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#stuck in a strange hotel in the middle of what feels to be an endless desert during your drive

loveislattes · 3 years

Text

Everything Comes at a Price (Demon!Dark/Fem!Reader) Chapter 1

Commission prompt: Reader is really depressed, and Dark decides to roughly Fuck the depression out of them

Important: Reader has female pronouns and is a vagina owner!

Warnings (For this chapter specifically): Talk of depression and stressful life, mentions of unnamed character death, mentions of beheading/dismembered head and some minor blood/gore (not too detailed), cursing, mentions of family in the hospital, demon!Dark (akin to jinn or genie), and pet names.

A/N: PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS! This first chapter is allllll story setting. Part two will have the good ol' rough and dominating Dark fucking.

As always, if you would like to support me, I have a Ko-Fi (here) for donations and I usually have a few slots open for commissions (unless life gets in the way)!

“Look, I think it’s just best if you take some time off.”

Though worded nicely, you instinctually felt the pang of panic and anger already bristling in your chest.

“Time off…” you murmur, eyes sliding down to your boss’s desk in thought, “As in, a week or two or…?”

You let the implication hang heavy in the air. There was a telling silence that followed your question. When you finally met his gaze again, your boss let out a hefty sigh. Before he even said anything, you knew what his answer was by the sympathy on his face alone.

“We won’t fight your unemployment for the first few months, which hopefully will be enough time for you to find another place of employment. I’m sorry, Miss Y/N, but between the company making cutbacks and your recent drop in productivity, I had to-”

“Don’t you dare,” you hissed sharply, interrupting him before he could finish the excuse.

Rage fueled your motions, forcing you to your feet while your eyes narrowed on the man you’d once thought a decent person.

“A drop in productivity?” you scoffed, “My apartment building was just destroyed in a freak fire two weeks ago that, of course, my insurance refused to cover. I’ve been bouncing place to place between motels and friend’s homes until I can afford another deposit on the measly pay you give us. My mother is in the hospital, in the ICU, after a freak hit and run. My car broke down yesterday and I walked thirty fucking minutes in the pouring rain today just to make sure you assholes weren’t a man down with all this work. And you knew all of this, but you still decided to fire me? I can’t- You know what, fuck you. Fuck you and fuck this place! I hope this whole company shuts down and you get to experience even a modicum of the instability I’ve had to!”

Before he could respond, you slammed the chair back into place against the desk and stormed from the room. You could feel the confused gazes from your coworkers as you marched to the door but didn’t dare spare them a glance. Most of them you considered to be your friends and you knew you’d have to explain everything later, but you couldn’t allow anything other than anger to inhabit your body at that moment. One bit of sadness and you would crumble. Rage would keep you safe until you made it to your temporary home for the night.

Little curses and fury-filled resentment spilled from your lips as you stepped out into the dreary public. Of course, it was still raining. You hadn’t even dried off from your trek to work and now you were thrown right back out into the storm. A timely crack of lightning rumbled across the sky as you shot one last middle finger back at the door.

“I can’t believe this shit,” you grumbled.

Pulling your raincoat up over your head, you kept your gaze down and began your journey back to the hotel. The one upside to all the rain was that the sidewalks were nearly barren. Cars sped by on the busy roads but you were alone on foot. In fact, you didn’t see a single soul until you were on the block housing your hotel, and somehow that lonely occupant still managed to slam into you.

“Excuse you,” you muttered.

“So sorry, please excuse me.”

The person’s voice sent shivers down your spine and every last hair stood up on your arms. Reflexively you pulled back as a hand touched your side, ready to give them a mouthful, but they were moving on by the time you could gather your wits about you. All you caught was a tall form in a black business suit striding off in the opposite direction.

With an irked tsk and a mutter of “Fucking asshole”, you rushed into the lobby, stomping the rain from your shoes along the rubber mat. Sure you were pissed off but you still had the human decency not to create more work for others.

You managed a little nod to the desk clerk on your way by to the elevator. As you watched the numbers climb slowly down, you mentally questioned the fates if the world was against you. The elevator stopped on literally every- single- floor; All 25. Trying to maintain your composure, you leaned up against the wall and let your eyes flutter closed, slowly breathing in and out rhythmically. Just a little longer and you’d be in the safety of solitude. You could let it all out.

The ding of the lift doors opening pulled you out of your little meditative session and you immediately let out a grateful sigh of appreciation upon realizing it was empty. Being stuck in a small metal box with others for an undetermined amount of time made your skin crawl, much less when you were already on the edge of snapping. You mashed the close button repeatedly until the metal doors finally sealed shut and the elevator began to move. The rest of the journey was a blur until you stopped at your room door and fished your card out of your pocket, coming out with not only the plastic key but a large silver coin.

“The fuck?” you muttered.

As the door buzzed open, you flipped the coin over in your fingers, trying to think back on when you had gotten it. You were pretty sure you’d never seen anything like it before; completely void of any details on one side but the other filled with finely engraved words.

The loud startling thump of your keys as you threw them on the nightstand wasn’t even enough to draw your concentration away from the interesting little trinket. It took a few minutes and some good lighting but you eventually figured out what was written; the discovery only confusing you further.

“Clutch this coin to thee whilst ye make a plea

In return ye shall become my endless devotee”

“Yeah… that’s not creepy at all,” you sighed.

Tossing the coin on the nightstand next to your keys, you sloughed off your wet clothes and tossed them in the small hamper next to your duffle bag. After this horrid morning, you needed a long hot shower before you pondered on any strange coins or the mental shithole that had become your life.

You weren’t sure exactly how long you spent under the burning water but, by the time you exited, you were both hungry and in dire need of some caffeine.

“Or a nap. A nap could be heavenly,” you murmured to yourself.

Towel around your head, you dropped into the bed naked and took a moment to revel in the sheets against your freshly lotioned skin. There was hardly a better feeling. Thank god you had the good sense to buy some of your own sheets rather than rely on whatever the hotels had to offer. It made your day the tiniest bit better.

As you leaned back against the headboard, you snagged up the coin once more. The metal was cool against your warm fingers as you flipped it around and around. Did you dare give it a try? What was the worst outcome: You felt silly for believing a random coin and no one would ever know? Although, what if it was legit...?

Now that thought made you feel silly. A little chuckle passed your lips before you clasped the coin between your hands and brought it to your chest, closing your eyes as if about to pray.

“Alright, I don’t know how this works so I’m just gonna state my wishes out loud. I hope that works for, well, whoever you are. First off, I want that backstabbing business ruined. They fucked me over after I bent over backward for them, now they deserve to feel the same. Please. Second, I don’t know how you could do it, but I’d really like my insurance company to finally approve my apartment claim so I can find another place soon. Third-”

You trailed off as emotions immediately welled up behind your eyelids, the burning already tingling in the back of your throat from holding them in.

“My third and most important wish, please, if nothing else, find the one that put my mom in the ICU and make them pay. Those idiots down at the police department couldn’t find them, or so they say anyway, so just… give them what they deserve, please.”

With a stifled sniffle, you wiped away the few tears that had escaped and fell back against the headboard, eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling as you let the pain wash over you; Rage, dread, hope, apathy, desperation. Eventually, the unending barrage became too much to deal with. This wasn't a new thing in your life, but it had certainly culminated into something worse with everything going on in your life; clinical depression exacerbated by a series of unfortunate events.

With no other plans for the day and the weight of your heart heavy in your chest, you chose to simply roll over and bury yourself, and your troubles, in the fluffy comforter. You’d feel better after a nap. You were almost certain of it.

Even as you drifted off into sleep, the tears didn’t cease.

When you first woke, you weren’t sure what had roused you but you knew it wasn’t good; All you could feel was bone-trembling terror. You couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, felt frozen in place with only the ability to stare at the now dimly lit wall; watching the shafts of setting sunlight ever so slowly creep down by the minute.

“Come now, darling,” a low voice crooned in the void behind you, “I know you’re awake.”

Like a rubber band snapping, the grip on your body suddenly released and you shot up in bed, immediately turning around to find out who had spoken. You weren’t sure what you expected but it certainly wasn’t the devilishly handsome man that was seated next to the window. The sunlight pouring down on him made it very obvious that his skin was lacking any range of melanin, rather being pallor shades of whites, blacks, and greys, but that didn't detract from his appearance at all. In fact, he looked like something out of a Gothic romance novel or a Tim Burton movie. Once the enchantment of seeing him began to wear off, you finally noticed what sat on the table next to him.

A human head.

“Holy fuck!”

A hellish screech escaped your lips as you hastily scrambled backward, trying to get as far away from him as quickly as possible, only to go careening off the edge of the mattress. The pain of impact on the floor couldn’t even deter you. As your back hit the wall, you kept your eyes pinned on the intruder, watching for any sign that he was going to follow you or attack.

“While I’m certainly not minding the show, don’t you think you’re rather underdressed for this occasion?” he spoke suddenly.

It took a few moments for his words to sink in but the moment they did, you launched yourself back at the bed with a hushed curse and promptly pulled the sheets up around your naked body.

“Who are you? How did you get in here? I-Is- Is that real?”

