Each of us is born to follow a star, be it bright and shining or dark and fated. Sometimes the path of these stars will cross, bringing love or hatred. However, if you look up at the skies on a clear night, out of all the countless lights that twinkl...
What does a lighthouse do? I ask myself. It never moves. It cannot hike up its rocky skirt and dash into the ocean to rescue the foundering ship. It cannot calm the waters or clear the shoals. It can only cast light into the darkness. It can only poi...
Lucy saw the delighted expressions of the guests and knew they looked like something out an Austen movie. Well, at least Jem did. She giggled a little and cleared her throat. “Something funny?” he murmured out of the corner of his mouth. “Just ...
I won’t forget it,” I said. “I hope you meet someone perfect one day.” “Ha…yeah, that’s just it. I think I already did.” As we opened our doors to step out, he touched my arm. “Just to be clear, if I, like, leaned over and whispered...
On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and ...
I don’t think you’re crazy at all. I don’t want you to think that either. I can’t say that I understand what’s going through your head, but I can say that I’ll be here for you no matter what. If I haven’t made it clear, I love you more ...
Behold! Allah said: "O Jesus! I will take thee and raise thee to Myself and clear thee (of the falsehoods) of those who blaspheme; I will make those who follow thee superior to those who reject faith, to the Day of Resurrection: Then shall ye all ret...
Among the Secoya, clear guidelines regulate preparation of the medicine. They are adamant about this preparation method and insist that the guidelines be followed. I've already discussed some fundamentals of harvesting the plants. When respected, all...
We were greeted by the minister whose inclusive, non-judgemental smile was no more than a whisker away from a smirk. Have I made it clear? I don't like belief systems and even less like those that peddle self-righteousness. I have no doubt the minist...
the only way clear of the cool/crazy flipflop was obviously slow, frustrating and hard work. Love with your mouth shut, help without breaking your ass or publicizing it: keep cool, but care. He might have known, if he'd used any common sense. It didn...
These three children own the summer. They know the wood as surely as they know the micro landscapes of their own grazed knees; put them down blindfolded in any dell or clearing and they could find their way out without putting a foot wrong. This is t...
Memory is a barricade against forgetting; light is a bulwark against darkness; life is a flex against the stillness of the grave. Maybe that's what I'm trying to do here, clear a space in all the debris, through all the anxieties and worries, where I...
He's very nice. He's something I replied. She considered this zipping her purse shut. Then she said Well everyone is. Everyone is Something. For some reason that stuck with me simple and yet not every since she'd said it. It was like a puzzle as well...
First, the explosion of life. Then came the celebration. Such as it had been for generations and generations, as long as the eldest of the eldest could remember; as long as the record books had kept steady score. By the time the first buds were edgin...
And what is justice? The princess thought of that proud word 'justice'. All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and simple law—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself...
We humans may think of ourselves as solid objects, all flesh and bone. But take a close look, and it’s clear our bodies are composed largely of oxygen and hydrogen. We are essentially ephemeral – akin as much to wind water, and fire as to earth.
My body slid from human to wolf in a crack! of black smoke. Wolf was panting and I watched frost dissipate on my hot tongue, sending tiny rivulets of steam into the air. The world was sharp and clear, and I never realized how many different colors of...
Papa had always told Justine that guns had a remarkable capacity to focus the mind. She couldn’t say with any confidence that her actions had cleared the minds of the drunken louts before her, but she’d sharpened their attention. They gaped at he...
You scour these Chinatowns of the mind, translating them like sutras Xuan Zhang fetched from India, testing ways return might be possible against these homesick inventions, trace the traveller's alien steps across borders, and in between discover how...
Recapping the water he turned on the sofa to face her, his eyes reflexively dropping to her chest where he knew the key was hidden. Thank God the dress was high necked, otherwise he would be outright eyeing her cleavage. “Thinking of going in?” S...
Suddenly, Tara's accomplishment was clear. She had lined up allies among the school's various groups and got them all to work together for probably the first time in the school's history. She was like a master builder who could bend materials like st...
