Twelve Chairs Quotes

They'll be granted immunity!" I feel myself rising from my chair, my voice full of resonant. "You will personally pledge this in front of the entire population of District Thirteen and the remainder of Twelve. Soon. Today. It will be recorded for future generations. You will hold yourself and your government responsible for their safety, or you'll find yourself another Mockingjay!

Он любил и страдал. Он любил деньги и страдал от их недостатка.

Время, которое мы имеем, - это деньги, которых мы не имеем.

Вы ни пьете, ни курите, девушками не увлекаетесь... Зачем Вам деньги? Вы же не умеете их тратить.

- Кто, по-вашему, этот мощный старик? Это - гигант мысли, отец русской демократии и особа, приближенная к императору.

Здесь Паша Эмильевич, обладавший сверхъестественным чутьем, понял, что сейчас его будут бить, может быть, даже ногами.

А может тебе ещё дать ключ от квартиры, где деньги лежат?

Остап со вчерашнего дня еще ничего не ел. Поэтому красноречие его было необыкновенно.

The way people used to kiss before the age of historical materialism.

- А теперь действовать, действовать и действовать! - сказал Остап, понизив голос до степени полной нелегальности.

There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones—there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnessed, is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one. Men may write fictions portraying lowly life as it is, or as it is not—may expatiate with owlish gravity upon the bliss of ignorance—discourse flippantly from arm chairs of the pleasures of slave life; but let them toil with him in the field—sleep with him in the cabin—feed with him on husks; let them behold him scourged, hunted, trampled on, and they will come back with another story in their mouths. Let them know the heart of the poor slave—learn his secret thoughts—thoughts he dare not utter in the hearing of the white man; let them sit by him in the silent watches of the night—converse with him in trustful confidence, of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and they will find that ninety-nine out of every hundred are intelligent enough to understand their situation, and to cherish in their bosoms the love of freedom, as passionately as themselves.

Let's put it to a vote. Shall the ballots be open or secret?" "We don't need Soviet-style voting," Charushnikov said, offended. "Let's vote the honest way, the European way: secret ballots.

Everyone drank to popular education and to the irrigation of Uzbekistan.

She was, after all, a mattress owner and understood the subtleties of life.

Кто скажет, что это девочка, пусть первый бросит в меня камень!

we all make vows, Jimmy. And there is something very beautiful and touching and noble about wanting good impulses to be permanent and true forever," she said. "Most of us stand up and vow to love, honor and cherish someone. And we truly mean it, at the time. But two or twelve or twenty years down the road, the lawyers are negotiating the property settlement." "You and George didn't go back on your promises." She laughed. "Lemme tell ya something, sweetface. I have been married at least four times, to four different men." She watched him chew that over for a moment before continuing, "They've all been named George Edwards but, believe me, the man who is waiting for me down the hall is a whole lot different animal from the boy I married, back before there was dirt. Oh, there are continuities. He has always been fun and he has never been able to budget his time properly and - well, the rest is none of your business." "But people change," he said quietly. "Precisely. People change. Cultures change. Empires rise and fall. Shit. Geology changes! Every ten years or so, George and I have faced the fact that we have changed and we've had to decide if it makes sense to create a new marriage between these two new people." She flopped back against her chair. "Which is why vows are such a tricky business. Because nothing stays the same forever. Okay. Okay! I'm figuring something out now." She sat up straight, eyes focused somewhere outside the room, and Jimmy realized that even Anne didn't have all the answers and that was either the most comforting thing he'd learned in a long time or the most discouraging. "Maybe because so few of us would be able to give up something so fundamental for something so abstract, we protect ourselves from the nobility of a priest's vows by jeering at him when he can't live up to them, always and forever." She shivered and slumped suddenly, "But, Jimmy! What unnatural words. Always and forever! Those aren't human words, Jim. Not even stones are always and forever.

He was only thirty-eight. His body was clean, well-fed, and benign. He had all his teeth. A fresh Armenian joke stirred in his head like a child in its mother's womb. He thought life was wonderful.

Now tell me the truth, Lapsus, why do you write about things you've never seen before in your life? Things you don't have the slightest idea about? Why is 'peignoir' a ball gown in your poem 'Canton'? Why?

Pushkin wrote Turkish poems and he was never in Turkey.

Podkolyosin asked tragically, "Why are you keeping quiet, like the League of Nations?

...that, to repeat what I heard for years and years and suspect you’ve been hearing over and over, yourself, something’s meaning is nothing more or less than its function. Et cetera et cetera et cetera. Has she done the thing with the broom with you? No? What does she use now? No. What she did with me--I must have been eight, or twelve, who remembers--was to sit me down in the kitchen and take a straw broom and start furiously sweeping the floor, and she asked me which part of the broom was more elemental, more fundamental, in my opinion, the bristles or the handle. The bristles or the handle. And I hemmed and hawed, and she swept more and more violently, and I got nervous, and finally when I said I supposed the bristles, because you could after a fashion sweep without the handle, by just holding on to the bristles, but couldn’t sweep with just the handle, she tackled me, and knocked me out of my chair, and yelled into my ear something like, ’Aha, that’s because you want to sweep with the broom, isn’t it? It’s because of what you want the broom for, isn’t it?’ Et cetera. And that if what we wanted a broom for was to break windows, then the handle was clearly the fundamental essence of the broom, and she illustrated with the kitchen window, and a crowd of the domestics gathered; but that if we wanted the broom to sweep with, see for example the broken glass, sweep sweep, the bristles were the thing’s essence. No? What now, then? With pencils? No matter. Meaning as fundamentalness. Fundamentalness as use. Meaning as use. Meaning as fundamentalness.

No one likes us, unless you count Criminal Investigations, which also doesn't like us.

So what was in this building before historical materialism?' 'Before what?' 'You know, back then, under the old regime?' 'Oh. Under the old regime my master lived here.' 'A bourgeois?' 'You're a bourgeois yourself! He wasn't a bourgeois. He was a marshal of the nobility.' 'So he was a proletarian, then?' 'You're a proletarian yourself! I told you loud and clear, a marshal.' The conversation with the clever dvornik with a vague understanding of the class structure of society would have lasted god knows how long if the young man hadn't made a decisive move.

Какие деньги? Вы, кажется, спросили про какие-то деньги?

Clotilde stammered. "Why didn't you hang yourself? You were just saying that art is eternal. I destroyed your eternal art. Why are you still alive, man?" "What's eternal is eternal, but I still have to get my commissions done on time," said Vasya. "What did you think?" Vasya was just an everyday hack sculptor of average talent. And Clothilde was reading too much Schiller.

A week ago, the Water Rescue Society had held an evening there, as evidenced by the slogan hanging on the wall: THE CAUSE OF HELPING THE DROWNING IS IN THE HANDS OF THE DROWNING THEMSELVES.

Men may write fictions portraying lowly life as it is, or as it is not—may expatiate with owlish gravity upon the bliss of ignorance—discourse flippantly from arm chairs of the pleasures of slave life; but let them toil with him in the field—sleep with him in the cabin—feed with him on husks; let them behold him scourged, hunted, trampled on, and they will come back with another story in their mouths.

Emily Foster, I would like to introduce you to Mr. Miles,” Lindsey says. I stare at him, unable to speak because there’s no air in my lungs. His eyebrow rises, and he sits back in his chair as he smirks. “Hello, Emily.” His big eyes hold mine, the same beautiful deep-blue eyes that hypnotized me twelve months ago

Ippolit Matveevich turned even redder, pulled out a tiny notebook, and wrote in a calligraphic hand: 25/4/1927 — rubles issued to Comrade Bender — 8. Ostap took a look inside the little book. 'Oh-ho! If you've gone ahead and opened a personal account for me, then the least you could do is tally it right. Start up a debit column, start up a credit column. Don't forget to enter the sixty thousand rubles you owe me in the debits, and the vest can go in the credits. The balance is in my favor: 59,992 rubles.

Most importantly, we have our assets: an émigré who has returned to his native town. And we have our liabilities: he is afraid the GPU will take him away.

Maybe we could make it to Stalingrad on twenty rubles. But how would we eat? Vitamins, my dear comrade marshal, don't get handed out for free.

twelve-hundred-dollar chairs and wore sleek designer shoes with tassels. Gone were the days of thick rubber soles and function over form,

Monday, twelve o’clock, Marcus started looking at Bonbon’s wife. He was riding on the tractor with me, and as we went by the house I saw him looking at her on the gallery. I didn’t think too much of it then because I thought he was still hooked on Pauline. But Louise had seen him looking at her, and when we came back down the quarter I saw how she had shifted that chair so she could face the road better. Marcus looked at her again but he didn’t say anything to me about her. Since I didn’t think he was looking at her on purpose, I didn’t say anything either.

An Earthlike organ keyboard sits in the center of my area, oriented such that the operator faces the kids. The organ has quite a few more options than a typical keyboard found on Earth. I can apply inflection, tone, mood, and all the other little intricacies of spoken language. I settle into the comfortable chair, crack my knuckles, and start the class. “All right, all right,” I play. “Everyone settle down and get in your seats.” They scamper to their assigned desks and sit quietly, ready for the lesson to begin. “Who here can tell me the speed of light?” Twelve kids raise their claws.

But the editor in chief was already balding and worked a lot. He was at the mercy of his family and apartment. He enjoyed lying down on the couch for a spell after dinner and reading Pravda before bed.

