Roman ignored her and took her ankles and flipped them purposefully, but because of her hands she could not turn all the way and ended up with her legs scissored unintuitively, and suddenly things were different. Ashley had heard girls tell stories o...
I am alone this evening, and I am alone because of a cruel twist of fate, a phrase which here means that nothing has happened the way I thought it would. Once I was a content man, with a comfortable home, a successful career, a person I loved very mu...
The echo of two boys playing in a pool testing each other to see who could hold their breath the longest. … Whadda ya wanna do now?— I know, we could wrestle like the Roman gladiators— Okay— What do we fight for?— Loser has to do the victor...
Writing for the sake of writing, writing that draws its credibility from its very existence, is a foreign idea to most Americans. As a culture, we want cash on the barrel head. We want writing to earn dollars and sense so that it makes sense to us. W...
Why not now?’ Horgias said. ‘We could go back in now and take it.’ ‘You can certainly try.’ Pantera rolled his tongue around his teeth and then said something in the native tongue that neither of us understood. When we made no response, he ...
That red spot!” she says with alarm. “That’s a freckle!” “It wasn’t there before...” she says as she inspects her entire arm. “It’s cute.” “It’s not cute.” “Then it’s mine,” I say. “If you don’t like it, it’s min...
I remember Cannae," she said, raising her head, "when we thought all was lost. Carthage had defeated us, and there were those who gave up hope. Yet we survived, by our fortitude, and by believing that we should endure. There are times, Marcus, when c...
But there’s more. When I was on my way to the event today, Carolyn texted me and told me that Steve and Eve got married over break. Six months after he broke up with me, and after he kept telling me he didn’t see marriage in his future! And did I...
...the priests of all these cults, the singers, shouters, prayers and exhorters of Bootstrap-lifting have as their distinguishing characteristic that they do very little lifting at their own bootstraps, and less at any other man's. Now and then you m...
Happiness is part of being whole. It means having an understanding of your identity and purpose, an established feeling of acceptance and value, and a sense of destiny, joy, and peace -- all of which produce overall well-being. It is impossible to be...
Where is God when it hurts? We know one answer because God came to earth and showed us. You need only follow Jesus around and note how he responded to the tragedies of his day: large-scale tragedies such as an act of government terrorism in the templ...
The whole underneath of Paris was an ant nest, Metro tunnels, sewer shafts, catacombs, mines, cemeteries. She'd been down in the city of bones where skulls and femurs rose in yellowing walls. Right down there, win the square before them. through a di...
Television Commentator: Your name, please. Clayton Townley: Clayton Townley, local businessman. Television Commentator: Are you, sir, a spokesman for the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan? Clayton Townley: I told you, I'm a businessman. I'm also a Mi...
Princess Ann: Have I been here all night, alone? Joe Bradley: If you don't count me, yes. Princess Ann: So I've spent the night here - with you? Joe Bradley: Well now, I-I don't know that I'd use those words exactly, but uh, from a certain angle, yes...
Jack Lipnick: Look Bart, barring a preference we're going to put you on a wrestling picture, Wallace Beery. I say this because they tell me you know the poetry of the streets, so that would rule out westerns, pirate pictures, screwball, Bible, Roman....
In older myths, the dark road leads downward into the Underworld, where Persephone is carried off by Hades, much against her will, while Ishtar descends of her own accord to beat at the gates of Hell. This road of darkness lies to the West, according...
The themes of Jesus' teaching are important, but of course he was more than a teacher. All the Gospels put the end of his life at the dramatic center of his story. Here all the hopes of Israel come together—he is the king of the Jews, the greatest ...
The terrible things that happen to us in life never make any sense when we're in the middle of them, floundering, no end in sight. There is no rope to hang on to, it seems. Mothers can soothe children during those times, through their reassurance. No...
If the Baudelaire orphans had been stalks of celery, they would not have been small children in great distress, and if they had been lucky, Carmelita Spats would have not approached their table at this particular moment and delivered another unfortun...
If you have walked into a museum recently - whether you did so to attend an art exhibition or to escape from the police - you may have noticed a type of painting known as a triptych. A triptych has three panels, with something different painted on ea...
As far as I can figure, the way that it works is this: everyone has something that happened to them. The thing that we each carry. And you can see it in people, if you look. See it in the way someone walks, in the way someone takes a compliment, some...
