Some people believe that it isn’t so much power that is exchanged in TPE, as it is authority. The intrinsic difference between power and authority can best be explained thusly: If we were talking about a car, then power would be what was under the ...
There was a lot of pain in that kiss. There was so much hurt and so much fear in it. I felt tears rolling down the both of our faces. But, in that kiss, there was even more want. We both wanted to smother out that pain, to not have so many horrible t...
When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with out-stretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those d...
The Fool held his breath. On long nights on the hard flagstones he had dreamed of women like her. Although, if he really thought about it, not much like her; they were better endowed around the chest, their noses weren’t so red and pointed, and the...
Although I knew enough Freud to believe that the sex urge was an important mainspring of life, it still seemed to me that any conscious manifestation of sex was necessarily ludicrous. Defecation and copulation were two activities which made a human b...
On first impressions, John seemed more cynical and brash than the others, Ringo the most endearing, Paul was cute, and George, with velvet brown eyes and dark chestnut hair, was the best-looking man I'd ever seen. At the break for lunch I found mysel...
Each night the black sky and the bright stars were my stunning companions; occasionally I'd see their beauty and solemnity so plainly that I'd realize in a piercing way that my mother was right. That someday I would be grateful and that in fact I was...
Even still, it wasn't over. For if a battle could be won so easily, men would soon forget its horrors and clamor for it all the more. War would come more than once or twice a generation. Easy victories would produce men who were struck dumb with thei...
Even that night, the night he touched one inch of her in the dark, how simply Avery seemed to accept the facts – that they were on the edge of lifelong happiness and, therefore, inescapable sorrow. It was as if, long ago, a part of him had broken o...
Mr. Lockery—my biology teacher—says if dinosaurs were magically brought forward in time today, we’d have nothing to worry about. Dogs, wolves, and bears would make short work of tyrannosaurs.” She nodded at Schrödinger, who was now padding a...
Not darkness, for that implies an understanding of light. Not silence, for that suggests a familiarity with sound. Not loneliness, for that requires knowledge of others. But still, faintly, so tenuous that if it were any less it wouldn’t exist at a...
If the object of meditation were something concrete, something solid and graspable - an image or a statue or a dot on the floor or a candle - it would be much more of a concentration exercise. But the breath is very elusive; even if you wanted to giv...
Excerpt from page 3 of "Wicked Washington" Shelly Williams, the main character, speaking about her life: And close and dangerous calls were almost my last name. Yet I felt as comfortable among the street hustlers, junkies, thieves, and criminals of D...
I had a dream about you. You were eating angel hair pasta with scissors, and I was a long-haired hippy. I yelled, “Eating pasta with scissors—a not so subtle way to say I need a haircut.” To which you replied, “Well I would have used silverwa...
I had a dream about you. You were writing names and numbers in a book, and I asked if that was a phone book or the Book of Life. You answered in a way that blinded me with light, and I grew afraid. So I said, “Hey, what is that over there?” and I...
I had a dream about you. I had a boomerang and you had a Frisbee. You asked if I wanted to play catch, and I said yes. Then you stood around waiting for me to throw to you, and I just looked at you like you were crazy, because I had a boomerang—and...
I had a dream about you. We were in a field picking dandelions for the king when a strong breeze came. I threw myself in front of you to block the wind, because the king was balding and if even one dandelion floret fell out we’d lose our heads. Wel...
I had a dream about you. You were a tax collector, and I was a man with a noose around my neck hanging from a tree. You said I could be freed if I’d only pay my taxes, and I said as long as I paid taxes I’d never be free. I said I was freer in a ...
I needed to call him or my parents. Immediately. I rolled my eyes. Couldn't have been that important, because you'd think one of them would've picked up the phone and called me if it had been. That was my family, though. Everyone of them felt as if t...
Ciba: "I thought you were supposed to be some big brave war hero. What about that goddamn gold star you polish every night?" Natalya: "You know what this shiny piece of tin is, you fucking space cadet? It's the way stupid boys trick other stupid boys...
Information wants to be free.' So goes the saying. Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, seems to have said it first. I say that information doesn't deserve to be free. Cybernetic totalists love to think of the stuff as if it were al...