The gold-seekers began to work out what the main characters were like. They sketched out dramatis personae such as: UGOLIN: A grand master of the Fascist Order (bass) ALFONSINA: His daughter (coloratura soprano) COMRADE MITIN: A Soviet inventor (baritone) SFORZA: A fascist prince (tenor) GAVRILA: A Soviet Young Communist (mezzo-soprano dressed as a man) NINA: A Young Communist and daughter of a priest (lyric soprano)

— Вы довольно пошлый человек, — возражал Бендер, — вы любите деньги больше, чем надо. — А вы не любите денег? — взвыл Ипполит Матвеевич голосом флейты. — Я не люблю. — Зачем же вам шестьдесят тысяч? — Из принципа!

The medicine-man, having given him the once-over, had ordered him to abstain from all alcoholic liquids, and in addition to tool down the hill to the Royal Pump-Room each morning at eight-thirty and imbibe twelve ounces of warm crescent saline and magnesia. It doesn't sound much, put that way, but I gather from contemporary accounts that it's practically equivalent to getting outside a couple of little old last year's eggs beaten up in sea-water. And the thought of Uncle George, who had oppressed me sorely in my childhood, sucking down that stuff and having to hop out of bed at eight-fifteen to do so was extremely grateful and comforting of a morning. At four in the afternoon he would toddle down the hill again and repeat the process, and at night we would dine together and I would loll back in my chair, sipping my wine, and listen to him telling me what the stuff had tasted like. In many ways the ideal existence.

Can you say the following phrase in French: "Gentlemen, I haven't eaten in six days"?' Ippolit Matveevich began haltingly, 'Messieurs... messieurs, je ne, I think, je ne mange pas... six, what is that again... un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six... six... jour. Right: je ne mange pas six jours!' 'That's quite a pronunciation you've got there, Kisa! Still, what do you expect from a beggar. Of course a beggar in European Russia speaks French worse than Millerand.

The tourists had money and we needed it; they only asked in return to be lied to and deceived and told that single most important thing, that they were safe, that their sense of security—national, individual, spiritual—wasn’t a bad joke being played on them by a bored and capricious destiny. To be told that there was no connection between then and now, that they didn't need to wear a black armband or have a bad conscience about their power and their wealth and everybody else’s lack of it; to feel rotten that no-one could or would explain why the wealth of a few seemed so curiously dependent on the misery of the many. We kindly pretended that it was about buying and selling chairs, about them asking questions about price and heritage, and us replying in like manner. But it wasn’t about price and heritage, it wasn’t about that at all. The tourists had insistent, unspoken questions and we just had to answer as best we could, with forged furniture. They were really asking, 'Are we safe?' and we were really replying, 'No, but a barricade of useless goods may help block the view.' And because hubris is not just an ancient Greek word but a human sense so deep-seated we might better regard it as an unerring instinct, they were also wanting to know, 'If it is our fault, then will we suffer?' and we were really replying, 'Yes, and slowly, but a fake chair may make us both feel better about it.

There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones—there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnessed, is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one. Men may write fictions portraying lowly life as it is, or as it is not—may expatiate with owlish gravity upon the bliss of ignorance—discourse flippantly from arm chairs of the pleasures of slave life; but let them toil with him in the field—sleep with him in the cabin—feed with him on husks; let them behold him scourged, hunted, trampled on, and they will come back with another story in their mouths. Let them know the heart of the poor slave—learn his secret thoughts—thoughts he dare not utter in the hearing of the white man; let them sit by him in the silent watches of the night—converse with him in trustful confidence, of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and they will find that ninety-nine out of every hundred are intelligent enough to understand their situation, and to cherish in their bosoms the love of freedom, as passionately as themselves.

Vorobyaninov, I've got a pressing artistic task for you,' he whispered. 'Go over to the exit from the first-class hallway and stand there. If somebody approaches, start singing, loudly.' The old man was taken aback. 'But what should I sing?' 'Not "God Save the Tsar," that's for sure!

Charley looked over at him. "About how much you and Jesse have in common." Jesse said, "Why don't you tell it, Bob; if you remember." Bob inched forward in his chair. "Well, if you'll pardon my saying so, it is interesting, the many ways you and I overlap and whatnot. You begin with my daddy, J.T. Ford. J stands for James! And T is Thomas, meaning 'twin.' Your daddy was a pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church; my daddy was part-time pastor of a church at Excelsior Springs. You're the youngest of the three James boys; I'm the youngest of the five Ford boys. You had twins as sons, I had twins as sisters. Frank is four and a half years older than you, which incidentally is the difference between Charley and me, the two outlaws in the Ford clan. Between us is another brother, Wilbur here (with six letters in his name); between Frank and you was a brother, Robert, also with six letters. Robert died in infancy, as most everyone knows, and he was named after your father, Robert, who was remembered by your brother's first-born, another Robert. Robert, of course, is my Christian name. My uncle, Robert Austin Ford, has a son named Jesse James Ford. You have blue eyes; I have blue eyes. You're five feet eight inches tall; I'm five feet eight inches tall. We're both hot-tempered and impulsive and devil-may-care. Smith and Wesson is our preferred make of revolver. There's the same number of letters and syllables in our names; I mean, Jesse James and Robert Ford. Oh me, I must've had a list as long as your nightshirt when I was twelve, but I lost some curiosities over the years.

At the nurses’ station the night-shift RNs cluster on chairs, looking like birds wanting to shove their tired heads under a free wing. Their lined faces and heavy-lidded eyes show how hard it is to stay awake and alert for an entire night. I don’t work a lot of nights, but when I do I feel it. I hit a wall at 2:00 a.m., then again at 4:00. The hospital’s strong tea, bad coffee, Diet Coke from the vending machine—they all help, but nothing non-pharmaceutical will really make me feel awake for the entire night, and I’m not going down the pharmacologic road. The day after, even if I sleep all morning and afternoon, it feels as though I’m seeing the world through gauze.

Gen. George S. Patton Jr. fears no one. But now he sleeps flat on his back in a hospital bed. His upper body is encased in plaster, the result of a car accident twelve days ago. Room 110 is a former utility closet, just fourteen feet by sixteen feet. There are no decorations, pictures on the walls, or elaborate furnishings—just the narrow bed, white walls, and a single high window. A chair has been brought in for Patton’s wife, Beatrice, who endured a long, white-knuckle flight over the North Atlantic from the family home in Boston to be at his bedside. She sits there now, crochet hook moving silently back and forth, raising her eyes every few moments to see if her husband has awakened.

Well,all she had to do was ask," one offended male replied. "I hope you're satisfied!" Lauren whispered furiously. "I'm not," Nick chuckled in her ear. "But I'm going to be." Fully intending to leave him to take his own notes, Lauren slammed her notebook closed and tried to shove her chair back. Nick's body blocked the chair. She twisted her head around to say something scathing, and his lips captured hers in a kiss that forced her head against the back of the chair, tripled her pulse rate and robbed her of thought. When he took his mouth away, she was too shaken to do anything except stare at him. "What do you think,Nick?" a voice asked over the speaker. "I think it gets better every time," he answered huskily. When the call was finally over, Nick pressed a button on the desk, and Lauren saw the door leading into Mary's office swing shut electronically. He grasped her arms and drew her out of the chair, turning her toward him. His mouth came closer to hers,and Lauren felt herself being helplessly drawn into his magnetic spell. "Don't!" she pleaded. "Please don't do this to me." His hands tightened on her arms. "Why can't you just admit you want me and enjoy the consequences?" "All right," she said wretchedly, "You win. I want you...I admit it." She saw the gleam of triumph in his eyes, and her chin lifted. "When I was eight years old, I also wanted a monkey I saw in a pet store." The triumph faded. "And?" he sighed irritably,letting go of her. "And unfortunately I got him," Lauren said. "Daisy bit me,and I had to have twelve stitches in my leg." Nick looked as if he was torn between laughter and anger. "I imagine he bit you for naming him Daisy." Lauren ignored his mockery. "And when I was thirteen, I wanted sisters and brothers. My father obliged me by remarrying, and I got a stepsister who stole my clothes and my boyfriends, and a stepbrother who stole my allowances." "What the hell does that have to do with us?" "Everything!

Irving’s story is the simplest. Whether by nature or as the result of his many troubles, Irving asked little of life and in that he was adequately answered. The group home kept him safe. The rocking chairs on the front porch were comfortable and the voices in his head weren’t too intrusive or demanding. From him I learned that sometimes when we strive less we end up with more of what we actually need.

The story of Gavrila was told in seventy-two lines. At the end of the poem, the mailman Gavrila, wounded by a fascist's bullet, still manages to deliver the letter to its addressee. "Where does the story take place?" he asked Lapis. It was a logical question. There are no fascists in the USSR, and there are no Gavrilas (members of the communications workers' union) abroad. "What's the big deal?" Lapis said. "It takes place here, of course, and the fascist is in disguise.

Of course, I don’t remember any of this time. It is absolutely impossible to identify with the infant my parents photographed, indeed so impossible that it seems wrong to use the word “me” to describe what is lying on the changing table, for example, with unusually red skin, arms and legs spread, and a face distorted into a scream, the cause of which no one can remember, or on a sheepskin rug on the floor, wearing white pajamas, still red-faced, with large, dark eyes squinting slightly. Is this creature the same person as the one sitting here in Malmö writing? And will the forty-year-old creature who is sitting in Malmö writing this one overcast September day in a room filled with the drone of the traffic outside and the autumn wind howling through the old-fashioned ventilation system be the same as the gray, hunched geriatric who in forty years from now might be sitting dribbling and trembling in an old people’s home somewhere in the Swedish woods? Not to mention the corpse that at some point will be laid out on a bench in a morgue? Still known as Karl Ove. And isn’t it actually unbelievable that one simple name encompasses all of this? The fetus in the belly, the infant on the changing table, the forty-year-old in front of the computer, the old man in the chair, the corpse on the bench? Wouldn’t it be more natural to operate with several names since their identities and self-perceptions are so very different? Such that the fetus might be called Jens Ove, for example, and the infant Nils Ove, and the five- to ten-year-old Per Ove, the ten- to twelve-year-old Geir Ove, the twelve- to seventeen-year-old Kurt Ove, the seventeen- to twenty-three-year-old John Ove, the twenty-three- to thirty-two-year-old Tor Ove, the thirty-two- to forty-six-year-old Karl Ove — and so on and so forth? Then the first name would represent the distinctiveness of the age range, the middle name would represent continuity, and the last, family affiliation.