Long clawed fingers made their way into the matted, bloody mess of hair and pulled the body part free from the table with a sickening pop.

“It is undoubtedly real, but I figured you’d believe me much quicker if I had a visual aide to my claims,” he replied, dropping the offending thing before tossing you a sharp, seductive, smile, “The name is Dark. I’m a demon and the owner of the coin you wished upon.”

Your tongue felt too heavy to move while you watched in horror as he licked the blood from his fingers like a cat bathing itself.

“I- I don’t-”

“You don’t understand,” he supplied helpfully.

As he rose from his seat, you stared at him owlishly, unable to take your eyes off his graceful form as he nearly glided across the floor to stand in front of you.

“That coin,” he hummed, pointing at the metal disc in question, “It belongs to me. When someone makes a wish while holding it, I’m able to hear them. In your case, I heard all three.”

Trepidation tickled the nape of your neck when your eyes slowly rolled over to the head once more. It was as if you couldn’t breathe. Sick crawled up your throat and it took every ounce of your strength to keep from vomiting at the man’s feet. You don’t know how long you sat there, struggling to breathe and ease the nausea but, when it finally went away, rage took over.

“I didn’t want you to actually KILL them!” you shouted.

The demon casually arched a brow in your direction before saying, “You specifically wished for the one involved in your mother’s accident to get what they deserved.”

“Yeah! Like prison! Not death!”

A soul-trembling crack resounded through the small hotel room as he slowly craned his neck side to side, ethereal pulses of red and blue emanating from his being. Some of the previous ire slipped from your hold when he moved even closer, step by step until his knees were touching yours.

“I will never understand you humans and your sense of righteousness. Would it ease your mind to know this wasn’t the first time they had committed such heinous crimes?” he asked.

“W-What?” you questioned softly.

“I will not delve into details but rest assured that your embarrassing sense of compassion was lost on them; they were vermin,” he explained, “Now, that makes three wishes fulfilled. You have two remaining.”

You thought back on exactly what wishes you had made and were immediately overcome with dismay.

“Wait, what did you do?!” you demanded, jumping to your feet and glaring up at him, “You didn’t kill anyone else, did you?!”

A twinge of disdain passed through his features. His hand landed heavily on your shoulder and you were shoved back down onto the bed with a 'tsk' of disapproval, as if scolding a misbehaving child.

“Fortunately for you, no. Your previous place of employment has simply been condemned for multiple code violations that have mysteriously come to light during a surprise investigation, and your insurance company has been informed that they’re facing a lawsuit if they don’t reevaluate your claim with a more positive outlook.”

Relief flushed through your veins and you thanked him meekly. You wouldn’t have been able to live your life knowing you had caused the deaths of so many people, let alone friends.

“So, what now?” you asked.

“You have two more wishes before your soul belongs to me.”

He said it with such finality and ease that you almost didn’t react at first. Once his words settled in though, oh, panic quickly followed.

Gaping up at him in wide-eyed disbelief, you tried to stammer out some rebuttal or plea, but nothing would come out. Panic soon gave way to defeat as you realized there was no obvious way to get out of this ordeal. It had been clear as day on the coin.

Thinking on the offending piece of metal, you looked over and snagged it up, reading the inscription once more.

“Clutch this coin to thee whilst ye make a plea

In return ye shall become my endless devotee”

“So that’s what this meant,” you sighed quietly, before gazing at him once more, “And there’s no way to bargain out of this?”

He looked mildly pleased by your inquiry, letting out a little hum before falling back into an ornate chair that definitely hadn’t been there a few seconds ago.

“And what would you bargain?” he purred, “What could a simple little human such as yourself have to give to me, other than your soul of course.”

You cursed his infallible logic and stayed quiet as you tried to think over your options. Truly, you had nothing else to give him; no money nor gifts. Your soul was the only valuable thing you owned, and there was no undoing what had been done. A person had died because of your wish.

With a heavy sigh, you sat up to your full height and prepared yourself mentally.

“Is there a time limit? Do I have to make my wishes today or can I think about them?” you asked.

“You’re free to use them when and wherever you wish. However, do not think this a loophole. Choosing to postpone your wishes until death does not release you from this contract. Your soul will still belong to me when you die.”

Well fuck. There went that option. If you were doomed no matter what, you might as well make use of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity... right?

“I’m going to need time,” you whispered.

“Fair enough,” he replied, finally taking a step back, “You have my calling card. You can call for me if you have any questions, otherwise, you know what to do.”

He strolled back to the window and snagged the dismembered head, flashing you a wide smirk that framed his fangs perfectly.

“I’ll just be taking this with me. Hope to hear from you soon, darling.”

#Demon!Dark #Dark/reader #female reader #PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS PEOPLE #This chapter is a little dark #heh... dark #pun not intended #two part series #Chapter 1

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sweetiejunie · 4 years

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Better than you thought

Summary: you didnt expect to befriend a stranger on a boring cruise your family dragged you to

Genre: fluff

Soobin x reader

Part: Prologue

=====================================

You couldn’t believe you let your family drag you into this. It’s not that you didn’t love them or didn’t like spending time with them. Nothing like that. In fact, you loved spending time with your crackhead family. Moments spent with them were some of your favourites. It was just the fact that they brought you on a cruise. Of all things. A damn cruise. A three day long vacation on a floating vassal stuck in the middle of the ocean, with thousands of strangers, headed god knows where. Oh and did i mention, no wifi. Welp, this was going to be interesting.

You sighed at the thought. You had to admit, part of you was pretty excited for a family get away. On the other hand, you knew were going to be bored out of your mind. Sure, the food was great and there were many facilities for you to explore, but one can only enjoy sharing a hot tub with strangers for so long. And going to a spa, gym or swimming pool just wasn’t your type of entertainment. Pshh, who need exercise.

——————————————————————————

Day 0:

So there you were, standing in line with your parents, waiting to board the boat. You were never one for big crowds, and it was pretty early in the morning. So safe to say your mood wasn’t the best right now. The though of being squished between people with no room to breath. Already, you hated it. Everyone was pushing each other, cutting the queue trying to get on first. Well, news flash people, the boat won’t leave without you if you are already here.

After trying to keep up with your parents for a good thirty minutes, you finally made it onboard. Going through the lobby, a large crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, the lifts encased on glass, purple and yellow lights illuminating the area. The floors covered with rich crimson carpet, edged with a white marble. Being in such a fancy room made you feel out of place, but at the same time it felt great. You felt like royalty.

When you reached your room, it wasn’t the biggest, almost like a standard hotel room. But then again, you would imagine guests wouldn’t be spending majority of their days in their room anyway. Okay fine, your room was nice and the lobby area you walked through was simply amazing. But all that doesn’t mean you’re going to have fun.

While waiting for the boat to depart, you received a text in your family group chat — thank god you still had reception at the harbour. A picture of your cousin and aunts next to the pool having a beer together. Being the alcoholic social person you were, you decided to head up there and join them. You’d be lying if said you didn’t enjoy the banter between you and family. The weird conversations you had, the strange pictures you took together. Not caring what others thought of you.

Alright, alright, the first day started off fine. But eventually your family had dispersed back to your respective rooms to freshen up before lunch, leaving you alone in your room to wonder where on earth your parents went. By now, the boat had already set sail and you no way of contacting anyone.

Having a quick shower and a change of clothes, you laid on your bed, swinging your legs off the edge and you stared blankly at the ceiling. You had an hour or so to kill before lunch and you couldn’t figure out what to do. Picking up the room card and your — somewhat useless — phone, you slipped on your shoes and headed out. Since so far all you’ve seen is the pool, the least you could do was walk around the boat and figure out what you could do for the next three days.

You opened the door and was met with the long, seemingly endless walkway. And eerie feeling washing over you as you walked, there was no one. A sudden chill swept through your bones, maybe shorts and a spaghetti strap top wasn’t the best choice, but you didn’t think of packing of jacket. Shrugging off the cool hallway, you proceeded forward, your arms close to you as you glanced around, thinking that perhaps you would see some form of person or figure, but all that greeted you were the wooden doors with room numbers and dirty dishes left on the carpeted floor.

Quickening your pace, you raced across the walkway. A sigh of relief when you found the turn that lead you to the lift lobby. However, the moment you turned, a black figure appeared, scaring the living daylights out of you. You jumped backwards, only to land the ground with a ‘thud’.

“Oh my god,” you let out, you hands clutching your chest.

“Oh I’m sorry, did i scare you?” he said with an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his neck and offering his other hand to help you up, “here.”

His voice was warm, like early spring. His lips, rosy, bearing a smile. The moment you looked up, you froze. From a quick glance you realised that the figure in front of you was a boy, and a handsome one at that. He was dressed in a simple black shirt and Bermuda shorts, but the way his eyes softened when he smiled at you and not to mention his dimples, were enough to get you all flustered.

Realising that you’ve been staring, you quickly accepted his hand. The minute you stood up, you immediately realised why the last thing you saw was pure blackness. This boy, was really, and i mean really tall. Standing at full height, you were barely above his shoulder. You wondered how many jokes and comments about his stature he gets daily, jibes about "the air being thin up there."

