[SFP]

‘Why?’ Jekabs breathed, when he could stand the silence no more. ‘Why do that … for me?’
Beside him, Chichikov reached into his pocket and produced one of Jekabs’ soldiers, plundered from him many nights before. ‘Have you any idea?’ he replied, his voice raw through the blisters. ‘When I line up your soldiers, toymaker, I’m a boy again. I’m with my papa and he’s lining up soldiers too. I’m in front of that fire, in Petersburg where we used to live, or I’m in the Gardens of Mars fighting with sticks. I’m … not here, and …’
Cathy imagined him about to say ‘I’m not me’, but the sentiment was too much for a man like Chichikov. He hawked up phlegm, spat it into the snow...
‘And that is how,’ said Jekabs. ‘How I survived, and how I knew what toys truly are. I’d found a kind of … a magic, if you will. A way of reaching the soul of a man... there’s a shared heritage in toys. Take any man and show him a hobby horse, and a little piece of him will be a boy again, desperate to put it between his legs and take a ride. If you’re going to make a toy, you have to hold one truth as inviolable above all others: that, once upon a time, all of us, no matter what we’ve grown up to do or who we’ve grown up to be, were little boys and girls, happy with nothing more than bouncing a ball against a wall...

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale

I had a friend… Must be 20 years ago now… Henry, Henry Marrit Silver. Nice guy… He bought one of those brick houses. He had the whole thing. And the garden - you don’t see many like that now. Huge, yes, messy. Full. Like if you closed your eyes and spun around you might never get out. Big old climbing frame. Long grass, white wooden swing seat. I remember his wife Martha Marrit Silver.. They used to throw these amazing summer parties, barbecues with fairy lights in the trees, music, kids running riot, staying up well past bedtime, making mischief. The girls, lovely girls. Jet black hair, kind of wild. I remember them dragging me down to the pond, all sparkly eyes and happy teeth, to show me the tadpoles hatching and whispering: “Look uncle David, look, it’s come to life, look at its tail, look at it wiggle”. It was funny! And no, sad really, tragic actually - it all stopped, the parties stopped, because, well, Henry started gardening. He started planting small things, beans, herbs, you know. But then he started taking all rather seriously. And there was something quite sweet at first. I remember him bouncing like a pup to show me his first carrots coming through. He was so proud. But then he turned the fresh patch, a bit bigger, seeded that too. And another party grass went, and a bit more, and suddenly he churned up half the garden, clouded up with one of those electric things. And the climbing frame went, and the swing seat, and the kids stopped playing out, well, they weren’t allowed. I remember one time I was round, one of them kicked the ball and it went sailing smack right into his tomatoes and Henry screamed, red-faced, furious: “Have some respect! This isn’t a playground!” And him and Martha, well… Then he stopped going to work. Barely went out. And whenever I came over he’d always been running to fiddle with something or other. Meticulously measuring, watering. All these little lines, perfect rows, it all had to be just so.

The Phlebotomist by Ella Road

[SFP]

‘After Alice’s funeral, Keisha had mourned privately for weeks, refusing to see friends, missing work. She had sat at home and allowed the grief to weigh on her, a physical pressing on her chest that strained the muscles if she tried to get up or even turn her head. If she had had someone else to look after, a child, an elderly relative, even a pet, then maybe she would have forced herself into something resembling the person she had been before. But even then, inside she would be a vessel of fluids and mourning. She wasn’t the person she had been before and she never would be again. Sure, she had always been anxious and shy, but it had never been what defined her. She was able to relax when with friends and family. She had her hobbies and dreams. For some time she had been thinking about quitting her job to start a bakery, because the idea of arriving to work at four in the morning to make bread sounded like the best possible job in the world, but it had never been quite the right time for her to do that. All those parts of her were gone. It wasn’t only Alice who had died. Each death leads to smaller, invisible deaths inside the hearts of those left behind. It wasn’t an intervention from her friends that broke her out of her stasis, although to their credit they tried. Showing up with food and with concerned frowns and busy hands tidying a house she couldn’t care less about. But none of them were able to reach her. Because they were trying to reach the Keisha they had known, and that Keisha was gone. No, it was not her friends who changed her, but that after two months she grew bored with her absolute grief, and so she pulled herself up against the weight of it and started going to grief counseling groups.