Since eight o'clock she had been trying on and rejecting dresses, and now she stood dejected and irritable in lace pantalets, linen corset cover and three billowing lace and linen petticoats. Discarded garments lay about her on the floor, the bed, the chairs, in bright heaps of color and straying ribbons. The rose organdie with long pink sash was becoming, but she had worn it last summer when Melanie visited Twelve Oaks and she’d be sure to remember it. And might be catty enough to mention it.

Anyway, as I was saying, marriage sucks.  It sucks the life and soul out of you.  There are days I want to kill him, and there are days I want to torture him before I kill him.”  Lizzy is working so hard at containing her laughter that she almost falls out of her chair.  “There are days I wish he’d never been born.  There are days I wish I’d never been born.  But, listen to this carefully.  They are just thoughts.  Random fleeting thoughts that cross my mind when I’m upset about accidentally burning supper.  Did he make me burn supper?  No, he didn’t, but I heaped that blame on him.  Or when I forgot about a load of his underpants in the washer and they soured.  He bore the brunt of that blame, too.  What about the abuse he got when I gave birth to our child?  Twelve hours of non-stop name calling during labor, and that man took every last bit of it and fed me words of love and encouragement to boot!” Lizzy and I are now captivated by her speech. “When and if you get married, those thoughts will come to you.  You’re going to fight.  You’re going to have resentful moments.  You’re going to wonder if it’s worth it all.  My Stanley is eighty-six years old, and he was diagnosed with terminal cancer four weeks ago.  If we’re lucky, I might have another couple of months with him the doctors say.  All that complaining I did earlier… all that truth I gave you… you’d think I regretted marrying him, wouldn’t you?  Well, I don’t.  I’d give anything to have sixty-eight more years with him. 

Most people in this "normal" society of ours begin sitting still in a room for six to eight hours beginning in childhood. They continue that for twelve years and then begin sitting still in a different room for another forty years, at which point they hope to retire and sit still in a chair in front of the TV until they die. Most people prioritize other people's demands and needs over their own and choose work over fun. Most people choose THINGS over HAPPINESS. Most people spend more time disliking what they're doing than they spend enjoying themselves.

There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones—there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnessed, is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one. Men may write fictions portraying lowly life as it is, or as it is not—may expatiate with owlish gravity upon the bliss of ignorance—discourse flippantly from arm chairs of the pleasures of slave life; but let them toil with him in the field—sleep with him in the cabin—feed with him on husks; let them behold him scourged, hunted, trampled on, and they will come back with another story in their mouths. Let them know the heart of the poor slave—learn his secret thoughts—thoughts he dare not utter in the hearing of the white man; let them sit by him in the silent watches of the night—converse with him in trustful confidence, of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and they will find that ninety-nine out of every hundred are intelligent enough to understand their situation, and to cherish in their bosoms the love of freedom, as passionately as themselves.

Prusis told me that the fluke's raging in Moscow, and there's nothing to bury people in. All the material's been used up. So I decided to come out and set things straight.' Ostap, who had been listening curiously to the entire conversation, stepped in. 'Listen, pops. It's Paris where the flu is raging.' 'In Paris?' 'Well, yes. So go to Paris. You'll rake it in there! It's true that you'll have a few difficulties with the visa, but don't get down about it, pops. If Briand takes a shine to you, your life won't be half-bad: you'll be set up as personal coffin-maker to the municipality of Paris.

Ostap Bender lay in the dvornik's room, which was warm to the point of reeking, and mentally put the finishing touches on two possible career plans. He could become a polygamist and move peacefully from town to town, dragging behind him a new suitcase full of valuable items he'd picked up from the latest wife. Or he could go the very next day to the Stargorod Children's Commission and offer them the chance to distribute the as-yet unpainted but brilliantly conceived canvas The Bolsheviks Writing a Letter to Chamberlain, based on the artist Repin's popular painting The Zaporozhian Cossacks Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan. If it worked out, this option could bring in something along the line of four hundred rubles. Ostap had thought up both options during his last stay in Moscow. The polygamy option had been born under the influence of the court report from the evening papers, where it was clearly indicated that some polygamist had only gotten two years without strict isolation. Option number two had taken shape in Bender's mind when he was going through the AARR exhibit on a free ticket. However, both options had their downsides. It was impossible to begin a career as a polygamist without a wondrous, dapple-gray suit. In addition, he needed at least ten rubles for hospitality expenses and seduction. Of course, he could get married in his green campaign uniform as well, because Bender's masculine power and attraction were absolutely irresistible to provincial, marriage-ready Margaritas; but that would be, as Bender liked to say, "Poor-quality goods. Not clean work." It wasn't all smooth sailing for the painting, either. Purely technical difficulties could arise. Would it be proper to paint Comrade Kalinin in a papakha and a white burka, or Comrade Chicherin naked to the waist?

Tisn't life that matters! 'Tis the courage you bring to it" … this from old Frosted Moses in the warm corner by the door. There might have been an answer, but Dicky Tasset, the Town Idiot, filled in the pause with the tale that he was telling Mother Figgis. "And I ran—a mile or more with the stars dotted all over the ground for yer pickin', as yer might say…." A little boy, Peter Westcott, heard what old Frosted Moses had said, and turned it over in his mind. He was twelve years old, was short and thick-necked, and just now looked very small because he was perched on so high a chair. It was one of the four ancient chairs that Sam Figgis always kept in the great kitchen behind the taproom.

Wow, it was beautiful. The chandeliers were breathtaking, and pearls drizzled down. At first when I saw people walk under them, I wondered if it hurt, but the pearls vanished the moment they encountered the floor or skin. The carpet was a beautiful crimson shade covered with rose petals, and tiny crystals were layered on it, reflecting colors. The dining table looked about twelve feet long with golden swirls and magnificent designs on it, and it had all the food I could imagine, some I didn’t even know. The drinks being served were blood and wine. Each and every chair looked like a throne, but the real throne was . . . it was . . . whoa. All the ladies wore such beautiful gowns, but they were all dull and dark.

Maxwell D. Kalist is a receiving teller at a city bank, Orwell and Finch, where he runs an efficient department of twenty two clerks and twelve junior clerks. He carries a leather-bound vade mecum everywhere with him – a handbook of the most widely contravened banking rules. He works humourlessly (on the surface of it) in a private, perfectly square office on the third floor of a restored grain exchange midway along the Eastern flank of Květniv’s busy, modern central plaza. Behind his oblong slate desk and black leather swivel chair is an intimidating, three-storey wall made almost entirely of bevelled, glare-reducing grey glass in art-deco style; one hundred and thirty six rectangles of gleam stacked together in a dangerously heavy collage.

Alex waited a few minutes before digging into Sherry’s list. Truth be told, he wanted to make sure Harcourt and Nicholson were actually gone. To pass the time, he opened the polished oak drawer in his magnificent desk and pulled out a bottle and a tumbler. Just like former days, he always kept something to drink handy. Unlike former days, this was a bottle of twelve-year-old single malt. Alex poured out two fingers’ worth of the amber liquid in the tumbler, then leaned back in his chair and sipped it. Cheap Scotch always reminded Alex of cough medicine, but the good stuff had a taste that made him think of fine wood, oiled leather, and beautiful women. It was worth what he paid for it. Closing his eyes, Alex just sat, enjoying the experience of the whiskey. It was something he could do for an hour if he let himself, but he had work to do, so he inhaled deeply, then finished his drink and sat up.

Why do we look to everyone else to see what to do? Why don't we understand that they're all as lost and scared as we are? Why do we look at a random consensus, shaped by opinions and powers that drift like dunes, as an absolute truth? If "normal" could change tomorrow, why are we such slaves to it? And where has "normal" gotten us, anyway? We live in a society that can't stop pollution or environmental destruction, that can't raise educational standards, can't stay healthy and non-obese, can't balance a budget, has no sense of fiscal responsibility, is in an economic tailspin, and is rife with crime and murder and violence. Most people in this "normal" society of ours begin sitting still in a room for six to eight hours beginning in childhood. They continue that for twelve years and then begin sitting still in a different room for another forty years, at which point they hope to retire and sit still in a chair in front of the TV until they die.

The day-to-day changes in Amy amazed me: the next evening Raye called me from the studio to say that she and Mark had had a really good day working. He also said that she had been able to take her prescribed Subutex, as she had been drug-free for twelve hours. When it came time for her next dose, though, she couldn’t have it as, once again, she had taken other drugs. As a result, she went into withdrawal and the whole process started yet again. That Sunday, I drove down to the Henley studio to find Amy in bed. She was filthy and suffering the effects of withdrawal. I managed to get her into the shower, realizing again how painfully thin she was. If Amy had died at that point, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised. I put her back to bed and stayed with her until she fell asleep. Sitting in a chair next to her bed, I despaired. I was running out of ideas. If she took drugs she couldn’t take Subutex for twelve hours. If she didn’t take Subutex she went into withdrawal so she took more drugs. A horrible vicious circle.

