'It's the largest ship I've ever seen.'
"It's the only ship you've ever seen."
"This is why I don't watch movies with you."
"Oh, look at her, look at her pandering to the camera - "
"She's an actress, it's her job."
'This is the beginning of such an adventure!'
"This is the beginning of such an awful film. Why are we watching this?"
"Because I like this film, and you're my sister, you're meant to at least try to like things that I like."
"Surely, as your sister, I am meant to pull your hair, steal your clothes, make...
The world is a thin, hollow place.
One wrong step, and you break through the shell, and you go tumbling, tumbling down.
It is oft repeated to students that an exam is not the be all and end all in their lives, that many opportunities await all in this bountiful land of plenty.
These words are reassuring, it gives hope, and puts your life into place in comparison to all the many other people in the world, with no opportunity to even sit an exam. In some ways, it makes you feel lucky for your high, pedestalled position.
Until you...
Marchiel? is that a boy's name
Dunno, it is French I think
French, right so we are looking for a possibly French possibly male or possibly female person?
Sums it up
Boned
Yep
Tell me again what were Francis's exact words?
Find me Marchiel, find me the black rose
Nothing else?
He was yelling, you know how he gets
Yeah, shit look do you think we oughta just blow. Because it aint looking like we are gonna be making Francis too happy anytime soon.
Let's ask some questions first
I suppose
Boned?
Yep
Kenya. She said her name was Kenya.
And then she laughed. I couldn't hear it, not over the music in the bar, not over the shouting of everyone around us. But I saw the laugh, starting in her stomach, and traveling up and out of her mouth.
She leaned closer and said that her parents had grown up with Black Power and Africa awareness, and decided to name her Kenya. That they had grounded her the first time she straightened her hair.
Her voice, the part of her voice I could hear, had a huskiness to it that really appealed...
"What is a pension, anyway?"
She stared at him. "How do you not know what a pension is?"
He shuffled his feet, not looking at her. He mumbled something indistinct about not really having to worry about that sort of thing, what with his family, and the fortune (the fortune was probably now lining the public purse, or possibly a lawyer's office, depending on the outcome of the court case)
There were times when she felt the gap between them more than others. She took his hand - now wasn't the time to start comforting, there was no time for...
"You don't like her, do you?"
"I don't have to."
He glanced at her, although kept his eyes on the road. "You have to try."
"Really, my feelings towards her don't matter, what matters is that you like her, and she likes you." Her feathers were ruffled now as she looked out of the window, most decidedly not at him. "Besides. I am trying."
"Then maybe you should try harder."
They didn't speak, the sounds of the engine the only thing keeping them from awkward silence.
"The others all like her."
"I don't have to like everyone - "
"You...
I am the apple of her eye.
All of them in fact.
I have five aunts, and a mother.
Mom calls me the Little King, her little Emperor, the man of the house. Where is my father? I don't know or care.
My aunts have always been there. Mom defied everyone when she got pregnant, as far as I know my aunts have never been courted.
They are my court. They laugh at my jokes, they bring me snacks, they make me cocoa, they run my baths. When I write stories they print them and paste them in a book,...
In the little house, Brigid waited for the big lady to leave. She wanted peace, and the special sound of wind when no one was around. Kneeling people interrupted the woosh of air that made her forgetful. Kneeling people made her remember everything about praying and wanting things outside her little house. This was a House for Not Praying, for Not Wanting. But all these big people came. A miracle had happened here and she couldn't get rid of them. The gravel she laid out specially over what had been soft grass cut into their old knees and young knees...
£18000 was how much it was going to cost to get him out of jail. Such is the price for public indecency in front of the queen.
It wasn't even that it was so...indecent. It was more along the lines of public infantilism. We'd both been to London before, and we had done all the touristy things, all the things that young men with wild oats were desperately in need of doing, but this time, Adam took it too far.
Adam, he of the propensity for humping things, took one look at the Royal Guard, and in a moment of...
It is surprising how much three tiny candles can illuminate an entire temple.
When I walked in through the main hall to follow the giant flickerings the painted themselves against the soar vaults of the holy place, I could sense the enormity surrounding me. But I could also catch brief sites of the buildings columns, painted windows, and ancient stones stacked centuries ago one atop the other by an as yet unknown process.
I proceeded down the long aisle where many large processionals had many years gone by had passed on their way to making some offering or another to...