Often, the best stories aren't when someone pulls one 180-degree turn, but when someone pulls 180 one-degree turns: the stories when someone experiences a slow and, at times, indistinguishable evolution; the stories where a million tiny steps produce...
He guided her hands lower, over her own soft belly, her hips, the tops of her thighs. The oils they spread there left a sheen upon her flesh. A sheen that glistened as firelight and shadows caroused about the space. His grasped her wrists and he urge...
I leaned against the desk, ran my hand over my father’s paperwork, and picked up a pen. Turning around, I shoved it into my father’s hand. "What’s this?" he asked, raising a brow. "You’ll need it to sign my death certificate," I said, pain vi...
If you just found out you had six months left to live, the first thing I’d do is apologize for not delivering the letter 182 days ago, when your doctor first handed it to me to hand to you.
The author tells a story wherein a missionary friend of his was invited by unbelievers on a train ride to play cards. The friend declined, saying that he did not bring his hands with him. He explained to the astonished group that the hands attached t...
Filial respect caused Grey to hesitate in passing ex post facto opinions on his mother's judgment, but after half an hour in the company of either Paul or Edgar, he could not escape a lurking suspicion that a just Providence, seeing the DeVanes so we...
The First Mobile, if one is sent, must be warned that unless he is very self-assured, or senile, his pride will suffer. A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard...
He looked at me. His firm, broad face showed weight-loss in deep shadows under the cheekbones, his eyes were sunken and his mouth sorely chapped and cracked. God knows what I looked like, when he looked like that. He smiled. 'With luck we shall make ...
Until two days ago what had driven him was the will to survive: deep, animal, full of rage—but always part of him had not cared at all whether he lived or died. Now he did care, and very deeply, and so for the first time in a long time he was afrai...
... If the dead can come back to this earth and move unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night—amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours—always, always; and if there be a soft bre...
...Again she did not seem to hear, still looking into Cale’s eyes. Then slowly, hopelessly, she dropped her gaze. “I understand,” she said. It was that, of course, that pierced him as if she had stabbed him through the heart. To him it was the ...
If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that--warm things, kind things, sweet things--help ...
Why must a woman always surrender? I am not prey!" "No I am. Your arrow struck me long ago." Paris took her hand and placed it on his chest."Right here. And every time I try to pull it out." He used her hand to demonstrate. "You force it back in.
Ah! Thou gifest me such hope and courage, and I haf nothing to gif back but a full heart and these empty hands," cried the Professor, quite overcome. Jo never, never would learn to be proper, for when he said that as they stood upon the steps, she ju...
The true lover is not the one who says: "You need to be by my side and I need to take care of you, because we are loyal to each other," but the one who realizes that loyalty must go hand in hand with freedom. And without fear of betrayal, he accepts ...
That was what her parents did not understand—and had never understood—about stories. Liza told herself storied as though she was weaving and knotting an endless rope. Then, no matter how dark or terrible the pit she found herself in, she could pu...
As it 'appens, I am Arthur's right-hand man," said Suzy. "Or left-hand girl, I can't remember where I stood last time. Anyhow, me and Arthur is like two fingers of a gauntlet. Or at least the thumb and the little finger. I mean, I'm his top General, ...
Extremely self-conscious in its craft, in many ways The Hand of Ethelberta is an exploration of fiction as illusion, which involves parody of the conventions it employs; romance, melodrama and farce, and a rejection of realism for absurdist and surre...
How did you know I was different?” “You mean besides the obvious obsidian, the alien entourage, and the branch?” He laughed. “You’re full of electricity. See?” He reached between the seats and placed his hand over mine. Static crackled, j...
As he returned to the bed, he could see Vallant eyeing him warily, but he ignored this, sat on the opposite end and braced the pad on his knee. He ripped off the page and handed it over, but he began a second note even before Vallant had taken the fi...
Finally, especially in the case of medical-response canines and those that serve handlers with invisible disabilities, it's not merely the necessity of the dog that's questioned but also the existance of the disability itself. And for these partnersh...