I still have no choice but to bring out Minerva instead.” “But Minerva doesn’t care about men,” young Charlotte said helpfully. “She prefers dirt and rocks.” “It’s called geology,” Minerva said. “It’s a science.” “It’s certain spinsterhood, is what it is! Unnatural girl. Do sit straight in your chair, at least.” Mrs. Highwood sighed and fanned harder. To Susanna, she said, “I despair of her, truly. This is why Diana must get well, you see. Can you imagine Minerva in Society?” Susanna bit back a smile, all too easily imagining the scene. It would probably resemble her own debut. Like Minerva, she had been absorbed in unladylike pursuits, and the object of her female relations’ oft-voiced despair. At balls, she’d been that freckled Amazon in the corner, who would have been all too happy to blend into the wallpaper, if only her hair color would have allowed it. As for the gentlemen she’d met…not a one of them had managed to sweep her off her feet. To be fair, none of them had tried very hard. She shrugged off the awkward memories. That time was behind her now. Mrs. Highwood’s gaze fell on a book at the corner of the table. “I am gratified to see you keep Mrs. Worthington close at hand.” “Oh yes,” Susanna replied, reaching for the blue, leatherbound tome. “You’ll find copies of Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom scattered everywhere throughout the village. We find it a very useful book.” “Hear that, Minerva? You would do well to learn it by heart.” When Minerva rolled her eyes, Mrs. Highwood said, “Charlotte, open it now. Read aloud the beginning of Chapter Twelve.” Charlotte reached for the book and opened it, then cleared her throat and read aloud in a dramatic voice. “’Chapter Twelve. The perils of excessive education. A young lady’s intellect should be in all ways like her undergarments. Present, pristine, and imperceptible to the casual observer.’” Mrs. Highwood harrumphed. “Yes. Just so. Hear and believe it, Minerva. Hear and believe every word. As Miss Finch says, you will find that book very useful.” Susanna took a leisurely sip of tea, swallowing with it a bitter lump of indignation. She wasn’t an angry or resentful person, as a matter of course. But once provoked, her passions required formidable effort to conceal. That book provoked her, no end. Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom for Young Ladies was the bane of sensible girls the world over, crammed with insipid, damaging advice on every page. Susanna could have gleefully crushed its pages to powder with a mortar and pestle, labeled the vial with a skull and crossbones, and placed it on the highest shelf in her stillroom, right beside the dried foxglove leaves and deadly nightshade berries. Instead, she’d made it her mission to remove as many copies as possible from circulation. A sort of quarantine. Former residents of the Queen’s Ruby sent the books from all corners of England. One couldn’t enter a room in Spindle Cove without finding a copy or three of Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom. And just as Susanna had told Mrs. Highwood, they found the book very useful indeed. It was the perfect size for propping a window open. It also made an excellent doorstop or paperweight. Susanna used her personal copies for pressing herbs. Or occasionally, for target practice. She motioned to Charlotte. “May I?” Taking the volume from the girl’s grip, she raised the book high. Then, with a brisk thwack, she used it to crush a bothersome gnat. With a calm smile, she placed the book on a side table. “Very useful indeed.

The land around Ankh-Morpork is fertile and largely given over to the cabbage fields that help to give the city its distinctive odor. The gray light of pre-dawn unrolled over the blue-green expanse, and around a couple of farmers who were making an early start on the spinach harvest. They looked up, not at a sound, but at a travelling point of silence where sound ought to have been. It was a man and a woman and something like a size five man in a size twelve fur coat, all in a chariot that flickered as it moved. It bowled along the road toward Holy Wood and was soon out of sight. A minute or two later it was followed by a wheelchair. Its axle glowed red-hot. It was full of people screaming at one another. One of them was turning a handle on a box. It was so overburdened that wizards occasionally fell off and ran along after it, shouting, until they had a chance to jump on again and start screaming. Whoever was attempting to steer was not succeeding, and it weaved back and forth across the road and eventually hurtled off it completely and through the side of a barn. One of the farmers nudged the other. "Oi've seen this on the clicks," he said. "It's always the same. They crash into a barn and they allus comes out the other side covered in squawking chickens." His companion leaned reflectively on his hoe. "It'd be a sight worth seeing that," he said. "Sure would." "'Cos all there is in there, boy, is twenty ton of cabbage." There was a crash, and the chair erupted from the barn in a shower of chickens and headed madly toward the road. The farmers looked at one another. "Well, dang me," said one of them.

If I'd known you were available, Dee, and looking for work,I'd've hired you." Burke Logan, settled back in his chair and winked at his wife's cousin. "We like to keep the best on at Royal Meadows." Adelia twinkled at him across the table in the track's dining room. He was as handsome and as dangerous to look at as he'd been nearly twenty years before when she'd first met him. "Oh,I don't know." Bruke trailed a hand over his wife's shoudler. "We have the best bookkeeper around at Three Acres." "In that case,I want a raise." Erin picked up her wine and sent Burke a challenging look. "A big one. Trevor?" Her voice was smooth, shimmering with Ireland as she addressed her son. "Do you have in mind to eat that pork chop or just use it for decoration?" "I'm reading the Racing Form, Ma." "His father's son," Erin muttered and snagged the paper from him. "Eat your dinner." He heaved a sigh as only a twelve-year-old boy could. "I think Topeka in the third, with Lonesome in the fifth and Hennessy in the sixth for the trifecta. Dad says Topeka's generous and a cinch tip." At his wife's long stare, Burke cleared his throat. "Stuff that pork chop in your mouth, Trev.Where's Jean?" "She's fussing with her hair," Mo announced, and snatched a french fry from Travis's plate. "As usual," she added with the worldly air only an older sister could achieve, "the minute she turned fourteen she decided her hair was the bane of her existence. Huh. Like having long, thick, straight-as-a-pin black hair is a problem. This-" she tugged on one of the hundreds of wild red curls that spiraled acround her face. "-is a problem. If you're going to worry about something as stupid as hair, which I don't.Anyway, you guys have to come over and see this weanling I have my eye on.He's going to be amazing.And if Dad lets me train him..." She trailed off, slanting a look at her father across the table. "You'll be in college this time next year," Burke reminded her. "Not if I can help it," Mo said under her breath.

At some point I tried willing things along, mentally focusing on a rapid delivery. That didn't work. I got up to walk around-walking is supposed to help you progress-then quickly got back in the chair. “Argh!!!!!” I groaned. And other stuff. The way I saw it, my baby should have been out by now, shaking hands with his dad and passing around cigars to the nurses. But he apparently had other plans. Labor continued very slowly. Very slowly. We were in that room for eighteen hours. That was a lot of contractions. And a lot of PG versions of curse words, along with the X-rated kind. I may have invented a whole new language. Somewhere around the twelve-hour mark, Chris asked if I’d mind if he changed the music, since our songs had been playing on repeat for what surely seemed like a millennium. “Sure,” I said. He switched to the radio and found a country station. That lasted a song or two. “I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I need Enya. I’m tuned in to it, and it calms me…ohhhhh!” “Okay. No problem,” he said calmly, though not quite cheerfully. I’m sure it was torture. Chris would take short breaks, walking out into the waiting room where both sides of our family were waiting to welcome their first grandchild and nephew. He’d look at his dad and give a little nod. “She’s okay,” he told everyone. Then he’d wipe a little tear away from his eye and walk back to me. Chris said later that watching me give birth was probably the most powerless feeling he’d ever had. He knew I was in pain and yet couldn’t do a whit about it. “It’s like watching your wife get stabbed and not being able to do anything to help.” But when he came into the room with me, his eyes were clear and he seemed confident and even upbeat. It was the thing he did when talking to me from the combat zone, all over again: he wasn’t about to do anything that would make me worry. I, on the other hand, made no secret of what I was feeling. An alien watermelon was ripping my insides out. And it hurt. Whoooh! Suddenly one of the contractions peaked way beyond where the others had been. Bubba had finally decided it was time to say hello to the world. I grabbed the side rail on the bed and struggled to remain conscious, if not exactly calm. Part of me was thinking, You should remember this, Taya. This is natural childbirth. This is beautiful. This is what God intended. You should enjoy this precious moment and remember it always. Another part of me was telling that part to shut the bleep up. I begged for mercy-for painkillers.

When I visited my father yesterday, I went upstairs to my old room. For a time after my marriage the maid had occupied it. It was unused now, and I found in it many of the objects I had kept around me ten years ago, before I left for school. There was a Persian print over the bed, of a woman dropping a flower on her interred lover - visible in his burial gown under the stones; a bookcase my mother had bought me; a crude water color of a pitcher and glass done by Bertha, some nearly forgotten girl. I sat in the rocking chair, feeling that my life was already long enough to contain nearly forgotten periods, a loose group of undifferentiated years. Recently, I had begun to feel old, and it occurred to me that I might be concerned with age merely because I might never attain any great age, and that there might be a mechanism in us that tried to give us all of life when there was danger of being cut off. And while I knew it was absurd for me to think of my “age,” I had apparently come to a point where the perspectives of time appeared far more contracted than they had a short while ago. I was beginning to grasp the meaning of “irretrievable.” This rather ordinary and, in some ways mean, room, had for twelve years been a standard site, the bearded Persian under the round stones and the water color, fixtures of my youth. Ten years ago I was at school; and before that… It was suddenly given me to experience one of those consummating glimpses that come to all of us periodically. The room, delusively, dwindled and became a tiny square, swiftly drawn back, myself and all objects in it growing smaller. This was not a mere visual trick. I understood it to be a revelation of the ephemeral agreements by which we live and pace ourselves. I looked around at the restored walls. This place which I avoided ordinarily, had great personal significance for me. But it was not here thirty years go. Birds flew through this space. It may be gone fifty years hence. Such reality, I thought, is actually very dangerous, very treacherous. It should not be trusted. And I rose rather unsteadily from the rocker, feeling that there was an element of treason to common sense in the very objects of common sense. Or that there was no trusting them, save through wide agreement, and that my separation from such agreement had brought me perilously far from the necessary trust, auxiliary to all sanity. I had not done well alone. I doubted whether anyone could. To be pushed upon oneself entirely put the very facts of simple existence in doubt. Perhaps the war could teach me, by violence, what I had been unable to learn during those months in the room. Perhaps I could sound creation through other means. Perhaps. But things were now out of my hands. The next move was the world’s. I could not bring myself to regret it... This is my last civilian day... I am no longer to be held accountable for myself; I am grateful for that. I am in other hands, relieved of self-determination, freedom canceled. Hurray for regular hours! And for the supervision of the spirit! Long live regimentation!