“Thank you,” letting go of his hand, you dusted yourself off, facing the floor, embarrassed to make eye contact with him.

His first impression of you was you getting scared by him and landing bottom first on the floor. It wasn’t a great one.

“No problem,” he replied. “But if you dont mind me asking, where are you going in such a rush?”

“O- oh, uhm, no where actually,” you hesitated, unsure of how to respond, “I’m actually just going to take a walk around the boat. Lowkey got ditched by my family so just wondering around alone.”

He chuckled at your statement. It was a laugh that you couldn’t help but smile at. The laugh was in his eyes, in the way his face changed into that vision of relaxed joy and unrestrained mirth.

He sighed, “well same, can’t find my parents, they probably went to the casino or something. I was just headed back to my room.”

“You’re welcomed to join me if you want,” you suggested, mouth speaking faster than your brain could process.

The moment you realised what you said, your eyes widened. Mentally cursing at yourself as you felt your cheeks heat up.

“I- i mean- if you you want to. It’s kinda boring walking around a big boat alone,” you added, trying to save yourself from sounding too desperate.

“Sure, i could use the company. Definitely beats being in my room on my own,” he responded, giving you a reassuring smile when he noticed your strawberry cheeks, “I’m soobin by the way.”

“Y/N,” introducing yourself, returning a smile.

So maybe the three day cruise would turn out to be more interesting than you thought. You didn’t expect to befriend a stranger, let alone roam around with one. And you certainly didn’t expect, that in your lifetime, you would meet anyone so handsome to the point you were at a loss of words and left you speechless.

=====================================

Decided to start a new short series for soobin. Hope you enjoy it! 😌

Masterlist

#txt post #txt fluff #txt ff #txt #txt fanfic #txt imagine #txt au #soobin ff #soobin imagines #soobin scenarios #txt scenarios #soobin fluff #soobin txt #soobin au #soobin fanfic

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all-hail-the-witcher · 4 years

Text

loving too hard

so at the last minute i put this in the spies verse although it can 110% be read as a standalone. im not sure when it takes place so dont ask.

by popular demand here's the playlist of songs i was inspired by:

la devotee thin white lies lose you too dying in la 8 letters the reason who knew this is gospel

______

genre: sad

ship: platonic ralbert

words: some

editing: nah

warnings: its sad, one brief mention of a shootout and weapons, use of the word love, feelings of regret, emotions, albert is stuck in his head and he made a bad decision, race just wants his hot pockets, he was at walgreens

_____

What the hell are you doing here?

Albert stared down at his hands, the light from the setting sun bathing them in gold, accentuating the purplish bruises scattered across his knuckles. Half moons of dried red framed his nails and dirt streaked his forearms. The gentle breeze stung his cuts. But no part of him was compelled to clean off the remnants of the work day. He’d fought willingly, hell it was his job after all, but suddenly it seemed so strange and weird and...wrong. Normally the last day of a case was thrilling and crisp with satisfaction, but all he could bring himself to feel was hollow regret.

It couldn’t be his job. Albert had known exactly what he was signing up for: long nights of research, stakeouts, codenames, fake identities, tailing criminals, not being seen, broken bones, scars, fights, shootouts, outrunning the inescapability of death time after time again...the endless prospects gave him goosebumps. He was a danger seeker. If he were told to take down a criminal with his eyes closed and hands tied behind his back he’d say well bring it the fuck on already!

And yet here he was, contemplating going back inside and opening his laptop to type a very half assed resignation letter. Why?

The view from the cheap hotel room was nothing special (the parking lot of a run-down strip mall mostly populated by a flock of crows) but he found himself leaning forward against the rickety hotel balcony railing to get a better look. Part of him knew that there was a very real chance it could snap and he would plummet 3 stories, but he found himself not caring. He’d fallen from higher places before. If anything, Race would yell at him for being stupid and reckless.

Race. Where was that bastard anyway? He’d left 45 minutes ago to go get first aid supplies or something, Albert hadn’t really been listening. Still, he was pretty sure that it didn’t take 45 minutes to run into Walgreens and grab some rubbing alcohol and gauze. He should have been back by now and Albert couldn’t bring himself to care.

Race was the whole reason he had this job. Why he had left home. Why he had seen so much of the world. Why he knew how to carry on half decent small talk in Russain (thanks Duolingo). Why he was one of the best field agents in the country. Why he could order meat-lovers pizza in 15 languages and counting. Why he had become such a better person than he had been in high school. But then again, Race was also the reason he had nightmares. Why he had nearly died countless times. Why he felt as though he was stuck in a life he wasn’t sure he would pick for himself if he had had the option.

Everything he had done had been for Race. Every bullet he’d taken, every scar he’d gotten, every panic attack he’d had, every time he’d hid his doubts and his fears about the mission...that had all been for Race. To protect him, to make sure he was happy.

Not like that plan had worked anyway. He knew that every time he so much as scraped himself Race panicked. And then they would ignore it until it became too much and Race would end up revealing just how much it hurt him that Albert was doing stupid shit behind his back and why can’t you just think about how this will affect me for once!?

But Race always came back, always tried to mend the rift. He made sure Albert was comfortable and he wasn’t pushing any boundaries. And what did Albert do in return? Kept fuckin hurting him. Race didn’t deserve that. Hell, no one did, but certainly not Race.

Race was too good for him. He had always been too good for him. Albert didn’t deserve a friend as good as Race, he never had and he never would.

The light’s clicked on in the parking lot below. It was no surprise that the lights, much like the strip mall, were shitty and flickering. Still, he was able to make out one lone figure holding two Walgreen’s bags. Only Race would be able to justify spending an hour in a Walgreens. Even from the balcony Albert could tell that Race’s hair was still coated in a thick layer of dirt and that he hadn’t bothered to change out of his mission clothes yet. Seeing him walking calmly back lifted a weight in his chest.

Are you sure you wanna leave this?

Albert turned swiftly, wrestling with the near-broken door for a moment before bursting back into the hotel room. Blindly he grabbed his backpack and threw random clothes and weapons in. Race was safe. He didn’t need to be here anymore now that he knew that Race was safe. Race was smart, he’d be fine, he didn’t need Albert.

He was in the middle of scribbling Race a half assed note when the door opened, bringing Race in with it. Shit.

“Hey Albie, sorry it took so long, I decided to get us food also but then couldn’t decide what to get and also Walgreens doesn’t have the best food options so I got hot pockets and chips and salsa, which, now that I’m saying that I realize that those are essentially the same thing, I hope that’s okay…” He finally looked up, noticing Albert. “Are you going somewhere? Is everything okay?”

“I’m so sorry Antonio.” Albert kept his voice low, knowing it would break if he spoke too loudly. “I can’t do this.”

Race dropped his bags on the bed and stepped closer to Albert, reaching out to grab his arm. “Do what?”

Albert flinched, stomach tightening as he stepped back to avoid Race’s touch. He felt guilty, but he couldn't do this, he couldn’t do this, fuck why couldn't he- “This,” he waved his hands as if in explanation.

“What Albie?” Race asked gently. “Stay in the hotel? The mission-”

“Us!” Albert blurted out. “I can’t do us.”

“What?” Race’s voice was small and broken as he stepped back, eyes suddenly glassy. Instant regret swelled up in Albert’s throat, but he forced it down. He couldn’t keep doing this anymore. It wasn’t right of him.

“I’m sorry. You’re too good for me Tonio. You’re too good for me and all I do is hurt you. I can’t be friends with you knowing that. I loved you too hard. I need time.” He picked up his backpack, unable to look Race in the eyes. Once his back was turned he tried to wipe at his own tears subtly, but winced when he remembered that he had too black eyes.

“Will you be back?” “I don’t know.” Albert picked up the note he had been writing and held it out to Race.

Race took the letter gently, looking at Albert thoughtfully. “I love you Albert,” he whispered finally. “You can always come back.”

Albert reached for the doorknob. “I-” his tongue stuck in his throat like sandpaper. He couldn’t say it. “Thanks,” he mumbled instead before stepping out into the hallway.

What did you just do?

_____

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@papesdontsellthemselves

@deathcast-s

@the-poodles-of-pulitzer

@hopefully-not-the-ghostbusters

@humanracoon

@irondad-spiderson-duo

@albert-eats-cookie-cake

@nico-nat

@localfakeitalian

@carryyourownbanner

@writing-makes-me-antsy

@racetrackyeetgins

@panpervinca

#saphie scribbles #albert dasilva #newsies #newsies fic #spy boys #sorry for the sad boi fic #yoink

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thepurplebutterflythings · 5 years

Text

We’re Grown-Ups, Aren’t We? - Jason Todd

Gif: Unknown on Tenor

Word Count: 2.1K

Paring: Jason Todd x (f)Reader

Summary: Bruce sends Y/N and Jason on a job and books them a room in a fancy five-star establishment. One problem, he was supposed to book two rooms and only booked one room, with one bed.

