In the end, Astrid couldn’t do anything about my . . . turning into light, but she made a prediction. She said the sun would help me and I would be cured thanks to its efforts.’ ‘The sun?’ ‘Yes. It was the symbol I drew from among the runes...
I learned a long time ago that life introduces young people to situations they are in no way prepared for, even good girls, lucky girls who want for nothing. Sometimes, when you least expect it, you become the girl in the woods. You lose your name be...
Tadas was sent to the principal today," announced Jonas at dinner. He wedged a huge piece of sausage into his small mouth. "Why?" I asked. "Because he talked about hell," sputtered Jonas, juice from the plump sausage dribbling down his chin. "Jonas, ...
Repeat to yourself every day and as often as you can: ‘O Lord, have mercy on all those who will appear before You today.’ For every hour, every second, thousands of men leave this world and their souls appear before the Lord, and no one knows how...
Jill's face was hard when PE ended, and I had the feeling she was trying not to cry. I tried talking to her in the locker room, but she simply shook her head and headed off for the showers. I was about to go there myself when I heard a shriek. Those ...
Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now. “I’m afraid of committing myself,” she thought to herself. She wanted ...
The desire to know the future gnaws at our bones. That is where it started, and might have ended, years ago. I had cast the stones, seeing their faces flicker and fall: Death, Love, Murder, Treachery, Hope. We are a treacherous people - half of our s...
In North Carolina, I stopped to gas up at a Humble Oil station, then walked around the corner to use the toilet. There were two doors and three signs. MEN was neatly stenciled over one door, LADIES over the other. The third sign was an arrow on a sti...
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, w...
She remained silent. There was nothing left to say. He'd said it all the night before. He had to end it. He could never leave his wife. And, in fact, she had known this. Although she loved him - and truly she did - he wasn't hers. He belonged to his ...
Within five minutes of leaving the reunion, I'd undone the double wrapping and eaten all six rugelach, each a snail of sugar-dusted pastry dough, the cinnamon-lined chambers microscopically studded with midget raisins and chopped walnuts. By rapidly ...
Whatever wisdom I have has been hard-earned – each meaning carefully culled out of the dictionary of human experiences and emotions and put in its precise place in the matrix. Meaning doesn’t come easy. The Great Crossword Setter in the Sky is ca...
Then you get the wrong answer and you can't go to the Moon that way! Nature isn't a person, you can't trick them into believing something else, if you try to tell the Moon it's made of cheese you can argue for days and it won't change the Moon! What ...
In my mind, I built stairways. At the end of the stairways, I imagined rooms. These were high, airy places with big windows and a cool breeze moving through. I imagined one room opening brightly onto another room until I'd built a house, a place with...
We live in a culture of reductionism. Or better, we are living in the aftermath of a culture of reductionism, and I believe we have reduced the complexity and diversity of the Scriptures to systematic theologies that insist on ideological conformity,...
I smack myself in the forehead. “Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods, they’re not moving!” I exclaim. There’s a choking noise over my head somewhere. “Etruscan snoods?” I glow quietly inside. Some accomplishments mean more than o...
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twink...
Don't be amazed if you see my eyes always wandering. In fact, this is my way of reading, and it is only in this way that reading proves fruitful to me. If a book truly interests me, I cannot follow it for more than a few lines before my mind, having ...
Violence promises us something we all deeply desire, something we genuinely want; violence promises us peace. Violence promises us, that in the end, when the last battle is fought, the last bomb is dropped, and the last enemy is slain, we will have w...
For a torture to be effective, the pain has to be spread out; it has to come at regular intervals, with no end in sight. The water falls , drop after drop after drop, like the second hand of a watch, carving up time. The shock of each individual drop...
…”The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don’t suppose it will prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from them to friends of Mr. Vyse’s. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest people! The queerest people! For our part we liked ...
