When I go to describe something as remarkable as what I saw that day, I could only say it was a place of dreams. The water is crystalline clear, a mixture of opalescent colors and frosted with white tips. It surges forward and crashes up against the ...
Our society has tried to make death invisible, thinking that if we ignore it long enough it will go away. Often we as family and loved ones are so afraid of death that even mentioning the word to terminal patients is taboo. We think the dying are obl...
When you were strung out and I kissed you I imagined your mouth a mound of cocaine, inhaling your breath like powder as I pushed into you and you pulled me with your bruised thighs. Some nights we fucked so slowly I dissolved like a Quaalude in a gla...
I laughed it off but I close the bedroom door and I lose it and I stick it all down here and this is where it all stays. And this is where it has to stay because I am not ending up in the nutter ward again with brown walls, jigsaws, and people crying...
Let me guess - you're Grumpy?' He let out a . ' And you would be too, if you'd just spent the last hour searching the forest for your wayward charge.' He walked even faster. 'We tell you to stay inside, we tell you not to talk to strangers. But oh no...
I spent the afternoon musing on Life. If you come to think of it, what a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see what I mean. At any moment you may be strolling peacefully along, and all the time Life's waiting around...
We talk about social service, service to the people, service to humanity, service to others who are far away, helping to bring peace to the world - but often we forget that it is the very people around us that we must live for first of all. If you ca...
I've never understood it,' continued Wilfred Carr, yawning. 'It's not in my line at all; I never had enough money for my own wants, let alone for two. Perhaps if I were as rich as you or Croesus I might regard it differently.' There was just sufficie...
Do you see this lantern? cried Syme in a terrible voice.'Do you see the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? You did not make it. You did not light it. Better men than you, men who could believe and obey, twisted the entrails of iron and preserv...
She said, "Well, that's right, she's going to heaven very soon. And now it's time for us to say good-bye to her and tell her how much we love her." Mary martha nodded and looked at the needlepoint in her hands. "Will her brain still be hurt, in heave...
A man going quietly about his business all day long expends far more muscular energy than an athlete who lifts a huge weight once a day. This has been proved physiologically, and so the social sum total of everybody's little everyday efforts, especia...
The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies th...
I had heard my brothers and sisters use curse words but had never dared use one myself in front of anyone. But I had practiced alone in my room lots of times, trying out different cadences and into nations: 'Fuck, fuck, fuck you, fucknut. Shit, shits...
Picture this broad: 22 going on 18. Half the guys in my class would have given their left testicle to date her. This cupcake is the guidance counselor the principal has assigned me. Miss Boyle is her name. We all call her “Miss Bubbly Water.” Ima...
Lay down Your tired & weary head my friend. We have wept too long Night is falling And you we are only sleeping We have come to this journey's end It's time for us to go To meet our friends Who beckon us To jump again From across a distant sky A C-13...
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men...
Well,’said Ernest, ‘by some strange coincidence I know this story.’ Boddichek was not good at irony. ‘I knew that there was that possibility,’ he said, ‘but we have a great new way to treat it, and I thought you might want to reread it be...
Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into anoth...
As I’ve said, it wasn’t until a long time afterwards—long after I’d left the Cottages—that I realized just how significant out little encounter in the churchyard had been. I was upset at the time, yes. But I didn’t believe it to be anythi...
Will you remember this day, Gogol?" his father had asked, turning back to look at him, his hands pressed like earmuffs to either side of his head. "How long do I have to remember it?" Over the rise and fall of the wind, he could hear his father's lau...
By the time I got to the phone and dialed John's number, I was out of breath with excitement. "You are not going to believe this," I blurted out. "What's the matter?" Hr sounded concerned. "Are you sitting down?" "Yeah, sure, Pattie. What's wrong?" G...
