In another Christmas story, Dale Pearson, evil developer, self-absorbed woman hater, and seemingly unredeemable curmudgeon, might be visited in the night by a series of ghosts who, by showing him bleak visions of Christmas future, past, and present, ...
Scarcely has night arrived to undeceive, unfurling her wings of crepe (wings drained even of the glimmer just now dying in the tree-tops); scarcely has the last glint still dancing on the burnished metal heights of the tall towers ceased to fade, lik...
She was left to beg for mercy only to burn in torment again the next day. She was a weed struggling through cracks of concrete, unwanted, undesired, crushed and abused under trampling feet. She would never see the sun. She would never be free. She wo...
I know.” The two words ghosted against the skin of her neck, sending goose bumps down her spine. “But I want to touch you. I want to put my hands all over you. I want to kiss every inch of you and taste you as you come apart in my arms. I want to...
All night the earth and the heavens followed their usual arrangements. Stars passed: an immense tide hung over them. A silent sea raced back with the sun, its wave turn-over small, delicate and comfortless. The most glorious of all stars hung above t...
Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you--haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad. Only do n...
Mangled heroes from both sides of the nameless conflict lay scattered in comical disregard. Valiant and dignified death poses embody a fiction found in the epic poems of minstrels and bards; fanciful reflections lacking merit in warfare. Athen briefl...
Red Rover, Red Rover, send Ardor right over," Eliza said. They laughed. The asteroid was a little bigger now, brighter, and still they went on laughing. Laughing in the face of what they couldn't predict or change or control. Would it be fire and bri...
But behind each player sttod a line of ghosts unable to win. Eve. Ashputtel. Marilyn Monroe. Rapunzel slashing wildly at her hair. Bessie Smith unloved and down and out. Bluebeard's wives, Henry VIII's, Snow White cursing the day she left the seven d...
In the utter peace and stillness the world seemed holding its breath, a little apprehensively, drawing near to the fire to warm itself. There was none of that sense of urgeful, pushing life that robs even a calm spring day of the sense of silence; li...
No weekends for the gods now. Wars flicker, earth licks its open sores, fresh breakage, fresh promotions, chance assassinations, no advance. Only man thinning out his own kind sounds through the Sabbath noon, the blind swipe of the pruner and his kni...
When a traveler from the future must talk, he does not talk but whimpers. He whispers tortured sounds. He is agonized. For if he makes the slightest alteration in anything, he may destroy the future. At the same time, he is forced to witness events w...
Legends of the Silver Stallion had been told for years now, whenever mountain stockmen met round the campfires or on the winding hill tracks. Songs were sung about him to the cattle and both songs and tales had become even stranger since his supposed...
Liesel Meminger: There once was a ghost of a boy who liked to live in the shadows, so he wouldn't frighten people. His job was to wait for his sister, who was still alive. She wasn't afraid of the dark, because she knew that's where her brother was. ...
M. Gustave: The beginning of the end of the end of the beginning has begun. A sad finale played off-key on a broken-down saloon piano in the outskirts of a forgotten ghost town. I'd rather not bear witness to such blasphemy. Zero: Me neither. M. Gust...
Major Motoko Kusanagi: There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thou...
[Seymour is trying to interest a fellow collector in a record he's selling] Paul, the Fussy Guy - Record Collector: It has a enlarged centre hole and a hair-crack. Seymour: But the crack is so tight it's completely inaudible. Paul, the Fussy Guy - Re...
Enid: You know, we need to find a place where you can go to meet women who share your interests. Seymour: Well maybe I don't want to meet someone who shares my interests. I hate my interests. Enid: Yeah, yeah, just list your five main interests in or...
John Ellis: Well, well, well. If it isn't Enid and Rebecca. The little Jewish girl and her Aryan friend. Enid: You're late, asshole. John Ellis: Fine, and how are you? Enid: Did you bring the tape? [he shows her the videotape but pulls it away when s...
Graduation Speaker: High school is like the training wheels for the bicycle of real life. It is a time when young people can explore different fields of interest and hopefully learn from their experiences. In coming to terms with my own personal setb...
[Enid and Seymour enter the Sidewinder to see Josh scooping some ice cream for a little girl] Enid: Hi, Josh. Josh: Hi. Enid: Just stopping by to say "hi". Josh: Yeah. Enid: This is my friend, Seymour. [Josh turns round, recognizes Seymour from the d...