Warnings: N/A

Masterlist

Requested: @gaeck-o

Tagging: @bella-0104-123

________________________________________________________________

Bruce Wayne, Billionaire Play-Boy, Batman, Symbol of Gotham, CEO of Wayne Enterprises and a brilliant businessman, was a complete and utter idiot. All the man had to do was book two rooms in the hotel were Y/N and Jason had to stay in while in Detroit to visit Dick Grayson, but he somehow only booked one, and it wasn’t as if he could afford two rooms, he could get every room in the god-damn hotel if he wanted, Bruce had just simply forgotten he was sending two people on this trip.

“No, no, no,” Y/N said, putting her hands on the receptionist’s desk and leaning forward into the receptionist’s space. The receptionist, a prim and proper looking woman with rectangular glasses perched neatly onto her nose and holding a fancy looking pen, leaned backwards and gave Y/N a disapproving look. The hotel establishment that she and Jason found themselves in was fancy, in fact, fancy was an understatement – aristocratic was perhaps more accurate. The pair of them stuck out like a sore thumb, Jason in his dusty jeans and messy hair and Y/N in a worn-out leather jacket and scruffy trainers, and both of them were incredibly tired from the journey that brought them from Gotham to Detroit. “There should be two rooms under ‘Wayne’, not one.”

“I’m sorry, Mam’, but the computer says there is only one room under the name ‘Wayne’, and the system doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Well, this time it has,” Jason spoke up, rubbing his temple. “Bruce wouldn’t make the mistake of booking one room.”

“Is there any other rooms available?”

“No.”

“Seriously?” Jason groaned.

“I don’t know what to tell you, sir,” the receptionist said, clearly sick of them bothering her, “do you want the room or not?”

“Fine, we’ll take it,” Y/N sighed, grabbing her back and turning to Jason, “we’ll figure something out when we get up there.”

“Alright,” Jason nodded as he grabbed his bag. Y/N took the room key from the receptionist and nodded in thanks.

________________________________________________________________

The room was incredible, there was no doubt about that. Everything was in shades of cream and gold with mahogany wood. The moment Jason and Y/N walked into the room, they dropped their bags and looked around the room in shock.

“My apartment could fit in this ten times over!” Y/N said in awe.

“How is all of this for one person?”

“The Rich are indulgent – we work for Bruce Wayne, we should know that by now,” Y/N turned to Jason, “Dumbass had a dining room he never went in until we came along.”

“It’s still just strange to see,” Jason shrugged, “come on, neither of us had the most easy-going of upbringings.”

Jason was right. Neither himself nor Y/N were as gifted as Bruce with finance when they were growing up and it showed in moments when together. Now the most normal middle class of people would also have the same reaction as Jason and Y/N when seeing the extravagant room they were gifted with, but when they were out eating and shoved a few bread rolls in their pockets, when no one was looking it, was because of that deep-rooted fear that they grew up with not knowing if or when they would be eating again.

“Point taken…” Y/N mumbled, “but that’s very different from a golden clawed bathtub,” she said gesturing into the bathroom where the bathtub in question stood.

“That’s true,” Jason nodded, throwing his bag on the sofa. It was white, fabric, and not made to be comfy, but solely for aesthetic. “I gotta go find Grayson, reckon you’ll be alright here for a while?”

“It’s basically a palace in a five-star hotel and Bruce is paying the bill,” Y/N turned to Jason and folded her arms with the cock of an eyebrow, “I’m taking this as a chance to see how much I can rack up before we gotta leave.”

“I’ll join in on it when I get back,” Jason said as he grabbed his case that held his Robin suit and went to the door, “see ya!”

“Bye!”

________________________________________________________________

Y/N certainly took advantage of Bruce paying and ordered essentially everything on room service. The staff had to bring three rolling trollies up to the room. Lobster, steak, caviar and everything else you could imagine. She sat on the bed with the TV on and tore into everything in reaching distance.

“Oh my god,” Jason said opening the door, his jaw-dropping at the sight of all the food, “I left you alone for a day, Y/N/N, and you… what? Cleared out the kitchen?”

“I said it was a challenge, and I meant it!” Y/N shifted over to make space for Jason, who put his case down and pulled his sweater off before jumping next to her on the bed, “Salmon or Crab?”

“Salmon,” Jason said as Y/N handed him the platter with the smoked salmon on. “Bruce is going to kill you for this,” he said as he pushed the salmon into his mouth.

“ME?” Y/N scoffed, “you’ve got a mouthful $108 worth of salmon.”

“Fine, us,” Jason corrected. “But it’s worth it!”

“Damn right,” Y/N nodded as she grabbed the champagne bottle and two glasses, pouring them each a glass. She handed Jason his glass and they clinked them before downing the liquid in one. Jason lowered his glass and looked at their surroundings.

“Be honest with me, how much money is all this?”

“No fucking clue!” Y/N frowned and looked at it all, “Should we be worried?”

“I think we’re way beyond being worried now.”

“Fair play.”

________________________________________________________________

Food cleared up and taken away, Y/N and Jason started to get ready for bed. Y/N changed in the bathroom and by the time she exited, Jason was also in his pyjamas – tracksuit bottoms and no top. It made Y/N blush to see Jason shirtless, how she hadn’t realized that of course, Jason’s physique would be beyond incredible is ridiculous! The first thing Y/N thought when she saw Jason was that scene in ‘Crazy, Stupid Love’ with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, where Ryan’s character whips his shirt off to reveal an outrageously ripped body and Emma’s character goes “FUCK! Are you photoshopped?” or something to that effect. That was how Y/N felt gawking at Jason’s chest, she felt like Emma Stone and that he was Ryan Gosling.

“You alright, Y/N/N?” Jason said as he realized Y/N standing there in her pyjama’s staring at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Y/N nodded with a cough as she folded her arms across her chest and looked around her. She suddenly wished she packed nicer pyjamas, and then she cursed herself for thinking that, but the pyjama’s she was wearing were her ‘At Home Clothes’ – clothes to be worn when no one else was around, like what that comedian Iliza Shlesinger talked about in her stand-up; holes in them, stains, and, in Y/N’s case, about a size or so too big for her. It wasn’t the outfit she wanted to be seen in after realizing how hot her friend was, why couldn’t she dress like a god-damn Victoria Secret Model when going to bed? She felt silly, like a little girl dressed in grown-up clothing pretending to be an adult.

“I’ll take the sofa,” Jason muttered as he walked to the sofa which would almost certainly play his back up.

“Why?” Y/N asked as Jason stopped in his tracks and looked at Y/N.

“Cause there’s only one bed.”

“It’s a king-size,” Y/N told him, “We could sleep on opposite sides and still have enough room for two to three more people.”

“But... wouldn’t you feel awkward?”

“Jason, we’re grown up’s, aren’t we?”

“I’d find that more believable if you hadn’t gone total ‘Home Alone Lost in New York’ on the room service.”

“We can share a bed without anything happening between us.” Y/N said as she pulled the sheets of the bed back and climbed in herself, patting the free spot for Jason to take. Jason bit his lip and nodded before getting in the bed as well.

They both looked at each other and smiled a strained smile before laying down and staring at the high, white ceiling. It was silent, only the noise of Y/N and Jason breathing filled the air. They certainly weren’t sleeping in Gotham anymore, where the normal lullaby for a baby was the endless wail of sirens, police or otherwise. No noise outside seemed unnerving to them both, any small creak or groan made by the old building could be heard. They both tossed and turned for what seemed like hours until Jason sighed, sat up and turned on the table lamp, causing Y/N to squint at the brightness and turn on her side to face Jason, who laid down and faced her.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, “I can’t sleep like this!”

“Me neither,” Y/N assured him, “it’s too… strange.”

“Normal,” Jason said, “this is how normal people not in Gotham sleep – in silence. Why can’t we?”

“Cause we’re from Gotham like you said.” Y/N sighed as she pulled the quilt up a little more to fight off the night chill, “come on, look at Gotham – we’ve got psycho clowns, exploding clockwork penguins and an asylum that criminal lunatics always seem to be breaking out of yet no one thinks to up security on – and we wonder why tourism isn’t booming!”

“Yeah, I know,” Jason nodded against his pillow, “do you sometimes wonder if you could leave it all behind?” He asked her, “Leave Gotham and be normal.”

“I don’t know,” Y/N confessed, “Those from Gotham just seem to be bred different from the rest of the world – we’re bred to survive the worst of the worst, I don’t think we could survive anywhere else, we’re not meant to, I think we’re meant to stay in Gotham, whether we want it or not.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, look at Bruce – the guy could have an easy life, go wherever he wants, but he doesn’t, he can’t, he’s from Gotham, and he can’t leave it behind, like us, and he’s survived the worst of the worst; his parents, Joker, Riddler, Penguin, whatever villain you can think of in Gotham, Bruce has survived them – more than once. He couldn’t leave it behind if he wanted to.”

“Could you?” Jason asked her. Y/N frowned and thought for a moment, could she really leave Gotham? Her home? Gotham wasn’t the nicest of places to live, it was hell on earth in some sense, but she was born in that city, she grew up in that city, all she knew was that city, and it was hard, no doubt about it, but she found her purpose in it all – Y/N’s purpose was to help Jason and Bruce. She sat in the Batcave with Alfred and worked on the tech they used, checked CCTV and police radio and talked to them over coms. It was nice, and she knew that she couldn’t leave it behind, especially if that meant leaving the three men in her life who had become her family. Y/N never wanted to leave them, especially Jason.