When I visited my father yesterday, I went upstairs to my old room. For a time after my marriage the maid had occupied it. It was unused now, and I found in it many of the objects I had kept around me ten years ago, before I left for school. There was a Persian print over the bed, of a woman dropping a flower on her interred lover - visible in his burial gown under the stones; a bookcase my mother had bought me; a crude water color of a pitcher and glass done by Bertha, some nearly forgotten girl. I sat in the rocking chair, feeling that my life was already long enough to contain nearly forgotten periods, a loose group of undifferentiated years. Recently, I had begun to feel old, and it occurred to me that I might be concerned with age merely because I might never attain any great age, and that there might be a mechanism in us that tried to give us all of life when there was danger of being cut off. And while I knew it was absurd for me to think of my "age," I had apparently come to a point where the perspectives of time appeared far more contracted than they had a short while ago. I was beginning to grasp the meaning of “irretrievable.” This rather ordinary and, in some ways mean, room, had for twelve years been a standard site, the bearded Persian under the round stones and the water color, fixtures of my youth. Ten years ago I was at school; and before that… It was suddenly given me to experience one of those one of those consummating glimpses that come to all of us periodically. The room, delusively, dwindled and became a tiny square, swiftly drawn back, myself and all objects in it growing smaller. This was not a mere visual trick. I understood it to be a revelation of the ephemeral agreements by which we live and pace ourselves. I looked around at the restored walls. This place which I avoided ordinarily, had great personal significance for me. But it was not here thirty years go. Birds flew through this space. It may be gone fifty years hence. Such reality, I thought, is actually very dangerous, very treacherous. It should not be trusted. And I rose rather unsteadily from the rocker, feeling that there was an element of treason to common sense in the very objects of common sense. Or that there was no trusting them, save through wide agreement, and that my separation from such agreement had brought me perilously far from the necessary trust, auxiliary to all sanity. I had not done well alone. I doubted whether anyone could/. To be pished upon oneself entirely put the very facts of simple existence in doubt. Perhaps the war could teach me, by violence, what I had been unable to learn during those months in the room. Perhaps I could sound creation through other means. Perhaps. But things were now out of my hands. The next move was the world's. I could not bring myself to regret it... This is my last civilian day... I am no longer to be held accountable for myself; I am grateful for that. I am in other hands, relieved of self-determination, freedom canceled. Hurray for regular hours! And for the supervision of the spirit! Long live regimentation!

When I visited my father yesterday, I went upstairs to my old room. For a time after my marriage the maid had occupied it. It was unused now, and I found in it many of the objects I had kept around me ten years ago, before I left for school. There was a Persian print over the bed, of a woman dropping a flower on her interred lover - visible in his burial gown under the stones; a bookcase my mother had bought me; a crude water color of a pitcher and glass done by Bertha, some nearly forgotten girl. I sat in the rocking chair, feeling that my life was already long enough to contain nearly forgotten periods, a loose group of undifferentiated years. Recently, I had begun to feel old, and it occurred to me that I might be concerned with age merely because I might never attain any great age, and that there might be a mechanism in us that tried to give us all of life when there was danger of being cut off. And while I knew it was absurd for me to think of my "age," I had apparently come to a point where the perspectives of time appeared far more contracted than they had a short while ago. I was beginning to grasp the meaning of “irretrievable.” This rather ordinary and, in some ways mean, room, had for twelve years been a standard site, the bearded Persian under the round stones and the water color, fixtures of my youth. Ten years ago I was at school; and before that… It was suddenly given me to experience one of those one of those consummating glimpses that come to all of us periodically. The room, delusively, dwindled and became a tiny square, swiftly drawn back, myself and all objects in it growing smaller. This was not a mere visual trick. I understood it to be a revelation of the ephemeral agreements by which we live and pace ourselves. I looked around at the restored walls. This place which I avoided ordinarily, had great personal significance for me. But nit was not here thirty years go. Birds flew through this space. It may be gone fifty years hence. Such reality, I thought, is actually very dangerous, very treacherous. It should not be trusted. And I rose rather unsteadily from the rocker, feeling that there was an element of treason to common sense in the very objects of common sense. Or that there was no trusting them, save through wide agreement, and that my separation from such agreement had brought me perilously far from the necessary trust, auxiliary to all sanity. I had not done well alone. I doubted whether anyone could/. To be pished upon oneself entirely put the very facts of simple existence in doubt. Perhaps the war could teach me, by violence, what I had been unable to learn during those months in the room. Perhaps I could sound creation through other means. Perhaps. But things were now out of my hands. The next move was the world's. I could not bring myself to regret it... This is my last civilian day... I am no longer to be held accountable for myself; I am grateful for that. I am in other hands, relieved of self-determination, freedom canceled. Hurray for regular hours! And for the supervision of the spirit! Long live regimentation!

My typical day began at five o'clock in the morning when I would finish reading scripts by the side of Rebecca's bed until she woke up at seven. It was thrilling to find a script that I loved, something I desperately wanted to make. And when I found one, my day was made by seven A.M. If I didn't have a script to finish, I had notes to make on those I had read. And if I'd finished my notes, I went downstairs to exercise. After mornings with Rebecca, I'd arrive at the office at nine-thirty. The phone calls had started long before I got there. By ten o'clock I was in a staff meeting, and depending on the day of the week, it was either a production, marketing/distribution or business-affairs meeting. By eleven-thirty, I might be in a meeting with an executive about a particular movie or problem. By twelve, I was meeting with a director I was trying to seduce back to the studio. By twelve forty-five, I'd get in my car and drive across town to a lunch meeting with an agent, a producer, a writer or a movie star. While driving, I'd start to return the phone calls that had started before I ever arrived at my office. At two-thirty, I was back in the car, returning more phone calls, the calls from early morning, from mid-morning, plus East Coast and Europe calls that came in during lunch. At two forty-five, I was back in the office. Inevitably, there were people waiting to see me, executives with personal problems, political problems, and/or production problems. In between, I returned and made more phone calls. At three-thirty, there could be a meeting with someone I was trying to bring to the studio. At four-thirty, there was a script meeting with an executive, writer, producer and/or director. At five o'clock, there were selected dailies of the movies we were shooting. And if I hadn't finished watching them by six-thirty, the rest were put on tape for me to watch later at home. At six-thirty, I'd jump into my car and return more phone calls on my drive home. The call sheet numbered one hundred to one hundred and fifty calls a day. And I always felt it was very important to return every call. The lesson here is people remember when you don't call them back. I'd go home to be with Rebecca. If I didn't have a business dinner or a sneak preview of one of our movies, I had to go to a black-tie event. There was at least one of them a week, honoring someone from our industry. I went out of respect for the talent involved and my counterparts at the other studios. So Rebecca would keep me company while I washed off my makeup, put on new makeup, dressed in black tie, kissed her good-bye and shot out the door. That's where men really have it good: they just put on a tux and go. After I got home at ten-thirty, I would sit on the chair next to Rebecca's bed. Watching her sleep dissolved all the stress in my body. Then I would get up, either finish watching the dailies, or read a script, wash my face and fall into bed at eleven-thirty. But the part of my workday that made me the happiest was when I was closest to the actual making of a movie.

In 1931 Ilf and Petrov published another novel, The Golden Calf (Золотой телёнок), chronicling the further adventures of Ostap Bender. In the sequel, he is as enterprising as ever in pursuing the money of a clandestine Soviet millionaire, although possibly his lust for life seems to have dimmed a bit. The Twelve Chairs was still read and quoted by my classmates in the 1980s. In post-Soviet Russia the figure of Ostap Bender was elevated to “предприниматель” – entrepreneur – rather than crook, and his statue adorns several Russian towns. In his creators’ native city, Odessa, there is a commemorative plaque to Bender, and a statue of a chair from the novel on one of the main streets, Deribasovskaya. The novel has been turned into a film three times in Russia, in 1971, in 1976 and 2004; there is also a 1970 US version by Mel Brooks.

All we need is twenty rubles to make the treasure ours. At this point we can't scruple about using any means possible. "Aut Caesar aut nihil." I choose Caesar, even though he's clearly a monarchist.

Just think what will happen when the tournament is over and all the visitors have gone. The residents of Moscow, crowded by the housing crisis, will flee to your magnificent city. The capital will be transferred automatically to Vasyuki. The government will move here. Vasyuki will be renamed New Moscow, and Moscow will be Old Vasyuki. Leningraders and Kharkovians will grind their teeth, but they won't be able to do a thing about it. New Moscow will become the elegant cultural center of Europe, and soon, of the whole world.

