First there were the Gamemakers, making me their star and then scrambling to recover from that handful of poisonous berries. Then President Snow, trying to use me to put out the flames of rebellion, only to have my every move become inflammatory. Nex...
Fish gathered to look at us - a school of baracudas, some curious marines. SCRAM! I told them. They swam off, but I could tell they went reluctantly. I swear I understood their intencions. They were about to star rumors flighing around the sea about ...
Someday when you're twenty, maybe, I'll see you again. You'll be this hot soccer star at some great school, with a million guys more interesting than I am chasing you down. And you know what? I'll see you and I'll pray you want me still.
Look there.” Regina pointed toward the northern sky. “Polaris.” Viktor looked up. “The constant north star, one of man’s most dependable guides.” “Polaris will be waiting for us there when we are old and have experienced a lifetime of j...
I just wanted to see if... we were okay," she said, feeling relief. "Just to make sure we can be friends. I don't want it to be weird, you know?" Different parts of Birdie died as she said it. It was like stars exploding and burning one by one. She w...
The desire to go home that is a desire to be whole, to know where you are, to be the point of intersection of all the lines drawn through all the stars, to be the constellation-maker and the center of the world, that center called love. To awaken fro...
Not a single star will be left in the night. The night will not be left. I will die and, with me, the weight of the intolerable universe. I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions, the continents and faces. I shall erase the accumulated past. I shal...
His anger took many shapes: sometimes soft and familiar, like a round stone he had caressed for so long that is was perfectly smooth and polished; sometimes it was thin and sharp like a blade that could slice through anything; sometimes it had the fo...
And while he compared all these things which he was seeing with his eyes to the mental pictures he had painted of them in his homesickness, it became clear to him that he was, after all, destined to be a poet, and he saw that in poets' dreams reside ...
He simply preferred the sensation of soil beneath his feet and wind in his hair, of fresh, non-recycled air which carried on it the scent and taste of life. He preferred what was solid and real, where if you could see it you could touch it, feel its ...
They kissed for the first time then in the cold spring rain, though neither one of them now knew that it was raining. Tristran's heart pounded in his chest as if it was not big enough to contain all the joy that it held. He opened his eyes as he kiss...
On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. ... Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and m...
So much of the past in encapsulated in the odds and ends. Most of us discard more information about ourselves than we ever care to preserve. Our recollection of the past is not simply distorted by our faulty perception of events remembered but skewed...
The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have both locked themselves ...
Quite often we are led to aporia, an impasse, unable to proceed a step further. Socrates is almost always there, but even he is only a supporting character. The starring role is given to the philosophical question. It is the philosophical question th...
I keep thinking about a tale my nurse used to read to me about a bird whose wings are pinned to the ground. In the end, when he finally frees himself, he flies so high he becomes a star. My nurse said the story was about how we all have something tha...
My mother buys a handful of wishing beans, which just seem to be white, dry beans with no specific magickal import. She will parse these out over the months when she feels her family members most need a wish. She can believe in wishes, since it is th...
SUN, MOON, AND STARRY SKY Early summer evenings, when the first stars come out, the warm glow of sunset still stains the rim of the western sky. Sometimes, the moon is also visible, a pale white slice, while the sun tarries. Just think -- all the cel...
This probably isn’t something you’re supposed to say at a moment like this, but I think the moon is seriously overrated.” A moment like what? I bite my cheeks, taming the grin that threatens to take over my face. “And the stars?” I ask, onc...
For six months I did what women do: I waited. This is what women are taught to be good at. It's said that a woman's life is merely preparation for the primal nine-month wait. Whatever the reason, they do it well. Sometimes they drink or bite their fi...
It was nearing 9 O'clock, and the fist duck was drawing down. Behind the trees, the first star pricked out, low and brilliant. The light breeze of the day had dropped, and the evening was very still. The stream sounded loud. I walked down to the gate...
