can’t argue with that.” I closed my eyes, my head leaning against the back of the sofa. “Two days and then it’s over and they won’t be my problem anymore. I have fifteen weddings between now and June. That’s going to feel like a walk in the park compared to this nonsense.” “And in the meantime, you get the rest of the night off to spend with me and your bestie!” Harmony said. “Assuming I can stay awake, that is,” I replied, peeling my eyes open. “I should have left room in the schedule for a pre-dinner nap.” Harmony laughed and sprang off the sofa to continue getting ready. “Do you think I should wear my black tights with the red sweater dress, or can I get away with jeans? Is the place we’re going fancy fancy or fancy-ish?” I smiled at my sister’s nervous musings. She wasn’t one to ask for my fashion advice, mostly because I preferred my clothes hole-free and didn’t own anything with spikes or studs on it. While she could dress up when the situation warranted, Harmony tended toward a certain grunge-chic aesthetic with colorful streaks in her otherwise bleached-blonde hair, four piercings in each ear, and a penchant for artfully torn clothing and bomber jackets. And she’d recently added a small crystal stud to her nose. “It’s fancy-adjacent,” I told her. “Go with the leggings and dress.” Harmony nodded, even as her teeth worked nervously at her lower lip. I smiled. “She’s going to love you, Harmony. Stop stressing.” Holly Boldt, my good friend and fellow witch, was coming into the Seattle Haven to speak at a potion making conference, and we’d made plans

Lieutenant Commander David Tarantino, MD, hurt, sore, pungent as an ashcan, limped several blocks to a Metro rail station. He paid the fare and boarded a train toward home. As he reflected on all that he’d seen and done, Dave noticed a woman staring at him from a few seats away. She studied his scrapes and bruises, the burns on his hands. Her gaze worked its way down his torn, stained uniform to his ruined shoes.

of Ford pickups? And the poop those things must’ve dropped…Okay, I’ll stop.) Aphrodite kept getting distracted by sales at the mall, or cute guys, or the shiny jewelry and dresses that the mortal girls were wearing this season. Meanwhile, Psyche kept trudging along, searching for her husband in all the most remote shrines, temples, and LA Fitness Centers. By this point, her pregnant belly was starting to show. Her clothes were torn and muddy. Her shoes were falling apart. She was constantly hungry and thirsty, but she would not give up. One day she was roaming through the mountains of northern Greece when she