Once upon a time, there lived a man who had a terrible passion for baked beans. He loved them, but they always had an embarrassing and somewhat lively reaction on him. One day he met a girl and fell in love. When it was apparent that they would marry, he thought to himself 'She'll never go for me carrying on like that,' so he made the supreme sacrifice and gave up beans, and shortly after that they got married.      A few months later, on the way home from work, his car broke down and since they lived in the country, he called his wife and told her he would be late because he had to walk. On his way home, he passed a small cafe and the wonderful aroma of baked beans overwhelmed him. Since he still had several miles to walk he figured he could walk off any ill affects before he got home. So he went in and ordered, and before leaving had three extra-large helpings of baked beans. All the way home he farted. He 'putted' down one hill and 'putt-putted' up the next. By the time he arrived home he felt reasonably safe.      His wife met him at the door and seemed somewhat excited. She exclaimed, 'Darling, I have the most wonderful surprise for you for dinner tonight!' She put a blindfold on him, and led him to his chair at the head of the table and made him promise not to peek. At this point he was beginning to feel another one coming on. Just as she was about to remove the blindfold, the telephone rang. She again made him promise not to peek until she returned, and she went to answer the phone.       While she was gone, he seized the opportunity. He shifted his weight to one leg and let go. It was not only loud, but *ripe* as a rotten egg.        He had a hard time breathing, so he felt for his napkin and fanned the air about him. He had just started to feel better, when another urge came on. He raised his leg and 'rrriiiipppp!' It sounded like a diesel engine revving, and smelled worse. To keep from gagging, he tried fanning his arms a while, hoping the smell would dissipate. Things had just about returned to normal when he felt another urge coming. He shifted his weight to his other leg and let go. This was a real blue ribbon winner; the windows rattled, the dishes on the table shook and a minute later the flowers on the table were dead. While keeping an ear tuned in on the conversation in the hallway, and keeping his promise of staying blindfolded, he carried on like this for the next ten minutes, farting and fanning them each time with his napkin.      When he heard the 'phone farewells' (indicating the end of his loneliness and freedom) he neatly laid his napkin on his lap and folded his hands on top of it. Smiling contentedly, he was the picture of innocence when his wife walked in. Apologizing for taking so long, she asked if he had peeked at the dinner. After assuring her he had not, she removed the blindfold and yelled, 'Surprise!'      To his shock and horror, there were twelve dinner guests seated around the table for his surprise birthday party.

Kenta shrugged him off and swung the dildo like a baton, smashing it into the prisoner’s face. The tool became a blur of black rubber as he flailed the man, each blow making a sickening, wet thud. Within seconds their captive had fallen sideways out of the chair, head slamming onto the metal floor. Blood flowed from his face as he tried feebly to protect himself from the bludgeoning sex implement. The muscle-bound Yamaguchi was grunting but showed no sign of tiring. His victim’s face was now a bloodied mess, eyes swollen shut, nose destroyed beyond recognition. Bishop didn’t try to stop him. Kenta had lost five of his friends in the last twelve hours, seen the putrid condition of the Mori-Kai slaves, and now his rage was spewing out of him, engulfing everything it touched. Even after he had beaten the man into unconsciousness Kenta continued to bludgeon away, the blows slowing as fatigue set in. Finally he stopped, chest heaving, and dropped the bloodied club on the floor next to the battered body. “I’m sorry.” Kenta walked back into the corridor. Bishop shrugged. “Like you said, he wouldn’t have talked.

Why do you have Pete’s name tattooed on your neck?” I ask. He grins widely. “When we were twelve, our dad still couldn’t tell us apart. So, he decided to tattoo our names on our necks.” He smiles even more broadly. “When he sat us down in the chair, he asked which one I was, and I said Pete. And then he put my name on Pete’s neck. Our mom was so angry. You have no idea.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “I kind of like it.” “I do, too.

Mitch studied Maddie, who fidgeted in her chair but refused to look at him. What was going on in that brain of hers? With Gracie here, making her presence known, he was unable to reestablish the connection they’d had last night. With every second, Maddie felt farther out of his grasp. He didn’t like it. It surprised him to realize he gave a shit. He didn’t know how, but in less than twelve hours Maddie had slipped past his defenses. He continued to watch her as Gracie moved around the kitchen doing God knew what. Even

Nick lounged on his side as he watched her descend from the bed. “That’s going to be at least twelve hours from now. I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off of you for that long.” “Then you’ll have to devise some means of—” Lottie broke off and inhaled sharply as she stood upright. “What is it?” he asked alertly. Lottie blushed from her head to her toes. “I’m sore. In… in places that I’m not usually sore.” Nick understood immediately. An abashed grin touched his lips, and he hung his head in an unconvincing effort at penitence. “I’m sorry. An aftereffect of Tantric lovemaking.” “Is that what it was?” Lottie hobbled to a chair near the hearth, where she had left her robe. Hastily she wrapped it around herself. “An ancient Indian art form,” he explained. “Ritualized methods designed to prolong intercourse.” Lottie’s high color persisted as she recalled the things he had done to her in the night. “Well, it certainly was prolonged.” “Not really. Tantric experts often have sexual relations for nine or ten hours at a time.” She gave him an appalled glance. “Could you do that, if you wished?” Standing from the bed, Nick walked over to her, completely unself-conscious in his nakedness. He took her into his arms and nuzzled her soft blond hair, playing with the loose braid that hung down her back. “With you, I wouldn’t mind trying,” he said, smiling against her temple. “No, thank you. I can barely walk as it is.” She searched through the tantalizing hair on his chest, finding the point of his nipple. “I’m afraid I’m not going to encourage any of your Tantric practices.” “That’s all right,” he replied amiably. “There are other things we can do.” His voice lowered seductively. “I haven’t begun to show you the things I know.” “I was afraid of that,” she said, and he laughed. -Nick & Lottie

Sitting closest to the captain was a man who was clearly Alpha Dog of the group. He was about thirty-five and wore what looked like a very expensive suit, and Matthews had inclined his head toward the man in a way that went beyond deferential and nearly approached reverence. The man looked up at me as I entered, scanned me as if he was memorizing a row of numbers, and then turned impatiently back to Matthews. Sitting next to this charming individual was a woman so startlingly beautiful that for a half moment I forgot I was walking, and I paused in midstep, my right foot dangling in the air, as I gaped at her like a twelve-year-old boy. I simply stared, and I could not have said why. The woman’s hair was the color of old gold, and her features were pleasant and regular, true enough. And her eyes were a startling violet, a color so unlikely and yet so compelling that I felt an urgent need to move near and study her eyes at close range. But there was something beyond the mere arrangement of her features, something unseen and only felt, that made her seem far more attractive than she actually was—a Bright Passenger? Whatever it was, it grabbed my attention and held me helpless. The woman watched me goggle at her with distant amusement, raising an eyebrow and giving me a small smile that said, Of course, but so what? And then she turned back to face the captain, leaving me free to finish my interrupted step and stumble toward the table once more. In a morning of surprises, my reaction to mere Female Pulchritude was a rather large one. I could not remember ever behaving in such an absurdly human way: Dexter does not Drool, not at mere womanly beauty. My tastes are somewhat more refined, generally involving a carefully chosen playmate and a roll of duct tape. But something about this woman had absolutely frozen me, and I could not stop myself from continuing to stare as I lurched into a chair next to my sister. Debs greeted me with a sharp elbow to the ribs and a whisper: “You’re drooling,” she hissed. I wasn’t, of course, but I straightened myself anyway and summoned the shards of my shattered dignity, looking around me with an attempt at regaining my usual composure. There was one last person at the table whom I had not registered yet. He had put a vacant seat between himself and the Irresistible Siren, and he leaned away from her as if afraid he might catch something from her, his head propped up on one elbow, which was planted casually on the table. He wore aviator sunglasses, which did not disguise the fact that he was a ruggedly handsome man of about forty-five, with a perfectly trimmed mustache and a spectacular haircut. It wasn’t possible to be sure with the sunglasses clamped to his face, but it certainly seemed like he hadn’t even glanced at me as I’d come clown-footing into the room and into my chair. Somehow I managed to conceal my crushing disappointment at his negligence, and I turned my steely gaze to the head of the table, where Captain Matthews was once again clearing his throat.

Brigham as president of the Quorum of Apostles, sought to organize the First Presidency, with himself as President of the LDS Church.  Why bother being president of the church, when he was already president of the Quorum of the Twelve?  He had taken control of the LDS temple in Nauvoo, and seemed to have possession of church newspapers and had inherited the missionary system initially organized around the apostles.  Young was the de facto leader.  So why press for the presidency in opposition to some apostles?  A mere formalization of a social reality?  As church president he could take the chair of the Kingdom of God and enjoy the consent of fifty men, voicing Jehovah and His constitution too.  He would rise to the crown of the hierarchy of voicing, and other men would organize their voices accordingly.  The Twelve in 1847 thus surrendered their power to rule over to their president, as his image began mapping onto that of Joseph Smith.  Brigham then became the president of the LDS Church, and, thus, took the chair of the Council of Fifty, that Kingdom of God set to rule for a thousand years. 