“No, I don’t think I could,” Y/N shook her head, “you?”

“I think I’m meant to be in Gotham and fight crime with Bruce with the help from you and Alfred,” Jason said quietly, “I couldn’t leave. I don’t want to leave. Gotham… it’s more than a city… Gotham is my purpose.”

“I know what you mean,” Y/N smiled in reassurance. “I couldn’t leave what I do now, working with you, Alfred and Bruce… it means the world to me. I love it. If I had to do everything again, I’d do it all the same.”

“Me too,” Jason leaned across and brushed the hair out of Y/N’s eyes that had fallen in front of them “my life is better for knowing you.”

“And my life is better for knowing you,” Y/N said in a small voice before shifting closer. She looked at Jason with large eyes, silently asking him to kiss her, kiss her breathlessly, kiss her like she had never been kissed before. Jason’s hand moved to her cheek and he leaned in, catching her lips in his own, moving his hands, both of them, to her waist and pulling her close to him. Jason did exactly what Y/N asked of him. He kissed her. He kissed her breathlessly like she had never been kissed before. When they pulled apart, Jason let out a small little chuckle.

“Thought you said we were grown up enough to share a bed without something happening.”

“Well, I was wrong, weren’t I?”

“Definitely.”

“Regret it?”

“Not one bit. You?”

“God no, now make me yours, Jason Todd.”

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heoneyology · 5 years

Text

Break Down

—A/N: I wrote this in my car based off of basically what happened to me earlier today out of boredom and thinking about ateez-

—Pairing: Reader x Seonghwa

—Genre: subtle fluff

—Word Count: 2038

You sigh, leaning back against your car in defeat, bringing your phone up to hold in front of you once more. The time reads 4:12PM, a tauntingly grim reminder of the situation you’re stuck in and just how long you’ve been stuck in it. Frowning, your hand falls back down to your side, and you tilt your head back slightly to stare up at the sun beating down on you. It had become too hot in your car, and so you’d stepped outside to wait. It was a nice day, minus the circumstances you were in—briefly stranded on the side of a road, the middle of nowhere with an overheated engine under the hood of your car. Thankfully you’d been smart enough to pull over before the engine had actually started to smoke, but it was still a hindrance to the start of your spring vacation, and also slightly worrying, considering you were taking the so-called “scenic route”. You’d been waiting for the tow truck your insurance promised would be there in thirty minutes for an hour now. With each passing moment, you became more anxious and aggravated. Outside the comfortable confines of your vehicle, it was warm, despite your car holding in the heat fairly well. The blue sky was dotted with puffy white clouds, and there was a gentle breeze in the air; the cusp of summer. It was mild weather, not too hot or cold; the breeze was warm, yet cool enough, as it passed lazily over your skin every now and again. Yet the longer you stood in this lonely expanse of wasteland, the more it felt as though the sun was frying your brain. Suddenly, your phone vibrates in your hand, followed by the abrupt trill of your ringtone. It’s an odd sound against the silence surrounding you, and it catches you off guard. You scramble to answer your phone, lifting it to your ear. “Hello?” “Hi, this is Seonghwa calling from Treasure Towing, LLC, am I speaking to Y/N? You called for assistance due to an overheated engine?” A deep voice comes from the other end of the line, and you recognize the company name as the one which your insurance had given you earlier.

“Yes, that’s me! I did!” “Perfect! I’m assuming this is you, then, off to the side of the road?” You lift your gaze, glancing up the long expanse of road in the direction you were facing—but are met with the empty expanse of horizon. Curiously, you turn and peak around the side of your car where you sit on the back bumper, met with the sight of a tow truck not too far off. “If this truck is you, then yes!” Pushing yourself away from your car, you take a step out into the street, giving the driver a wave. You hear a quick ‘okay’ from him from the other end of the line, and the sound of your call cutting loose. Lowering your phone and shoving it into your pocket, you squint into the sunlight, attempting to get a clearer view of the driver as he maneuvers the truck on the road to line it up in front of yours. The glare of the sun against the windshield makes it nearly impossible, though. When he has the truck situated in front of your car, the driver finally jumps out. The man named Seonghwa walks towards you, pulling the cap on his head off and running a hand through his dark hair. “Y/N?” He asks again, as if he has to be certain. You give him a nod in reply. “Are you alright?” “I am now. But you sure took your sweet time getting here…” Seonghwa smiles apologetically, the action enunciating his defined cheekbones. You can see the sincerity in his eyes, and you find your aggravation slowly easing away. “I’m really sorry about that. Insurance companies usually just give you an estimated arrival time—they don’t actually always know who will be dispatched, and from what location… did you wait long?” Even his voice is earnest, and you find yourself pursing your lips. You can’t really be angry at him, can you? It’s not like it was his fault. He was doing his job, and he’d gotten here as fast as he possibly could. “Just a little over an hour…” His eyes widen. “I’m so sorry!” Immediately, he glances back to his truck, to your car, and back to you. “Okay, let’s get you loaded up and off this endless road. We won’t keep you out here any longer. Do you have your keys?” You’re taken aback by his surprise, so it takes you a moment to nod and fish into your pocket for your car keys, handing them over to him. As he holds out his hand, palm facing upward for you to drop your key into, you can’t help but take notice of how masculine his hand it. Working hands, you immediately think to yourself, finding it slightly attractive the way they’re large but slender, yet the way he grasps your keys is careful and light. “So you’re having an overheating issue?” Seonghwa asks, as he turns back to his truck and sets to work at lowering the bed to a slant, then readying your car. “Yeah,” you let out a sigh as you respond. “The car is old, so I’m not entirely surprised. But it kind of sucks…” “Were you headed somewhere important?” “Not really. It’s the start of spring break, though, so I was meeting up with some friends.” Seonghwa frowns, glancing back over his shoulder at you. By now, your car is chained up and being dragged by chains up onto the bed with the flip of a single switch. “Were your friends expecting you immediately…?” “Yeah, but I already told them what happened.” That was why this entire situation sucked. Because of a professor actually placing a midterm on your the Friday before spring break, you’d been forced to leave a day later, due to having to actually show up for class—which meant today was Saturday, and you were now stranded an extra couple of days, since everything was closed Sunday. “I’m sorry… maybe if I’d gotten here sooner, we could have gotten you to a mechanic before everything closed for the day…” A part of you feels sorry to this handsome stranger, apologizing to you for something that was completely out of his control. You simply shake your head, letting out another small sigh. “If you’re tired or hot, you’re more than welcome to wait in the truck,” Seonghwa offers, nodding over his shoulder. “I’m almost finished here. We’ll be on our way soon. Air conditioning is already on and running.” While the day wasn’t hot, the events had left your shoulders feeling heavy, and so you nod and decide to take him up on his offer. While Seonghwa finishes up the last of ensuring your car is chained down properly, you head around the front of the truck and climb into the passenger’s seat, relishing in the blast of cold air you’re immediately met with. You’ve got your eyes closed, leaning forward slightly and enjoying the air conditioning blowing straight on your face, when Seonghwa returns to to the cab. You barely notice him open the door to the back seat, shuffling around with something, before joining you in the front of the car and climbing into the driver’s seat. “Here, I have something for you.” “Hm?” Confused, you open your eyes, brows shooting up in surprise at being met with the sight of a fudgesicle lined up directly with your nose. “What’s this?” Seonghwa shrugs. “I’ve got a secret stash stowed in a cooler. I usually give it to the children in families I have to help, to kind of ease their stress—but you look like you’ve had a long day, and need it.” For a moment, you hesitate, not sure if you should be taking a popsicle from a random guy helping you. But, the company had high ratings and reviews from what you’d read online during your wait, and they were certified by your insurance company… carefully, you take the fudgesicle from his hand and open it, enjoying the savory flavor paired with the air conditioning in the cab as he begins the fairly long drive back. You’d think the drive back towards the nearest town—where Seonghwa just happens to be from—would be awkward, left in a heavy silence with a stranger. But it’s filled with chatter, Seonghwa filling the air with questions such as where you were originally headed and for what reasons, where you were from and what you were studying in school. After it seems you’re comfortable enough with him and his presence, he offers assistance in finding you a place to stay for the next two nights until your car can be fixed, telling you he has a friend who owns a motel. “I personally think it should change its title to hotel, but I guess it can’t because of occupancy size?” Seonghwa laments, shaking his head. “It operates like a five star luxury hotel though, I promise.” And you find yourself believing him, although you’re out in the middle of nowhere and honestly, you’d typically think anything with motel tagged onto the name would be sketchy. The rest of the drive back is filled with a brief silence before Seonghwa offers to play whatever kind of music you’re in the mood for, claiming he listens to anything—and then filled with laughter that echoes throughout the small cab of the truck as you two struggle to find a station that isn’t just radio static, out in the middle of nowhere, cringing at the strange, strangled signing some of the stations are putting out and wondering what language it could be in. A part of you is sad, briefly, when his truck rolls to a stop in the lot of the aforementioned motel. You have to admit, the place looks a lot cleaner and nicer than you’d have ever expected. “Let me help you get your bags,” Seonghwa offers, following you out of his truck. The offer doesn’t come off as strange considering he was almost required to, having left all your belongings in the back of your car to be loaded up. From below, you instruct Seonghwa on what articles of your luggage you’ll need, and he carefully passes those down to you, before jumping down to join you. He lands right in front of you, giving you a broad smile as he does so. “Thank you so much for your help.” “Of course, that’s my job—” “Yeah, but I mean everything else… the motel and mechanic recommendation, that sort of thing.” Seonghwa just shrugs, nodding towards the entrance. “Make sure you mention my name when you buy a room. My friend will give you a good deal,” he instructs, before glancing back at your car. “I’ll drop this off at the mechanic… you’ll have to give them a call to make an appointment.” You smile and nod. “Sounds good. I appreciate the help, again. Thank you,” as you say this, you gather your belongings and turn away, but Seonghwa speaking up causes you to halt. “Y/N?” “Yeah?” You turn back around. “Uh… this may be strange, all things considering, but do you mind if I make one more recommendation to you? As a local around here?” Seonghwa asks, and you raise your brows in surprise, before giving him a slow nod to continue. He clears his throat, the action causing a deep reverb to leave his chest. “I know a really good dinner spot… maybe I could personally show it to you?” You can immediately feel your lips spread into a smile, one that you find yourself biting back just as quick. Glancing away, you contain your emotions—surprised that you’re actually quite happy over his sudden display of confidence—before you turn back to him and nod. The smile is still peeking through, just enough for Seonghwa to take note, his own face spreading into a smile. “I’d like that. A local’s recommendations are always the best.” Maybe being stranded for the first couple of days of spring break wouldn’t be so bad...

