What is the spirit of Christmas, you ask? Let me give you the answer in a true story... On a cold day in December, feeling especially warm in my heart for no other reason than it was the holiday season, I walked through the store sporting a big gri...
American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash -- all of them -- surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles, and almost smothered with rubbish. Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so ...
Ay, that I had not done a thousand more. Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think, Few come within the compass of my curse,— Wherein I did not some notorious ill, As kill a man, or else devise his death, Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it, ...
During those times, they'd stand there watching me watching them. I'd pray, please. Put a pillow to my face. Clench a hand around my throat. Stab me. Shoot me. Put me out of everyone's misery. Why did you give birth to such a loser? Why didn't you ad...
Isn't it weird," I said, "the way you remember things, when someone's gone?" What do you mean?" I ate another piece of waffle. "When my dad first died, all I could think about was that day. It's taken me so long to be able to think back to before tha...
So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time. But when the pollen again gilded the sun and sifted down on the world she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know exactly. Her breath was gusty ...
That kiss you gave me was the hottest kiss i've ever had. I pulled away because i was afraid i wouldn't be able to stop myself from ripping off your clothes. And that didn't seem like the right way to end a first date. I didn't want you to think that...
He shook his head again. “I’m afraid I don’t feel much of anything these days. Especially not hope. I have no time or energy to waste on false wishes and dreams that won’t come true.” “Hope isn’t about ignorant wishing.” She surprised...
I wish I would have been there for you.” He finally found his voice. “I wish I would have been there to beat up all the children who bullied you, to shoot your father dead the first time he broke one of your bones. I wish I would have been there ...
"Of cats' first disobedience, and the height Of that forbidden tree whose doom'd ascent Brought man into the world to help us down And made us subject to his moods and whims, For though we may have knock'd an apple loose As we were carried safely to ...
It is hard to bring paedophile rings to justice. Thankfully it does happen. Perhaps the most horrific recent case came before the High Court in Edinburgh in June 2007. It involved a mother who stood by and watched as her daughter of nine was gang-rap...
Sister, why do you do that?" "Do what?" "Cage the animals at night?" "Well..." She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me."We don't want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take ...
William groaned. It was Vimes. Worse, he was smiling, in a humourless predatory way. "Ah, Mr de Worde," he said, stepping inside. "There are several thousand dogs stampeding through the city at the moment. This is an interesting fact, isn't it?" He l...
Middle children weep longer than their brothers and sisters. Over her mother’s shoulder, stilling her pains and her injured pride, Jackie Lacon watched the party leave. First, two men she had not seen before: one tall, one short and dark. They drov...
Frodo: I can't do this, Sam. Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want...
Misty bit her lip — or at least that was what it looked like with the glamour. Kate could only imagine what she was doing with that mouth full of fangs. 'How do I know I can trust him? Or you?' Kate rose to her feet. 'You don’t. You never do, wit...
Go.” Granmare pointed at the door. “Let me work in peace.” Balthazar didn’t look back when he left. “Now, my dear,” the witch turned to her, “let me give you what that foolish boy paid for.” “He’s not foolish,” Arianne said. For...
Hundreds of people began to care in a personal way about the suffering of farm workers because they care about you and learned that you were willing to go to jail with striking farm workers,” Chris wrote the delegates from the Jesuit spirituality c...
Her parents, she said, has put a pinball machine inside her head when she was five years old. The red balls told her when she should laugh, the blue ones when she should be silent and keep away from other people; the green balls told her that she sho...
Mostly she just missed Vaughn. Missed all those quiet, unspectacular moments that, when added up, showed how entwined their lives had become. And right now, she missed being able to phone him, because it would be so easy to tap in the eleven digits t...
Gareth Miller grabbed the beer first, then the hotdog, because if there’s one thing you don’t want to be caught dead without at these sorts of events it’s beer. The hotdog was strictly for show, a prop, a way of blending in. Burst of static in ...