She is dead now, so I can say that she laughed like us, played like us and her adult life turned out okay- so I heard. But then when we were all twelve or less, it seemed as though she floated behind a scrim. Markedly pretty, she had eyes full of distance- a smile made more attractive by what it withheld; some knowingness it appeared unwilling to share. In the early forties "cool" was our word to describe her, although, at the time, I thought she was simply sad. Something treasured had been irretrievably lost, and there was nothing to be done about it. Her attitude reminded me of what I saw in the eyes of scary old people sitting in rocking chairs on the porch or leaning forward on a fence looking at us as though in a little while we would know the doom and catastrophe they already knew. "Uh huh", they murmured when we tripped over the door saddle or ruined our clothes. "where is your mind" they asked when we dropped the milk bottle, let the coal fire go out. Seriously asking a serious question, they showed no surprise. They knew we would always fall down, drop things, be ruined, and forget. And it was possible to lose your mind. She too seemed aware of our haplessness, but she did not wear their frown. A mournful sympathy infected her smile.

watched as Harkness sat down and had a microphone clipped to his lapel. Hi Barker was flitting about, putting his guests at ease; Cary was given a folding chair just out of camera range. The whole group was no more than twelve feet from where Stone stood. “You’re sure they can’t see us?” he asked the director. “Not a chance,” Jimmy replied. “I checked it out earlier.” Two other people, a man and a young woman, came into the control room now and took seats on either side of Jimmy, paying no attention to Stone and Dino. “Ten minutes,” the woman said, looking up at a clock above the row of monitors. Stone watched the monitors as

Teach her that relationship only comes to those who actively ask. Don’t chase her down in the “What’s wrong? Nothing” game. Say, “Sounds like you’re having trouble, but I will wait to help you until you ask.” I know a dad who realized he was playing this game; he saw that chasing his ten-year-old daughter down wasn’t helping her. So the next time she was upset, he said the above words. She walked past him as he sat reading the paper, and she whimpered softly, but loud enough that he could hear. He kept reading. She literally walked around the chair twelve times! Finally, she realized that relationship wasn’t going to happen until she moved toward it. She said, “Dad, I’m sad about school.” And only then did he lovingly help her.

We walked through the ward, searching for bed forty. It wasn’t hard to spot. The ward was divided into several distinct areas. Bed twelve was in the furthest of these, easily identifiable because of the policewoman sitting on a chair beside it, flicking through a magazine.

Today, I’m sitting in the corner chair and feeling very conspicuous. First, because I’m not wearing a velour tracksuit in a choice of pastel shades, and second because I’m not a woman. You might even say, thirdly I’m over the age of twenty-five – and mentally over the age of twelve, but that would just be nasty.

The Death House back then was a self-contained unit, with its own hospital, kitchen, exercise yard and visiting room. The cells were inadequate, dark, and did not have proper sanitary facilities or ventilation. One window and skylight furnished the ventilation and light of the entire unit. Twelve cells were on the lower tier, six on each side, facing each other, with a narrow corridor between them. Five cells were located in an upper tier. There was an area the prisoners called the Dance Hall that housed a prisoner to be executed on his last day. The narrow corridor connected the Dance Hall to the execution room, where the Electric Chair resided. The prisoners named this corridor the Last Mile or the Green Mile, because this was the last walk a prisoner would take all the way to the small green riveted door at the end of the corridor, on his way to the execution room.

him that he couldn’t speak to Jamie. Not even to wish her a happy birthday. It wasn’t that Jamie blamed either of them for anything. They weren’t happy people — apart or together. She looked up, Mary’s voice echoing back to her as she let the recording in. Roper was snapping his fingers and waving at her.  She pulled the headphones down around her neck and sat up. ‘What is it?’ ‘You called the parents yet to follow-up?’ ‘Not yet.’ Her voice cracked a little and she coughed to cover it. ‘Good. It’s after twelve—’ he checked his watch ‘—we should get going if we’re going to catch Grace at the shelter.’ ‘Has Mary called?’ Jamie asked, taking a sizeable bite out of her bagel. She’d already eaten a bowl of granola and an apple. ‘No,’ Roper said, standing up and taking his pea coat off the back of his chair, ‘but I want to get there before she does and see her come in. Don’t want her to know we’re coming and come up with a story we can never disprove. Heroin, secrets, dead-boyfriend — there’s a lot she’s not going to want to say and I don’t need her getting any prep in before we arrive.’ Jamie inhaled deeply, letting the oxygen seep into her muscles. ‘Okay.’ ‘You call that doctor yet?’ Roper asked, throwing his coat around his shoulders. ‘No,’ Jamie said, shaking her head. ‘What the hell have you been doing all morning?’ She looked at her computer screen, at the twenty-eight windows she had open. All

Hopefully, once they’d spoken to Grace, she’d have more to ask and the calls would necessitate themselves.  Roper turned into the street with the shelter on it and pulled the handbrake up without pressing the button. It clicked angrily and Jamie resisted the urge to tell him that it wasn’t good for the car. They got out and she breathed through her nose again.  The air was marginally fresher.  Her watch told her it was half past twelve and the smell of soup coming out of the shelter, as well as the growing line of homeless people, told her that it was nearly lunchtime.  The door was closed and another piece of paper had been stuck over the last one. It read ‘Hot food for all. 1pm.’  The people outside were lined up neatly, hugging the right-hand rail and stretching down onto the pavement and along the street. Jamie did a quick headcount down and got to twenty-two before Roper moved in front of her and she lost the number.  He looked back, dipped his head towards the door, and she went after him.  A guy with a shaggy beard and a lined face wearing two coats opened his mouth to tell them there was a line, and then had his sixth-sense tweaked and clammed up.  Roper gave him a glance and then pulled the door open and headed inside.  The room was much the same as it was before — except it was now empty of bodies and a dozen or so folding chairs had been set out for people to sit and eat. The camp table at the back that the coffee still had been on was now mostly filled by a big soup heater. It looked like it was older than Jamie was and the caked droplets of a thousand broths stained the side.

In the play A Thousand Clowns by Herb Gardner, the protagonist refuses to release his twelve-year-old nephew to child-welfare authorities, declaring, “I want him to get to know exactly the special thing he is or else he won’t notice it when it starts to go. I want him to stay awake … I want to be sure he sees all the wild possibilities. I want him to know it’s worth all the trouble just to give the world a little goosing when you get the chance. And I want him to know the subtle, sneaky, important reason why he was born a human being and not a chair.

In 1883, a square-jawed, meticulous doctor from the Indiana frontier, Harvey Wiley, took over the division. At thirty-seven, Wiley was known as the “Crusading Chemist” for his single-minded pursuit of food safety. He rallied Congress, without success, to introduce a series of anti-adulteration bills in the 1880s and ’90s. By 1902, his patience worn out, Wiley recruited twelve healthy young men and fed them common food preservatives such as borax, formaldehyde, and salicylic, sulfurous, and benzoic acids. The diners clutched their stomachs and retched in their chairs. The extraordinary experiment became a national sensation. Wiley called it the “hygienic table trials,” while the press named it the “Poison Squad.” Outrage fueled the movement for improved food quality.

— Это конгениально, — сообщил Остап Ипполиту Матвеевичу, — а ваш дворник довольно-таки большой пошляк. Разве можно так напиваться на рубль?

Same time as every day, Fyl..." she fussed, the rest of the bridge crew seeming to hold their breaths. "TWELVE THIRTY!" came the chorus. The next hour dragged by, in about the same way as the hour before that. At twelve twenty-five, Commander Ortez found himself stepping out of an elevator into an equally mundane grey steel corridor on his way to the mess hall. Turning a corner, he met with a stream of crewmen milling around between shifts. Some off-duty personnel were lounging around in civvies, which consisted mostly of re-revamped 60's hippy fashions. Of all the places on the ship, the mess was the most spacious, (i.e.: it was a big mess.) The command officer’s balcony overhung the rest of the crew dining area. Ortez sat at his usual place, wincing as he remembered to get someone to fix the springs in his chair. An ensign, 3rd class dressed in chef’s white, served him with a plate of what either ended up feeding the chefs latest pet - or strangling it. Marnetti, Barnum and the sciences officer Commander Jaris Skotchdopole filed in, not necessarily in that order, and found seats. After a few bites, Marnetti -- who was the first officer and navigator, put up a hand and signalled a waiter. The lad approached fearfully, appreciating the highlight of his day.

Il grande tessitore si sentiva ispirato, si sentiva in quell'inebriante stato d'animo che precede la messa in atto di un raggiro di medio-alto livello.

Se non può far a meno di soffrire, soffra almeno in silenzio.

This is Sally. She is twelve years old and loves to read. Sally lives in a small town called Durham in North Carolina, and she visits the library almost two times a week. People say Sally is addicted to reading. When Sally goes to the library, she takes Milkshake, her cat. Milkshake likes to sit on the tall stool in the library and watch Sally while she is looking for a good book to read. Sally believes that Milkshake understands her completely, even if he can't talk to her. It was Monday morning, and Sally did not have to go to school since it was a holiday. What she didn't know is that this day was going to be special. Sally stood in the library and looked at the books that were on the shelf. She was searching for a good book to read. Within seconds, she noticed a special book. "I never saw this book before," she mumbled to herself. "Milkshake, do you see this book? It looks like a magical book,” she said while turning her head to the side to read the title on its binding. As always, Milkshake stood and watched, maybe understanding, maybe not. The book was on the third shelf, which was too high for Sally to reach standing on her tiptoes, so she decided to use the chair nearby. Using her legs, Sally put her right knee on the chair and raised her body, stretching both hands toward the book. Milkshake stared at her while Sally grumbled, "Come on - a little more. Here it is; here it…" Oops! Sally managed to grab the book, but she fell off the stool! Milkshake was surprised and gave a little “Meow,” while bending his head down. Oh no! Sally was on the floor; the chair had toppled over, and Milkshake was nearby. Sally picked up the book and looked at it. She noticed it was a special book. Its color was red, bright red like a fresh apple. The title of the book was also unique, "The Magical Zoo.” Sally read the title to Milkshake, and her pet was also interested.