#seonghwa scenario #seonghwa fanfic #seonghwa imagine #atzwriters #ateez seonghwa #ateez fanfic #ateez scenario #ateez imagine #m.writes #sorry dream wooyoung lost but it was really close :(((#i haven't written for seonghwa though so he kinda deserves this???#sorry this took a while to post i was playing around with tumblr editing akldjfk;sjdf

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taeheyhey · 6 years

Text

Close to Normal

Chapter 3 - Does This Make Sense?

Taehyung x Reader - Fluff/Angst/Future Smut - 2.4K words

A/N - Welcome to chapter 3! I really hope those of you that see this are enjoying it so far, there is a lot more of this to come yet and I would really like to know if I should continue posting/editing it on here or if I should move on to another fic, please let me know, I would love to hear from you guys!

As far as the use of language in this story goes, here is how I have formatted it: Dialogue in italics is (probably poorly) Romanised Korean, and will usually be used when an English speaking character can hear a word or words being said but may not necessarily understand.Dialogue in bold is when two or more characters are speaking to one another in Korean.

Thank you again for the love, I get all giddy when a notification pops up!!! ☺

Chapter One ~ Two ~ Three ~ Four ~ Five ~ Six ~ Seven ~ Eight ~ Nine ~ Ten ~ Eleven ~ Twelve ~ Thirteen ~ Fourteen ~ Fifteen ~ Sixteen ~ Seventeen ~ Eighteen ~ Nineteen ~ Twenty ~ Twenty-One ~ Twenty-Two

You stood staring dumbly at the door he just walked out of, before touching your fingers to your lips. How on earth had your night turned out like this? Earlier that evening, just the thought of getting a quick glimpse of the upper floors seemed like such a welcome diversion to the inevitable unpleasantness you were on your way to experiencing in the restaurant. Now you were faced with the very real prospect of sleeping in one of the luxurious suites on the very top floor with the most attractive person you had ever laid eyes on.

Okay, not sleeping with him... right? That would be...no. Why had that suddenly popped in to your head? You laughed nervously to yourself, dropping your fingers from your lips and smoothing down imaginary creases out of your dress, recoiling slightly as your hand brushed over the still-damp wine stain at your thigh.

What exactly was going on here? He’d been kind to you and made you laugh and was being all chivalrous, but why? As much as you felt something drawing you to him, he had no reason at all to want to help you. And that kiss...

Your mind drifted back to the feel of his large, warm hand engulfing yours and the palpable tension in the lift after he dragged you back to stand beside him, avoiding your eyes, exuding apprehension in spite of his bold actions. Then later, the same hand squeezing your hip as his lips moved hotly over yours.

You shook yourself free from your thoughts, rubbing your hand over your face in an effort to regain some sort of equilibrium. You walked towards the room you saw him emerge from earlier with the first aid kit, hoping that splashing your face with cold water would clear your mind some.

As the light from above the mirror illuminated the bathroom you were confronted by the largest collection of beauty products you had ever seen outside of a pharmacy. You were fairly certain you hadn’t owned this much cleansing, toning and/or moisturising paraphernalia in your whole life, never mind at any one time. Weirdly, towards the back of the sink, there was a cartoonish-looking pink spotted towelling headband decorated with a bow.

Without thinking too much about it – not over-thinking things seemingly the theme of the latter part of your evening – you used the headband to push your hair back from your face and began to examine some of the many bottles littering the sink's surface. You were unable to read some of the writing on the bottles, were they Korean characters? You had recognised the patterns of the letters from the paper face masks your best friend, Hannah, always ordered off the internet and made you wear when you had a night in together. She swore by them, and they always felt nice, but you just couldn’t get over the vaguely serial killer-esque appearance they gave you.

Overwhelmed by choice and concerned you may end up rubbing some kind of foot cream in to your face by mistake, you decided it would be best to just stick to what you knew, unwrapping the hotel soap and rubbing it between your palms beneath the flowing water in order to wash your make up off. As you leaned your face closer to the mirror, you were dismayed to see the dark circles under your red-rimmed eyes.

You groaned as you realised you needed to make a decision about where you were going to sleep tonight. You felt a pang of guilt when you realised how much you wanted to stay here with Taehyung, and then cursed at yourself. After the events of that evening, you rationalised that there was nothing for you to feel guilty about.

Decision made, you pulled your dress over your head and changed in to the shirt and shorts that he had brought out for you. Draping your dress over the back of a wooden chair by the window, you pulled the cord to open the blinds and felt vertigo wash over you as you saw for the first time just how high up you actually were. The lights from the buildings and roads for miles around twinkled up at you like a million multi-coloured stars, and you were stuck by how magical it looked. You considered again the strange turn of events of the evening.

Suddenly overcome with fatigue, you exhaled deeply and returned to the couch, resting on to the plush cushions and leaning your head against the back, your eyes drifting closed.

~~~

That was how Taehyung found you when he returned not long after. Holding your bag in his right hand, he gently pushed the room door closed with his left, not wanting to jolt you awake. He did a double take at his headband which had shifted down your face, obscuring one closed eye, and he smiled indulgently at how childlike you appeared in sleep.

Walking over to the couch, he placed one arm lightly around your shoulders to support your weight and he used the other to lift your legs from the floor, rotating you around in order to lay you down across the cushions. Sitting on the floor by your head, he pushed the pink material back up your forehead, a soft laugh leaving him in a breath as your nose twitched a little at the sensation.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little disappointed that you weren’t awake as he returned, but he reasoned you had had a long night and he wasn’t entirely sure how he expected the evening to progress anyway. Prone to acts of spontaneity in general, he had to admit that he didn’t exactly think the whole situation though, but you had seemed unconcerned and willing to go with it.

He hadn’t felt that strange fluttering in the pit of his stomach since long before his debut, not since the clever girl with the glasses he'd liked at his middle school, that – even with all his popularity – Taehyung had been too shy to speak to. Back then he made up endless scenarios and possible eventualities of what might happen if he built up the courage to confess to her, and the regret from never acting on it had troubled him for a long time after he had graduated and she’d moved to Canada with her family.

That same feeling encompassed him when he saw you for the second time, walking in to the restaurant in your pretty blue dress, a strange disappointment settling in him as you sat opposite the man whose dress sense had impressed him previously. He felt a little guilty for being relieved when the man left, but surely he hadn’t misread the way you had looked at him. You felt something too, there was no mistaking it, and as irrational as it was he didn’t want to deal with what-ifs for an unknown length of time. He couldn’t place why precisely he felt such a connection to you, even with the difference in language. Maybe it felt all the more visceral because of that, rather than in spite of it.

He was shaken from his musings once again by the sound of a phone, your phone to be specific. So as not to disturb you, Taehyung opened your bag and pulled out the handset, grimacing slightly when he saw a photo of the man from earlier fill up the screen as it rang, with the name Mark displayed in the middle of his forehead. He still had no idea of what had transpired between the two of you, but he made an educated assumption that you most likely didn’t want to be woken to speak to 'Mark'. He put your ringer on silent, and placed your phone on the table by the television next to the first aid kit on his way to the bedroom to fetch a cover for you before crawling in to bed himself, testing out your name on his lips with a smile before sleep finally took him.

~~~

Jimin stood in the doorway of the suite, trying to make sense of the fact that there was a girl fast asleep on a sofa in his best friend’s hotel room. None of the possibilities he was able to come up with made the slightest bit of sense, and he wondered momentarily if he should go and get the manager from his room.

