A soft mist blew around them. Raindrops glistened in his hair, shimmering under the pale glow of the light post. His eyes were shadowed beneath wispy fringes, but the silver in them glinted like pools of liquid mercury. Her breath caught. It must hav...
I don't understand humans." Caradoc shook his head. "It takes their brightest minds decades to plan an unmanned voyage to the nearest planet, which can take a year to travel each way. Yet they expect there to be aliens travelling distances it takes l...
Neither Peter in his work to include Gentiles in the church nor the abolitionists in their campaign against slavery argued that their experience should take precedence over Scripture. But they both made the case that their experience should cause Chr...
The moon had risen behind him, the color of a shark's underbelly. It lit the ruined walls, and the skin of his arms and hands, with its sickly light, making him long for a mirror in which to study his face. Surely he'd be able to see the bones beneat...
The house is a normal-sized house, but once you step foot in the door, you are confronted with “The Dome.” Perfectly round, this room is one continuous curved wall of books. A copper dome sits on top with four stained glass windows fitted tight t...
Look, you have been told everything. Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. And the star that leads the way is your star." So Judas lifted up his eyes and saw the luminous cloud, and he entered i...
I’ve come down from the sky like some damned ghost, delayed too long…To the abandoned fields the trees returned and grew. They stand and grow. Time comes To them, time goes, the trees Stand; the only place They go is where they are. Those wholly ...
Anyway, it's like with bikes,' said the first speaker authoritatively. 'I thought I was going to get this bike with seven gears and one of them razorblade saddles and purple paint and everything, and they gave me this light blue one. With a basket. A...
The truth is that any figure of Africans imported into the Americas which is narrowly based on the surviving records is bound to be low, because there were so many people at the time who had a vested interest in smuggling slaves (and withholding data...
Is there somebody out there? Amy, is that you?” her mother called. “No. Tell me this isn’t happening.” Quinn rested his forehead against hers. “Has she got a wiretap on you or something? I swear, she’s like a walking hard-on detector.” ...
A brick could be used to help you get used to the fact that you’ve been used. I’ve been used to, so I know what you’re going through. You’re going through a dark tunnel, and just when you think it can’t get any darker, trust me, you’ll se...
But I knew he wouldn't kiss me. Not tonight. Not like this. There was too much between us now, all the words and near misses. All the potential, the alternate futures that would stretch out before us in an unending spiral, all built on what happened ...
Then, left alone, shivering, I happened to glance up. I stood, I froze, blinking up through the drift, the drift, the silent drift of blinding snow. I saw the high hotel windows, the lights, the shadows. What's it like up there? I thought. Are fires ...
Most European nations identify themselves with eagles or lions, with some predator or creature of the air, ascendant and belligerent. I would like to visit the country which adopts the groundhog as its mascot, somewhere peaceful, some place that curl...
songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment. They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality. Some different republic, some liberated republic... whatever the case, it wasn't that I was anti-popular cul...
Magnus stood up and went to the window. He pushed the curtain back, letting in just enough light to silhouette his hawklike profile. "Blood," he said, half to himself. "I had a dream two nights ago. I saw a city all of blood, with towers made of bone...
They're still looking at him," she said to Magnus under her breath. "At Will, I mean." "Of course they are," said Magnus. His eyes reflected light like a cat's as they surveyed the room. "Look at him. The face of a bad angel and eyes like the night s...
After a long time, I cleared my throat. “So anyway, when we get to Nevada...I think we should rethink your dad’s rule.” Alex glanced down at me and smiled – the first real smile I’d seen on his face in a long time. “You know what? It’s ...
By the time they were pulling into the parking lot of the A&P, the mood was fading, the moment gone. Amy could feel it go. Perhaps it was nothing more than the two doughnuts expanding in her stomach full of milk, but Amy felt a heaviness begin, a fam...
Perhaps my sense of reality is not very highly developed, perhaps I lack a sound and reassuring instinct for the solid facts of our earthly existence; I can’t always tell memories from dreams, and often I mistake dreams, coming to life again in col...
The moment you stop smoking, everything that goes wrong in your life is blamed on the fact that you’ve stopped smoking. Now when you have a mental block, instead of just getting on with it you start to say, ‘If only I could light up now, it would...