She sat in circles and described the shape of the monster that was devouring her. Because that’s what, as a civilization, we do. We try to talk our way through the ineffable in the hope that, like a talisman, our description will provide some shelter against it. But the monster continued to devour her, no matter how specific her description of it, no matter how honest the shell-shocked sympathy of her fellow mourners.
And when she wasn’t describing Alice, over and over talking about Alice, as though her wife could be resurrected with stories, Keisha watched the news. The news was good, full of tragedy and loss that had nothing to do with her. So many people in pain, she couldn’t possibly be alone, even though she felt as alone as could be…
(Alice Isn’t Dead (2018) by Joseph Fink; pp. 36-37)'

A life does not need to be satisfying or triumphant. A life does not need to mean anything or lead anywhere. A life does not need a direction or a goal. Ultimately, a life merely needs to be lived until there is no more living left to do.
(Alice Isn’t Dead (2018) by Joseph Fink; pp.106-107)’

‘… A life does not have to be satisfying or triumphant. A life does not have to mean anything or lead anywhere. A life does not need a direction or a goal. But sometimes a person is lucky enough to have a life with all that anyway.
(Alice Isn’t Dead (2018) by Joseph Fink; p.425)’

Blue transcends the solemn geography of human limits.<...>

The image is a prison of the soul, your heredity, your education, your vices and aspirations, your qualities, your psychological world.

I have walked behind the sky.
For what are you seeking?
The fathomless blue of Bliss.

To be an astronaut of the void, leave the comfortable house that imprisons you with reassurance.
Remember,
to be going and to have are not eternal - fight the fear that engenders the beginning, the middle and the end.

For Blue there are no boundaries or solutions.

(Into the Blue from Chroma: A Book of Color by Derek Jarman)

[SFP]

The girl is standing in front of him and smells like hyacinths, like she’s never been anywhere else. Her hair is old but the wind in it is new, and he still remembers what it felt like to fall in love; that’s the last memory to abandon him. Falling in love with her meant having no room in his own body. That was why he danced.
“We had too little time,” he says.
She shakes her head.
“We had an eternity. Children and grandchildren.”
“I only had you for the blink of an eye,” he says.
She laughs.
“You had me an entire lifetime. All of mine.”
“That wasn’t enough.”
She kisses his wrist; her chin rests in his fingers.
“No.”

(And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer (2016) by Fredrik Backman)

[SFP]

School:

“Tell me about school, Noahnoah,” the old man says.
He always wants to know everything about school, but not like other adults, who only want to know if Noah is behaving. Grandpa wants to know if the school is behaving. It hardly ever is.
“Our teacher made us write a story about what we want to be when we’re big,” Noah tells him.
“What did you write?”
“I wrote that I wanted to concentrate on being little first.”
“That’s a very good answer.”
“Isn’t it? I would rather be old than a grown-up. All grown-ups are angry, it’s just children and old people who laugh.”
“Did you write that?”
“Yes.”
“What did your teacher say?”
“She said I hadn’t understood the task.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said she hadn’t understood my answer.”

...“And we have to write essays all the time! The teacher wanted us to write what we thought the meaning of life was once.”
“What did you write?”
“Company.”
Grandpa closes his eyes.
“That’s the best answer I’ve heard.”
“My teacher said I had to write a longer answer.”
“So what did you do?”
“I wrote: Company. And ice cream.”
Grandpa spends a moment or two thinking that over. Then he asks:
“What kind of ice cream?”
Noah smiles. It’s nice to be understood.