He had also struggled to amuse himself without the others the night before, and had responded more or less instantly to Taehyung’s message to the group chat, hoping it would lead to a video call so he could laugh at his friend’s silly faces and wild commentary on nothing in particular.

After 45 minutes had passed, he had given up waiting and decided to take advantage of his solitude by treating himself to an early night. He resolved to take a taxi over to see him in the morning, their respective hotels thankfully being in the same part of the city. Taehyung was usually one of the last of the members to be able to drag himself out of bed, and Jimin decided he would wake him in his favourite way – by launching himself noisily on to his bed and attacking him until he woke – as punishment for his boredom the previous evening.

If it weren’t for the fact that Taehyung had given him the additional room card he was given upon check in – as was their usual arrangement – he would have sworn he was in the wrong room. There was also the fact that the girl in question was wearing that ridiculous pink headband that was unmistakably his friend’s.

“Jimin-ah, what are you doing here?” Taehyung walked out of the bathroom, a towel draped around his shoulders catching drips from his wet hair and his toothbrush clenched between his teeth on one side of his mouth as he greeted his friend as quietly as possible given his surprise.

Without looking away from your sleeping form, his eyebrows drew close in a clear display of his confusion. “You’re up? I thought it was weird when you didn’t reply last night,” he finally turned to face his friend with a wry smile. “Is this why Taehyung-ie? You were doing...something else?” Jimin wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Taehyung rolled his eyes and pulled a reluctant Jimin in to the bathroom with him while he finished up brushing his teeth. The black-haired man stood examining his friends face in the mirror, noticing his strange expression. “What happened? Who is she?”

How could he begin to explain the series of events that led to you being in his room? The short version was that he had literally dragged you up here after seeing you fight with your...what? Your boyfriend? That he had kissed you after barely exchanging ten words with you? And that had you not fallen asleep he didn’t know exactly how far he would have let things go?

“I met her last night, she’s really...nice.” Well, you certainly seemed nice. It was sort of hard to tell when he only really understood 20% of what you said, and you understood absolutely nothing from his language.

Jimin took a breath before asking the same question that was always posed whenever any of the members interacted with a girl for the first time. “Does she know who you are?”

He sighed in response. He knew Jimin was only asking as a concerned friend, but the almost standardised question only served to remind Taehyung of the potential ramifications of him allowing the human side of him to control his actions, rather than the PR-friendly-idol side he had spent years cultivating with the help of a massive team of people.

“We need to be careful Taehyung-ah, that’s all. It’s getting more difficult to keep a low profile.”

There were times where Jimin honestly thought that his bandmate was one of the wisest people he had ever met. He just always seemed so self aware, despite how his outward behaviour had a tendency to make other people believe otherwise. Other times however, he worried Taehyung acted so much on whimsy that it would end up hurting him in the long run. He had never known him to bring a girl back to his room before though, and it had thrown him off. He tried to change tack as he saw the younger of the two rest his hands on the counter surrounding the sink, his eyes fixed low without really focusing on anything.

“She doesn’t know who we are. I’m sure.” He chewed on his bottom lip as he contemplated how much he should say. “I...kissed her” he confessed as one side of his mouth quirked up at the memory, recalling the look in your eyes as he leant down to meet your lips.

At this revelation, Jimin’s mood shifted back to playful and he clapped his hand on to his shoulder, once again just two young men in their twenties talking about girls. “Wow, this guy. You’re blushing!” The tense moment over, Jimin laughed and Taehyung joined in a second later, the former changing the conversation to a much more familiar topic. “I’m hungry, what is the food like here? Shall we have breakfast?”

Taehyung couldn’t remember what the food was like, he had been too engrossed in watching you. He didn’t tell Jimin that, settling for a non-committal answer instead. “It’s not bad. Let me leave a note for y/n in case she wakes up.”

“Y/N is it? Ah, I’m so impressed!” He teased again.

Taehyung chose not to respond but he smiled widely despite himself as he used the hotel stationery to leave you a message. “How do you write 'breakfast' in English again?” He hoped you would come and join them, so Jimin could see for himself how impossible it would have been for him to just let you go back to your own room, to just forget about the strangely beautiful moment that had passed between you. He wanted to make sure he wasn't imagining the way you looked at him.

Not long after, the note was complete and placed on the arm of the couch at your feet. The two young men left the room, Jimin wondering aloud just how he managed to talk you in to coming up to his room, having only the most basic grasp of your language. Once again, he found himself in absolute awe of Taehyung’s charisma, but carried on teasing him mercilessly all the way down to the restaurant, overjoyed to be able to see his dearest friend blush over a pretty girl for perhaps the first time he'd known him, and he found himself sincerely hoping that you were as delightful as Taehyung very clearly thought you were.

#bts smut #taehyung smut #taehyung fluff #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #bts v #bts kim taehyung #v fanfic #kim taehyung #bts fluff

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the-pontiac-bandit · 7 years

Text

all the way home i’ll be warm

so, thanks to @jakelovesamy for the prompt, and to her and @elsaclack for all of the help!! i’m only including the prompt because it seems important that y’all all know that this started as a creepy cabin drabble. (title is from “let it snow” bc yes i Obviously wrote a christmas fic in mid-june)

99. “We’re in an abandoned lodge in the middle of nowhere. Sure, you’re totally right, nothing bad could ever happen here.”

Jake Peralta has never enjoyed the outdoors. Sure, that one Cub Scouts camping trip in first grade was pretty fun, but that was mostly because his dad was Assistant Scoutmaster that year, and Jake got to stay up until the sun started to rise, making s’mores with Charlie Daniels and his brother. Adult Jake Peralta prefers snow plows, massage chairs, modern insulation, and easy-access delivery food.

Which makes the fact that he agreed to spend Christmas in a cabin in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York with his new wife’s family a remarkable testament to just how much he loves said new wife.

Of course, the Santiagos are a remarkably awesome bunch of people. Victor warmed up to him - finally - when Jake told the Santiagos about his intentions to marry Amy. He showed them the ring, and Victor decided that anyone who had managed to save up that much money with a credit score below 200 was plenty tenacious enough to be a Santiago. Her brothers, meanwhile, had warmed to him as soon as they learned how much he loved basketball and good cop movies (Luis once told him that there were so many Santiago brothers it wasn’t even that noticeable when they picked up a few extra along the way. Jake had never felt more thrilled to be so entirely a part of something).

Even with all that awesome, being snowed in with all of the Santiagos in an eight-bedroom “cabin” (it’s definitely way too large for that title, and yet still somehow too small for all seven brothers, their spouses, and the kids) for four days over Christmas was not his idea of a dream vacation. Jake has no idea exactly how many nieces and nephews he now has, but he knows that there are at least twenty children that made it to the cabin ranging from scarily-new infants to surly teenagers, and they all call him Tio Jake with an excitement that warms his heart.

That many kids with that few bedrooms, though, means that someone is always sleeping somewhere strange. Usually on the floor. Definitely at a weird time of day. And Jake definitely almost steps on them on his way to the kitchen for more Cheetos (Manny brought a seemingly endless supply - he keeps pulling more from his car every time the boys finish a bag. Jake is eternally grateful).

Amy always seems to know who’s sleeping where (she also knows all of their names, of course, because she’s a perfect aunt who filled up their entire trunk with personalized gifts for each child and all her brothers, leaving Jake with a much better understanding of why they couldn’t afford Paris).

There is a constant hum of noise in the cabin. On the first day, which Jake obnoxiously calls Christmas Eve-Eve to anyone who will listen, everyone is in and out - exploring the nearby town, enjoying the fresh air, playing games of soccer on frozen ground that gives Jake a bruise on his hip when he tries to bicycle kick for the winning point. All in all, a great first day.

Then, that night, the snow starts to fall. At first, it’s some flurries. Just enough snow to be romantic - when it falls, it’s light and fresh, and Jake’s been to the country before, but just rarely enough that seeing fresh, fluffy snow surrounding him is a novelty. The Santiagos, who grew up with a huge backyard and spent their winters rolling around in snow that no dogs had peed in, were less impressed, and thought he was insane for wanting to spend that much time in the woods in the snow at night.

But then Amy walked outside with Jake in her heaviest parka, and they stood together and watched it fall, illuminated by the faded light coming out of the cabin, where the Santiagos were playing the largest game of Apples to Apples he’d ever seen. Everything was perfect, and just a little bit magical, and when he leaned down to kiss her, he could see the snowflakes that had settled on her eyelashes.

Jake is thoroughly enjoying the feel of her lips against his, even if that’s the only skin-to-skin contact available with all the layers, even though the pom pom on top of his hat is slowly pulling the entire garment forward to cover his eyes, but it ends when Amy decides her hands are freezing - even in their wool mittens - and tells him very pointedly that if he likes what her hands were going to do later, he’d best go inside and save them from frostbite. After that, he moves very quickly back towards the fire the Santiagos lit in the living room (carefully guarded by the oldest cousin, college freshman Anna, to prevent any accidental burns to the five year-old twins racing past).

