The ten-year-old shifter wore long flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt, his blond hair sticking up everywhere in the most adorable way. "No, I'm thirsty. I didn't mean to both you --" "You're not bothering us," Teresa interjected. Ryan didn't seem to ...
Some people were simply created with the right genes and the proper social skills, I figured. They ended up at a lunch table with a group of good-looking individuals, like them, who did what all good-looking individuals managed: making the rest of us...
Overeating is the addiction of choice of carers, and that's why it's come to be regarded as the lowest-ranking of all the addictions. It's a way of fucking yourself up while still remaining fully functional, because you have to. Fat people aren't ind...
For when I trace back the years I have liv'd, gathering them up in my Memory, I see what a chequer'd Work Of Nature my life has been. If I were now to inscribe my own History with its unparalleled Sufferings and surprizing Adventures (as the Booksell...
How do I know you're not crazy?" she asks. "How do I know you're not the craziest dude I've ever met?" "You'll have to test me out." "You have my info," she says. "I'll think about it." "Rain," I say. "That's not your real name." "Does it matter?" "W...
Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some reason?" he asked Isabelle. "They are built to make you laugh, like the mouse here, or to tell the time, like clocks, or to fill you with wonder like the automaton. Maybe that's why a broken mac...
The children were overwhelmingly morbid. Not a single adult asked me where butterflies go when they die, but this question was more popular than pixie sticks with the under-four-foot set. I cursed parents for not preparing their children. When I was ...
Do you know why you’re here?' the doctor said. Clumsiness. Clumsiness is the first and then we have a list: lazy, wayward, headstrong, fat, ugly, mean, tactless, and cruel. Also a liar. That category includes subheads: (a) False blindness, imaginar...
He could do the dextral pain the same way: Abiding. Here was a second right here: he endured it. What was undealable-with was the thought of all the instants all lined up and stretching ahead, glittering. And the projected future fear. ... It's too m...
As a result of its investigation, the NIH said that to qualify for funding, all proposals for research on human subjects had to be approved by review boards—independent bodies made up of professionals and laypeople of diverse races, classes, and ba...
You could be David's friend too". She glanced at Tamani when he said nothing. He was frowning. "The two of you really have a lot in common, and we're all in this together". He shook his head. "It wouldn't work". "Why not? He's a nice guy. And it woul...
The age-old, seemingly inexorable process whereby diseases acquire meanings (by coming to stand for the deepest fears) and inflict stigma is always worth challenging, and it does seem to have more limited credibility in the modern world, among people...
How much courage does it take to fire up your tractor and plow under a crop you spent six or seven years growing?' he asked himself. 'How much courage to go on and do that after you’ve spent all that time finding out how to prepare the soil and whe...
When you read my texts, you saw a curt, miserable git. And you told me so. Maybe you're right. But you know what I saw when I read yours? - Sam No. And I don't want to know. - Poppy I saw a girl who races to help others but doesn't help herself. And ...
The gremlin stopped, blinking up at me with an almost hurt expression. 'Master punish bad kitty?' he said in a pitiful voice. 'No I'm not going to punish the bad kitty,' I said and Grimalkin snorted. 'And you aren't either. I want to talk to you. Wil...
People always say that once it goes away, you forget the pain. It’s a cliché of childbirth: you forget the pain. I don’t happen to agree. I remember the pain. What you really forget is love. Divorce seems as if it will last forever, and then sud...
A number of people who I’ve talked to about this assume that I got into a fight with the cops. (Because of, y'know, the militant politics.) I actually had an audience member come up to me once and ask me if I paid taxes. Of course I pay taxes! I pa...
Every morning brings us news of the globe, and yet we are poor in noteworthy stories. This is because no event comes to us without being already shot through with explanation. In other words, by now almost nothing that happens benefits storytelling; ...
Remember William Blake who said: "Improvement makes straight, straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius." The truth is, life itself, is always startling, strange, unexpected. But when the truth is told about it eve...
One probably hears about it. One, wire, recognizes. One holds her bones up next to each other. One insists, grinding the clutch. One would powder and powder. One would ask out of the back of the throat. One refuses. One is so sad. One is helpful all ...
The past week, Mother had denied her a pass to the market for some minor, forgettable reason, and she’d taken it hard. Her market excursions were the acme of her days, and trying to commiserate, I'd said, “I'm sorry, Handful, I know how you must ...
