The flimsy little protestations that mark the front gate of every novel, the solemn statements that any resemblance to real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, are fraudulent every time. A writer has no other material to make his people ...
I figured this staying up meant something. Maybe it was loss or love or some other word that we say when it's too fucking late but the boys weren't into melodrama. They heard that shit and said no. Especially the Old Man. Divorced at twenty, with two...
Each heartbeat begins with a single, electrical impulse, or "spark." The distinctive sound we hear through a stethoscope, or when we place our head on a loved one's chest, is the sound of the heart valves opening and closing in perfect synchronicity ...
He imagined that he was looking for her and couldn't find her anywhere, that the two of them were lost on a vast ship, sleep is a skilled magician, it changes the proportions of things, the distances between them, it separates people and they're lyin...
Brad Green, almost overnight, became the poster boy for the common Wall Street tale - proving once again that greed, most definitely, kills. Giving away about 99% of his fortune was also front page news, but Green barely blinked at having to scrape b...
Tighe took control of his thoughts. “You need to use the bathroom. When I tell you to, go into the house. Two cats will try to come in with you. You must let them in. Don’t allow anyone to stop them. Once inside the house, you’ll go into the ba...
Despite all my public misconduct, in the past year, I had learned the Elemental spells, the Doppelschläferin, and the preparation and flying of a magic broom; I had survived two months as prisoner of war, saving the life of captain Johanne in the pr...
Most parents hate to experience conflict, are deeply troubled when it occurs, and are quite confused about how to handle it constructively. Actually, it would be a rare relationship if over a period of time one person's needs did not conflict with th...
If you saw her in these moments, you might think she was collecting her thoughts in order to go forward. But I see it another way: Her mind is being overwhelmed by two processes that must simultaneously proceed at full steam. One is to deal with and ...
Can I tell you a dirty secret?” “Yes,” she gasped. “Just hurry.” Derek’s dark laughter increased her arousal, coating her in slick heat. Achingly slow, he sunk two thick fingers inside her. “If I could go back and do one thing different...
We must be careful to let the Holy Spirit do this searching. If we try to search our own hearts, we are apt to fall into one or both of two traps. The first is the trap of morbid introspection. Introspection can easily become the tool of Satan, who i...
Food safety oversight is largely, but not exclusively, divided between two agencies, the FDA and the USDA. The USDA mostly oversees meat and poultry; the FDA mostly handles everything else, including pet food and animal feed. Although this division o...
There are two things a combat deployment offers which all of us strongly desire. The first, being purpose. Every morning we woke up and knew why we were there. It is immediate and unavoidable. Although, it is extreme and unpleasant, there is a comfor...
There are some who say that you should forgive everyone, even the people who have disappointed you immeasurably. There are others who say you should not forgive anyone, and should stomp off in a huff no matter how many times they apologize. Of these ...
The whole struggle was over, and yet there seemed to have been no moment of victory. You might say, if you liked, that the power of choice had been simply set aside and an inflexible destiny substituted for it. On the other hand, you might say he had...
HOW do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, so WHY push to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree is WHERE you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be th...
Before reaching Grassy Butte, though, Dad spied a farmhouse with two pumps in the drive and a red-and-white sign out front saying DALE'S OIL COMPANY. Another sign said CLOSED, but a light was on in the house and Dad pulled in, saying, "I believe we m...
Sometimes the house of the future is better built, lighter and larger than all the houses of the past, so that the image of the dream house is opposed to that of the childhood home. Late in life, with indomitable courage, we continue to say that we a...
On that piece of white paper, Sam wrote, "Write about me sometime." And I typed back to her, standing right there in her bedroom. I just typed. "I will." And I felt good that those were the first two words that I ever typed on my new old typewriter t...
Odd, she thought, how intensely you knew a person, or thought you did, when you were in love - soaked, drenched in love - only to discover later that perhaps you didn't know that person quite as well as you had imagined. Or weren't quite as well know...
In the realm of Ahura, there are two lands, one of light and one of dark. The land of light is where the mountain lay, and near its top is where the Zoroastrians dwell. They are the people of the land, and the chosen Twelve are their most powerful le...