Coriander:

When they moved into their first house he spent the dark months growing a garden so beautiful that it knocked the air out of her when the light finally came. He did it with a determination only science can mobilize in a grown man, because he wanted to show that mathematics could be beautiful. He measured the angles of the sun, drew diagrams of where the trees cast their shade, kept statistics for the day-to-day temperatures, and optimized the choice of plants. “I wanted you to know,” he said as she stood barefoot in the grass that June and cried. “Know what?” she asked. “That equations are magic, and that all formulas are spells,” he said.
Now they are old and on a road. Her words against the fabric of his shirt:
“And then you went about growing coriander in secret every year, just to mess with me.”
He throws out his arms in a gesture of innocence:
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I forget things, you know, I’m an old man. Are you saying you don’t like coriander?”
“You’ve always known I hate it!”
“It must’ve been Noah. There’s no trusting that boy.” He laughs.
She stands on her tiptoes with both hands clutching his shirt and fixes her eyes on him.
“You were never easy, darling difficult sulky you, never diplomatic. You might even have been easy to dislike at times. But no one, absolutely no one, would dare tell me you were hard to love.”

…Grandpa squeezes his arm.
“Tell me that we danced, Noahnoah. Tell me that that’s what it’s like to fall in love, like you don’t have room for yourself in your own feet.”
“I promise.”
“And tell me that she hated coriander. Tell me that I used to tell waiters in restaurants that she had a serious allergy, and when they asked whether someone could really be allergic to coriander I said: ‘Believe me, she’s seriously allergic, if you serve her coriander she could die!’ She didn’t find that funny at all, she said, but she laughed when she thought I wasn’t looking.”
“She used to say that coriander was a punishment rather than a herb.” Noah laughs.
Grandpa nods, blinks at the treetops, and takes deep breaths from the leaves…

(And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer (2016) by Fredrik Backman)

“Okay. Let's see what we've got." He lifted up her foot and said, "Well, what we've got here is a freakin' boat."

Really?" She slammed her heel against the side of his face, snapping his head to one side. "How big are they now, Mitch?"

Rubbing the abused side of his face, "Dainty little elf feet?"

"Exactly.”
― Shelly Laurenston, The Mane Attraction

“Are you afraid?" Volker questioned while sitting at the table and getting comfortable.
"No. But I have incredible luck with dice and I am ruthless. You will lose, gentlemen. I will destroy your lands, take your women, ravish your men, and make your children my slave labor. I will own every castle, house, and farm that is within my reach. I won't be satisfied until I own all of it and you. I will destroy you all, gentlemen, and, to be quite blunt, I don't think you can handle it."
Van covered his mouth to keep from laughing out loud and he didn't dare look at his sister. Verner stepped back, motioning to the table. "Now I must insist."
"As you wish." Irene sighed and stood. She glanced at Van and gave him a quick wink before turning back to his uncle. "I do hope you're a 'sobber,' Mr. Van Holtz. Nothing I love more than the lamenting of the men I annihilate."

"I can't believe you made him cry."
"I did not. He just teared up a little."
"Yeah. I think it was when you told him, 'I now control your ports and own your manhood.'"
"His wife laughed.”
― Shelly Laurenston, When He Was Bad

“Conall checked his watch. Again. Soon his personal wet fantasy would be here. He wondered if it would be inappropriate to tackle her in the hallway as soon as she arrived and drag her up to his bedroom. Probably. Damn human etiquette.”
― Shelly Laurenston, Go Fetch!

“Blayne turned her head to look at Gwen, but caught sight of Dee-Ann standing behind them.

"Ahh! Where the hell did you come from?"

"Momma says from the love she shares with my daddy," Dee calmly replied.”
― Shelly Laurenston, The Mane Squeeze

“...the first time he snarled, I had a bit of a panic attack.”

“She screamed and threw him at me.”

