I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading – treading – till it seemed That Sense was breaking through – And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum – Kept beating – beating – till I thought My Mind was...
I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed an...
I went to say no, but I winced as I pulled my tooth out of my lip. I was absolutely hopeless. In a two minute period my front curls had started to go straight due to my constant brushing them behind my ears and I was pretty sure my lip was bleeding. ...
Latchkey! I mean . . . I want to talk to you . . .' He fell silent, glancing behind him and shifting from foot to foot, his waterproof trousers rattling like the bulls' bladders that boys use to learn swimming. Sterlingov angrily spat out his cigaret...
Please don't entertain for a moment the utterly mistaken idea that there is no drudgery in writing. There is a great deal of drudgery in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most distinguished writing. Read what the great ones have said about ...
In our post-everything culture, obey has become a four-letter word. Obeying is for wimps. Obeying is for people who didn’t do well enough on their SATs to write their own rules. Only the weak and the feeble and the young—-well, not even the young...
Not town can live peacefully, whatever its laws," Plato wrote, "when its citizens ... do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love." But is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a little while? Just for a few m...
He is as good as anybody in this parish! He is very particular, too, about going to church-yes, he is!' 'I am afeard nobody ever saw him there. I never did, certainly.' 'The reason of that is,' she said eagerly, 'that he goes in privately by the old ...
You don't seem to understand," I whispered. "It's Christmas relationships that are worrying Carol and me so! It worries us dreadfully! Oh, of course we understand all about the Little Baby Christ! And the camels! And the wise men! And the frankincens...
I don’t like seeing you hit.” “Well, to be quite honest, I don’t like being hit unless it’s by you.” As soon as it was out of my mouth, I realized what I had said. “That sounded all sorts of wrong.” “Insanely so, actually.” “To ...
The girl didn't notice that her boyfriend's head had transformed into a big microphone. So when she whispered her secrets into his ear, her words echoed trough the city. In her embarrassment, she ran out of the house to hide somewhere. And what she s...
When sonneteering Wordsworth re-creates the landing of Mary Queen of Scots at the mouth of the Derwent - Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore - he unveils nothing less than a canvas by Rubens, baroq...
Sometimes I still feel that there are two of me: one clean, flawless picture, the other imperfect and cracked; one boy, one girl; one voice that speaks aloud and one that whispers in my ear; one publicly known to have been troubled but be on the mend...
The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can’t anymore. I don’t know that we are actually human at this point, those of us wh...
Slowly the shapes around her took on form. Huge empty eyes stared at her hungrily through the gloom, and dimly she saw the jagged shadows of long teeth. She had lost the count. She closed her eyes and bit her lip and sent the fear away. When she look...
THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED by the ghosts Of all great literature, in hosts; We sell no fakes or trashes. Lovers of books are welcome here, No clerks will babble in your ear, Please smoke--but don't drop ashes! ---- Browse as long as you like. Prices of all...
Bleeding from the ear. That was on the list for not applying pressure. But what did that mean? I couldn't remember. Couldn't think. "Is he okay?" "You dropped a two-hundred pound log on his head!" I screamed at Nathan. The air shuddered around us; th...
It would be nice to think that as I've got older times have changed, relationships have become more sophisticated, females less cruel, skins thicker, reactions sharper, instincts more developed. But there still seems to be an element of that evening ...
And what of the dead? I own that I thought of myself, at times, almost as dead. Are they not locked below ground in chambers smaller than mine was, in their millions of millions? There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumb...
Who are you? What’s your name?” “Mi Mi.” “Do you hear that thumping noise?” “No.” “It must be here somewhere.” Tin Win knelt down. Now it was nearly next to his ear. “I hear it more and more distinctly. A soft pulsing. You reall...
I'm so sorry, Henri," I whisper in his ear. I close my eyes. "I love you. I wouldn't have missed a second of it, either. Not for anything," I whisper. "I'm going to take you back yet. Somehow I am going to get you back to Lorien. We always joked abou...
