I start to cross the street, stop, turn back. "You are not what I thought." He smiles. A devastatingly beautiful smile. I race across the street to my apartment building, to home, to safety. Because that smile scares me for reasons I can't explain. I...
For our part, when we feel, we evaporate; ah, we breathe ourselves out and away; with each new heartfire we give off a fainter scent. True, someone may tell us: you're in my blood, this room, Spring itself is filled with you . . . To what end? He can...
Occasionally, a dog will be presented as some training method for having a baby. "My girlfriend and I got a dog. We are going to see if we can handle that before we have kids." This is a little like testing the waters of being a vegetarian by having ...
Before the war, a white man named Jonathan Edwards came to Stockbridge to teach my people about sin, but I doubt very much he could see sin in this. You defended yourself against a man who would otherwise have killed you and your friends. Perhaps you...
I wasn’t going to argue with you. Why ever would you think that? I never argue." Lucian smiled at her. She was so small, it amazed him she was such a strong person. "Of course you do not argue. What was I thinking? Go to sleep, honey, and allow my ...
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5–...
Unlike your mother," she said, exhaling, "I told the culprit immediately. I thought at the very least he would visit me in the hospital after it was all done, but the son of a bitch sent me a get well card. Can you imagine? Serves me right for puttin...
My friends never seem to yell at their kids. Even when their kids are behaving hideously, they pull them aside and say, now sweetie, you know you shouldn't, blah, blah, blah. Please don't yadda, yadda, okay sweetie? Maybe it's some bullshit show they...
With the minivan in the air, rolling counterclockwise, the engine racing, Laurie screaming -- a fraction of a second, that's all -- Jacob would have thought of me -- who had held him, my own baby, looked down into eyes -- and he would have understood...
They wouldn't understand, and I don't feel the need to explain, simply because I know in my heart how real it was. When I think of you, I can't help smiling, knowing that you've completed me somehow. I love you, not just for now, but for always, and ...
Chronic trauma (according to the meaning I propose) that occurs early in life has profound effects on personality development and can lead to the development of dissociative identity disorder (DID), other dissociative disorders personality disorders,...
I am the foremost collector of velvet Elvii in the city of Chicago," I said at once. "Elvii?" Marcone inquired. "The plural would be Elvises, I guess," I said. "But if I say that too often, I start muttering to myself and calling things 'my precious,...
Dissociation, in a general sense, refers to a rigid separation of parts of experiences, including somatic experiences, consciousness, affects, perception, identity, and memory. When there is a structural dissociation, each of the dissociated self-sta...
My mom would spy by satellite, turning down the air conditioning, colder and colder, with a tapping keystroke via her wireless connection, chilling that house, that one room, meat locker cold, ski-slope cold, spending a king's ransom on Freon and ele...
...The next time I opened my eyes, I was in the morgue. This, all by itself, is enough to really ruin your day. I was lying on the examining table, and Butters, complete with his surgical gown and his tray of autopsy instruments, stood over me. 'I'm ...
I can still only see a dragonfly, its wings as thin and light as silk and its body the color of rainbow. But on the wings of this dragonfly I take off and fly, for my soul carries no weight. It is our bodies – these borrowed vehicles of flesh and b...
I am but a stranger ... as we all are. Lonely inside our separate skins, we cannot know each others pain and must bear our own in solitude. For my part, I have found that walking soothes it; and that, given luck, sometimes we find one to walk besides...
Anyway, if you need your heroes to be perfect, you won't have very many. Even Superman had his Kryptonite. I'd rather have my heroes be more like me: trying to do the right thing, sometimes messing up. Making mistakes. Saying you're sorry. And forgiv...
...crackers..." a voice breathed out nehind us, "yesss..." Both of us turned, watching as Chubs twisted around in his seat and settled back down, still fast asleep. I pressed a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. Liam rolled his eyes, smiling. ...
I, too, like yourself was a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was ultramontane. Your party system is one of your thefts from our Church; your National Convention is our Ecunemic Council; you abdicate reason, as we do, before its deci...
All the ideas in the universe can be described by words. Therefore, if you simply take all the words and rearrange them randomly enough times, you’re bound to hit upon at least a few great ideas eventually. Sausage donkey swallows flying guillotine...