Dez scowled at Mace. “I did not throw my son at you. I just handed him over and walked quickly from the room so I could scream into a pillow in our bedroom.”

“I found her under the bed with the dogs.”
― Shelly Laurenston, The Beast in Him

[SFP]

Scathach: "...What is death to me? A warrior craves honor and excellence, not a measure of mild years. Those who cringe at death are half dead themselves; they forever keep to the shallows of life!”

The Maelstrom (The Tapestry Book 04) by Henry H. Neff

[SFP]

I'm not religious by nature but, if this is authentic, then 'out of the mouth of babes' comes this:

Explaining God

"One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth.

He doesn't make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way, He doesn't have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.

God's second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this. Because He hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in His ears, unless He has thought of a way to turn it off. God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn't go wasting His time by going over your mom and dad's head asking for something they said you couldn't have.

Atheists are people who don't believe in God. I don't think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren't any who come to our church. Jesus is God's Son. He used to do all the hard work like walking on water and performing miracles and trying to teach the people who didn't want to learn about God. They finally got tired of Him preaching to them and they crucified Him. But He was good and kind like His Father and He told His Father that they didn't know what they were doing and to forgive them and God said OK.

His Dad (God) appreciated everything that He had done and all His hard work on earth so He told Him He didn't have to go out on the road anymore, He could stay in heaven. So He did.

And now He helps His Dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of and which ones He can take care of Himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary only more important.

You can pray anytime you want and they are sure to hear you because they got it worked out so one of them is on duty all the times. You should always go to Church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there's anybody you want to make happy, it's God. Don't skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong! And, besides, the sun doesn't come out at the beach until noon anyway.

If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can't go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He's around you when you're scared in the dark or when you can't swim very good and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids. But you shouldn't just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases.

Written by Danny Dutton, age 8, from Chula Vista, California,
third grade homework assignment to Explain God.

“On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the surface of the moon. In the months leading up to their expedition, the Apollo 11 astronauts trained in a remote moon-like desert in the western United States. The area is home to several Native American communities, and there is a story – or legend – describing an encounter between the astronauts and one of the locals.
One day as they were training, the astronauts came across an old Native American. The man asked them what they were doing there. They replied that they were part of a research expedition that would shortly travel to explore the moon. When the old man heard that, he fell silent for a few moments, and then asked the astronauts if they could do him a favour.
‘What do you want?’ they asked.
‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘the people of my tribe believe that holy spirits live on the moon. I was wondering if you could pass an important message to them from my people.’
‘What’s the message?’ asked the astronauts.
The man uttered something in his tribal language, and then asked the astronauts to repeat it again and again until they had memorised it correctly.
‘What does it mean?’ asked the astronauts.
‘Oh, I cannot tell you. It’s a secret that only our tribe and the moon spirits are allowed to know.’
When they returned to their base, the astronauts searched and searched until they found someone who could speak the tribal language, and asked him to translate the secret message. When they repeated what they had memorised, the translator started to laugh uproariously. When he calmed down, the astronauts asked him what it meant. The man explained that the sentence they had memorised so carefully said, ‘Don’t believe a single word these people are telling you. They have come to steal your lands.”

Excerpt From: Yuval Noah Harari. “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”.

[SFP]

Yvon Chouinard "Let My People Go Surfing, The Responsible Company, and Simple Fly Fishing":

"The reason why we won’t face up to our problems with the environment is that we are the problem. It’s not the corporations out there, it’s not the governments, it’s us. We’re the ones telling the corporations to make more stuff, and make it as cheap and as disposable as possible. We’re not citizens anymore. We’re consumers. That’s what we’re called. It’s just like being an alcoholic and being in denial that you’re an alcoholic. We’re in denial that each and every one of us is the problem. And until we face up to that, nothing’s going to happen. So, there’s a movement for simplifying your life: purchase less stuff, own a few things that are very high quality that last a long time, and that are multifunctional.”