Those first days his daughter, Sally, and I took twelve-hour shifts at the hospital, sitting in a chair next to his bed, listening to the beeping of monitors in the ICU. We were afraid to leave him. It was as if we were trying to hatch an egg, keeping him warm with our presence, and we didn’t want him to wake without a familiar face nearby.

years, and our friendship went well beyond us being workplace acquaintances. Judging by the look on his face now, I knew I was in for a conversation that had nothing to do with work. Jagger made himself comfortable in the chair opposite of where I was seated and asked, “So, are you ever going to share?” “Share what?” I retorted, knowing precisely what he was referring to. Jagger had been walking out of Harper Security Ops with me the day Sawyer showed up. I hadn’t ever shared the full story with him—or anyone else, for that matter—about what happened between us. Quite frankly, I wasn’t quite sure what I would have said. Telling someone that a girl I’d crushed on had left town without telling me seemed silly. “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Jagger replied. “Who was the girl in the parking lot the other day?” “Her name is Sawyer,” I answered. “And is there a reason that both you and Sawyer seemed unable to tear your eyes away from one another?” he pressed. I recalled that moment in the parking lot. The instant my eyes were on her, I couldn’t look away. That might have been because I was terrified I was making her up in my head and that she’d disappear if I even blinked. “The last time we saw each other was twelve years ago,” I shared, hoping that would answer all his questions. His lips twitched before he declared, “So, she’s the girl.” “What girl?” “Don’t play that game with me, Jesse,” he ordered. “She’s the girl that’s had you all twisted up inside for years.” There was no use in denying it, so I nodded. The truth was, there was so much I’d found attractive about Sawyer. It wasn’t just that she was pretty and had an unbelievable body. I loved her courage. I liked the fact that she was willing to give just about anything a try. She didn’t live her life in fear, and she was the kind of girl who went after what she wanted. There was so much determination in her personality, and for me, a girl like Sawyer was a girl that I wanted to be around. And I had believed she had a level of attraction to me as well. I could see it sometimes when she looked at me, and I felt it in every word she wrote in her letters to me while I was a recruit. The words in those letters were some of the best memories I had of her. I hadn’t expected she would write as much as she did, considering we were only friends, and I remembered how good it felt to know that she cared enough to do it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to turn it into something more, and she was gone before I could make it happen. That was why Jagger knew I’d been twisted up inside for years about a girl, even if he didn’t know it had been her.

Ciao, papa,” she said in as deadpan a voice as she could manage. “You look very well this evening. Quite dashing.” He couldn’t help himself; he glanced down and preened for just a moment before he remembered that this was his daughter speaking. She hadn’t said anything that wasn’t sarcastic since she turned thirteen. He felt a touch of nostalgia for the twelve-year-old Silvia, who had prepared her bedroom walls with photos of clean-cut pop stars and cute puppies, who had begged to go to work with him just so they could be together, who had blushed if a neighbor chided her for being too loud . . . But that Silvia was gone. In her place was this, this alien who said everything with a sneer and eyed him disdainfully and made him feel like the oldest, most ridiculous man on earth. “More to the point, I am dressed appropriately,” he said. He realized that he was gritting his teeth. He remembered what his dentist had said about cracked molars, and made a conscious effort to relax his jaw. “You, on the other hand—” He glanced at the tattoo and closed his eyes in pain. “The invitation said formal,” she said, innocently. Her face darkened as she remembered that she had a grievance of her own. “I wanted to buy a new dress for this party, but you said it would cost too much! You said that the babies needed new high chairs! You said that our family now had different financial priorities! And this is the only formal dress I have, remember?” “Yes, and I also remember that there used to be a bit more of it!” her father hissed. Silvia glanced down complacently. “I know,” she said. “I altered it myself. It’s an original design.” “Original.” Her father glared at her. “You’ll be lucky not to be charged with indecent exposure. And if you are”—he gave her a warning look—“don’t expect any favors just because you’re the mayor’s daughter!” Silvia ignored this comment with the disdain it deserved. First, she never told anyone she was the mayor’s daughter. Second, her father was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an authority on fashion. She curled her lip at his tuxedo (which was vintage, but not in a good way), his high-heeled shoes (which kept making him lose his balance), and that scarlet sash (which made him look like an extra in a second-rate opera company). “Fine,” she said loftily. “If the police arrest me, I will plead guilty to having a unique and inventive fashion sense.” He remembered what his wife had said about keeping his temper and forced himself to smile.

Pierre wakes up for good. As he's lying there yawning, he vaguely remembers a couple of false starts inspired by a ringing phone. He looks to his left. It's eleven. Next thing, he's stumbling down the hall toward his phone machine. 'Wait. Coffee,' he whispers in a shredded voice, veering back into the kitchen. He does what he has to, then plays back the messages, sips. Beep. 'It's Paul at Man Age. Appointment, twelve-thirty P.M., hour, Gramercy Park Hotel, room three-forty-four, name Terrence. Later.' Beep. 'Paul again. Appointment, two P.M., Washington Annex Hotel, room six-twenty, a play-it-by-ear, name Dennis, I think the same Dennis from last night. Check with us mid-afternoon. You're a popular dude. Later.' Beep. 'P., it's Marv, you there? . . . No? . . . Call me at work. Love ya.' On his way to the shower Pierre makes a stop at the stereo, plays side one of Here Comes the Warm Jets, an old Eno album. It's still on his turntable. It has this cool, deconstructive, self-conscious pop sound typical of the '70s Art Rock Pierre loves. He doesn't know why it's fantastic exactly. If he were articulate, and not just nosy, he'd write an essay about it. Instead he stomps around in the shower yelling the twisted lyrics. ' "By this time / I'd got to looking for a kind of / substitute . . ." ' It's weird to get lost in something so calculatedly chaotic. It's retro, pre-punk, bourgeois, meaningless, etc. ' ". . . I can't tell you quite how / except that it rhymes with / dissolute." ' Pierre covers his ears, beams, snorts wildly. Tying his sneakers, he flips the scuffed-up LP, plays his two favorite songs on the second side, which happen to sit third and fourth, and are aurally welded together by some distorted synthesizer-esque percussion, maybe ten, fifteen seconds in length. Pierre flops back in his chair, soaks the interlude up. It screeches, whines, bleeps like an orgasming robot.

I take it you have some sort of plan going? Something that calls for you to be arrested?" "There, now, you see? I told Drake you'd grasp the gist of things right away, but he had his doubts." "Drake?" I straightened up. "Is Gabriel with him? Did he get my message?" "Of course he got your message. That's why I'm here. Is there no chair?" she asked, frowning around the empty room. "No. I hate to let down the team and all, but what exactly are you doing here? Is Gabriel going to be able to get me out of being sent to the Akasha? Is he going to appeal the conviction?" "Better than that," she said with smile, glancing around quickly before leaning in closely, her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "We're going to bust you out of here." "Bust me..." I closed my eyes for a moment. "You've been watching too many old westerns. No one conducts jailbreaks these days. Especially not when the jailers are the L'au-dela committee." "That's why this plan is so incredibly cunning," she said, giving my arm a little squeeze. "They're all expecting you to try to escape-they'll never expect us to break you out of here." "Oy," I said, sliding down the wall to the floor. "This has 'doomed from the start' written all over it. You didn't think up this plan yourself, did you?" I asked suspiciously. She looked offended. "No, I didn't, and you can stop being such a negative Nelly. Gabriel thought up the plan, and Drake and I are helping. I'm the decoy, you see." "Of course you are. What, exactly, is this grandiose escape plan?" Her mouth set in a prim manner. "I can't tell you." "Why not?" "There could be bugs. We don't want them to know our plans." "If they were listening in, you just told them there's a plan, so they'll be expecting something to happen," I pointed out. "Yes, but they won't know what," she said, pulling off her jacket. Her shirt followed almost immediately, as did her jeans, shoes, and the sparkly pink socks that she was so prone to wearing despite the fact they would look more at home on a twelve-year-old. I watched her striptease with confusion for a moment before a thought struck me. "You don't mean-" "Shhh," she said, waving a vague hand around as she pulled off the scarf she wore to confine her bangs. "Bugs, remember?" I bit back an obvious reply, thought for a moment, then decided that although the plan Gabriel had come up with was too I Love Lucy for words, I didn't have any alternative. I stripped.

disrupted by the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear weapon. If Green Pine was knocked out, SAC brought online in October 1967 the first of twelve Emergency Rocket Communication Systems (ERCS) at Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base. Instead of a warhead, the special ERCS Minuteman missiles contained a powerful UHF transmitter that would broadcast launch orders to U.S. forces along the missile’s trajectory, creating, in effect, a high-flying radio broadcasting tower. The launch capsules of the 510th were retrofitted with large, floor-mounted telephone consoles that the crews quickly dubbed “knee knockers,” since they hit their knees on it whenever turning their chairs. With the arrival of ERCS, the very last remnants of the U.S. government in a nuclear war would have likely been the voices of the missileers of Whiteman’s 510th Missile Squadron. In an emergency, the crews would use the console to record launch orders onto the ERCS transmitter (the airborne command posts could record an Emergency Action Message remotely). Then either the capsule crew or an airborne command post would have launched the missiles, each set on a different trajectory to blast in a different direction. For thirty minutes after launch, ERCS-equipped Minutemans would broadcast “go codes” to any bomber, submarine, or missile silo along its path, the last communication of a destroyed