The thing about gold is: it lies inert. I mean, it shines, but...
Dubloons, you've heard the pirates speak of them. 490 years lie, ocean floor notwithstanding, and not a bit of tarnish, no rust.
Just try that with your silver, your iron, brass, your copper plate!
Gold. It runs, blurs, but -cool- it does not interact.
For this reason we think of it as pure, as spiritual:
Gold knows only its own soul.
Like a frigid bride it bides its time, growing not older, but alone
She cradled the faun's head and he went to sleep.
I had read the final line of the bedtime story about a thousand times, well that is what it felt like and each time Suzie reacted as though it was the first. It made me wonder about the magic words from the authors of these kinds of stories. Did they have any idea just how powerful they were? To instill such feelings in the children listening they could hear the same story over and over yet always hear something else?
Often when my eyes were too tired to read, I...
Marie Antoinette viewed the four candles on the cake. Four years. Had it really been so long?
She remembered the first time she saw the little girl selling flowers in the street. She had sent her servant to purchase a bunch, and the look of pure joy on the urchin's face had melted her heart. So much payment for such a small thing as money.
And yet she knew the importance. Marriages were made for money, Kingdoms were allied for gains in power and wealth. The day to day drudgery of the lower classes was all for the sake of...
"Even in a finite universe, a rock doesn't keep being a rock. Things are always disintegrating and becoming other things." Our Tragic Universe, Scarlett Thomas
There was once a rock, a very old rock, a rock which had laid low for a very long time. It couldn't remember how long that long time actually was but somehow knew without needing to remember that that long time was long enough. It was a rock that took great pride in its appearance, habitually watering its neat lawn of grass, combing its thick coat of moss, trimming it at least once a week....
He'd sat patiently on the threshold of the kitchen all afternoon. She'd dropped countless morsels of crust, of walnuts, chunks of apple and even some of her own snacks, the clumsy klutz. Yet he'd abstained, withheld, conquered himself.
Now she was taunting him -- he felt it deep in his soul. She'd left the pies to cool -- small round pies, aromatic sweet pies -- at eye level. His eyes. She'd gone from the house (where? did it matter?) and left him to conquer himself.
Taunting his resolve. He thought to his mother who'd trained him in her ascetic ways....
It was an early morning. Anna was going for a morning run around her block. She was always found doing something worth while. She had always enjoyed looking at books about other countries. She had an infatuation with countries that had different letters to English ones. She came across a book on the ground, with funny, squiggly letters that Anna recognised to be Chinese writing. She flicked through the pages and found something that really interested her. It had birds, letters, photos of females and males and clothes that looked ancient.
She tried to decipher what the writing said over...
The woman at the window was dead. I knew because it was my sister. She appeared whenever we left the house. We no longer looked around up at the top floor to see the dark shape behind the thin lace curtain. We had seen her too many times before, her wretched, contorted face imprinted on our minds.
Martha died in a house fire seven years ago. Accident after she left a burning candle on her bedside cabinet overnight. It tipped over as her blankets were thrown back during a nightmare. Dad couldn't reach her in time as the room had...
"I hate everyone today," he said.
"Everyone?" she asked.
"Everyone."
"Even me?"
"Well, except you."
"Glad to hear it."
"I hate everyone else, though. And everything else."
"Do you hate black people?"
"Well, no - I mean, yes, but no more or less than anyone else."
"How about Indians? Or Lithuanians?"
"I hate everybody equally. I'm not a bigot or anything."
"I see."
"But I still hate them. I hate all of them."
"That's nice, do you hate animals, too?"
"Yes. I hate animals, too."
"Even kittens?"
"Um ... I guess. I hate them all."
"Well, that includes kittens. How...
OF SEXY. HE HAS THE PERFECT MUSCLE. WHEN HE HOLDS ME I MELT. HE IS CHARMING AND GIVING. HE MAKES ME FEEL SO PERFECT. I LOVE IT WHEN I CATCH HIM STARING. THE SMILE HE GIVES ME EVERY TIME HE SEE'S ME. HIS LAUGH IS LOUD. HE IS MY FAIRYTALE ENDING. HE IS MY PRINCE CHARMING. HERE TO TAKE ME AWAY THE PERFECT LIFE. LIVING IN HAPPINESS AND WORRY FREE. LIVING IN THE LAND OF LOVE.
He didn't think he was much of a cat person until he met Matilda. He'd found her one morning in a battered cardboard box on his doorstep and, seeing her huge green eyes and tiny paws, took her into the house. But he didn't know then that Matilda was a very special cat.
The first couple of years passed and Matilda grew from a small ball of fluff into a fully grown feline with glossy black fur. But it was the third year that Matilda began to change dramatically.
The black began to fall away to be replaced by bright...