Everything is perfect until the next morning, Christmas Eve, when he wakes up to nearly two feet of snow on the ground outside. Of course nothing is plowed and of course their cars are buried and of course there are somehow now nearly forty people stuck in what used to feel like a very large “cabin” and Jake’s thinking everyone should have just gotten hotel rooms in the city instead, no matter how pretty the untouched snow is.

Jake and Amy are up ridiculously early, thanks to the wails of the baby that radiate from the room they share walls with. Jake gently pushes Amy back to sleep when she starts to get up to go take care of her niece - she never lets herself sleep, and she’s been absolutely exhausted lately. She deserves this.

So Jake finds himself in the kitchen with Luis, Manny, and Joel, sitting in flannel pajama pants and overlarge matching t-shirts (Joel designed Family Reunion 2018 shirts. Jake never wants to take his off). Children are playing quietly around him - all of them are aware that moms, dads, and older siblings are trying to sleep, and they’re Santiagos, so of course they’re complying. Jake’s enjoying his Frosted Flakes (also courtesy of Manny), and reveling in the early morning quiet (at least, compared to Santiagos at full volume), compounded by the thick coat of snow on the ground outside.

It’s Luis who breaks the comfortable silence, clearing his throat and shifting in his seat. His daughter Lucia, just barely three months old, is cradled in his arm, and he’s clutching a steaming cup of black coffee for dear life with the other hand.

“Man, thank God she fell back asleep. Sometimes she just won’t stop crying in the mornings, and I can’t exactly take her outside in this weather. Would’ve been a fun wakeup call for everyone.”

Joel shoots a pointed look at his little brother, just fourteen months older than Amy. “But it’s so worth it. I remember when the twins were that little - a handful, but the best gift I could have asked for.” His gaze rests squarely on Jake, looking inquisitive, and Jake squirms a little bit under the intense stare.

Manny jumps in shockingly quickly to support his brother. “Yeah, Sarah and I only got married a year ago, but we’re already talking about it - we just can’t wait to have some of our own. What about you, Jake? Any kids in your future?”

Jake laughs a little, feeling a bit uncomfortable but brushing it off - brothers must talk like this all the time. “Oh, I’d say they’re definitely somewhere down the line, but definitely not anytime soon. There’s a life calendar hanging above our bed that says no kids until Amy’s a lieutenant, at least.”

Luis starts to laugh, but he’s quickly silenced by Joel, nearly thirteen years his senior, elbowing him in the side. He swallows his giggles, looking furtively at Jake, but their new brother-in-law hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.

They talk about their kids for a while, and Jake explains the elaborate color-coding system that Amy devised to pack for this four-day vacation. Then the boys give Jake, whose past experience with Christmas has been iffy and mostly related to Santa Claus, the lowdown on the innumerable Santiago family Christmas traditions.

The calm lasts until nearly 7:30, when Isabel Santiago emerges from the master bedroom, Victor looking a little sheepish at her heels. Jake had quickly learned at his first family event with the Santiagos that for all his commanding presence, Victor Santiago is constantly a little cowed and a little quiet when his wife is around. Isabel is furious that anyone let her sleep this late when there are grandbabies to feed and snowball fights to be had and children to catch up with. Jake quickly vacates the kitchen, knowing full well that any cooking done in his presence will quickly devolve into spilled batter and (somehow inevitably) explosions.

Back in his room, he decides to brush his teeth and hair and make some pretense to his new family that he’s less messy than this. His toiletries are stored carefully in the bathroom, in a nice case Amy got him to replace the messy gallon-Ziploc that never quite dried that he previously relied on. Everything is perfectly packed, and he knows exactly where it is. But when he tries the door, it’s locked.

“Amy,” he calls softly, not wanting her brothers to hear them through the frustratingly thin walls (seriously, how did Amy do this for eighteen years?).

“Jake? What do you need?” Amy’s voice is terse, barely audible. The shower isn’t running, so Jake decides she must be using the bathroom. He tries the handle again, wondering if it was just stuck, but nope - still locked.

Amy’s voice comes through the door again. “Can it wait, babe?”

He sighs. “Yeah.”

Then two minutes pass. Then three. The toilet never flushes, and he can smell French toast being fried in the kitchen all the way from their tiny bedroom in the back.

“Babe? I just need my toothbrush.”

“Just two more minutes, Jake. Please.” Her voice is tense, stressed, and a little hoarse, and he’s not entirely sure why.

“This is taking forever,” he whines. Then, a pause. “Babe, are you,” he brings his voice down to a whisper, “pooping?”

There’s a cough, then few seconds of silence from inside the bathroom. Then, a relieved sigh. “Yes, Jake. I’m pooping.”

“Amy, I’ve seen you poop before. Let me in.”

“How on earth am I going to do that?”

“Right.”

And he waits patiently until - finally - he hears a toilet flush, and she lets him in. The bathroom smells a little musty, reminding him somehow of their bathroom the week they both had the stomach flu. Her face is a flushed, and her eyes are a bit wild, darting around the way that they do when she’s stressed or anxious. Before he has time to question it or make sure she’s okay, though, he hears Manny call from just inside the door to their room that breakfast is ready and everyone else is eating. Amy replies that they’re coming, so Jake pours some toothpaste in his mouth, swallows quickly, and follows his wife (he’ll never get tired of thinking that) out the door.

All of the Santiagos are gathered around every flat surface in the living area of the cabin, each with a steaming pile of French toast, bacon, and strawberries. All of the weirdness of this morning is forgotten as he plops on the couch next to Luis with his own plate, leaving a corner of the couch for Amy. The pair immediately start discussing the Knicks’ playoff prospects with a few Santiago nephews sitting on the floor nearby (Jake’s pretty sure their names are Robert and Matty, but he can't be entirely sure. Everyone looks alike - those Santiago genes are strong.)

He’s so busy trying to convince his new family that the Knicks will win tomorrow by a full 70 points that he doesn't notice that Amy spends most of the meal taking deep breaths and leaves her French toast, her favorite breakfast, almost entirely untouched.

As soon as the conversation lulls, the sound in the room transitioning from lively conversation to quiet groans of sated contentment, Amy jumps up to start collecting plates. Her mother quickly follows, as she always does. They wave off all help (although not much is offered - everyone is far too full to move) from brothers and spouses, and even from Jake, and mother and daughter bustle off to the kitchen together.

Moms and dads, startled by the sudden lack of a syrup-covered plate in their lap, jolt to alertness, rushing to scrub powdered sugar, syrup, and orange juice off the faces of their children before they can ruin the furniture in the rented cabin. In the midst of the sudden reinstatement of chaos, Joel’s wife Mari stares at Jake, catching and holding his eyes. Then, seemingly unintentionally, her gaze shifts from him to the still-open kitchen door, out of which the clinking sounds of dishware being washed are emerging over the tumult of voices in the living room.

He gets the message (he thinks - that was a pretty weird look) and gets up to help his wife in the kitchen. He’s happy to go help anyway - after all, he has nothing to do to help clean up the plethora of nieces and nephews surrounding him, and he likes to be useful.

He’s stopped dead in his tracks at the door to the kitchen, though. Isabel Santiago is giving him a terrifying glare that is - like Amy’s - eerily reminiscent of that of a middle school librarian. It stops him in his tracks, and somehow, he knows to stay there. But instead of abandoning the room, going back to play with Robert and Matty, the eight year-olds who informed him during breakfast that he’s the coolest uncle they know, he backs away and sneaks behind the door, watching through the crack between the hinges, so that Mrs. Santiago doesn’t know he’s there.

Amy is gesticulating wildly at her mother, clearly frantic. When her hands reach up to start twisting her hair, though, her mom grabs them gently, says something, and pulls her only daughter into a hug. He can’t make out what’s being said over the din of the room behind him, but the cadence sounds distinctly like Spanish, so he knows he wouldn’t be able to follow even if everyone else would just shut up.

He’s relieved, though, to see Amy’s shoulders relax into her mother’s arms. He’s not sure what’s wrong, but clearly her mother has it under control. The sight of Amy’s breath steadying, her hands relaxing, calms him - whatever it is clearly can't be that bad.

And he's right. He’d returned to his room to change out of pajama pants (although this is the perfect kind of day for a pajama-jammy-jam) when Amy walks in, hugging him from behind and pressing her face into his shoulder.

He lets her stay that way for a few seconds, before pulling her arms just loose enough that he can turn around in her grip and properly hug her back. They stay that way, uninterrupted and holding each other close, for far longer than they should be able to, what with every single child in the house barging into their room at all hours to get some one-on-one time with their favorite aunt.

Finally, she pulls back, placing a quick peck on his lips before opening the top drawer of the dresser to find jeans and a sweater (before Amy, Jake didn't even know you could unpack on vacation, so he takes a second to marvel at the fact that he doesn't even have the opportunity to wreck the organization of their shared suitcase).

“So...you're okay?” he asks, a little tentatively.

Her back stiffens when he asks, and she freezes, one pants leg on, the other leg in the air. Then, in just a second, she's back to normal. In a carefully measured voice, she replies, “Yeah, babe, I’m fine. Why wouldn't I be?”

“I saw you talking to your mom, and you looked pretty upset.”

“Oh, that!” she replies, just a little too quickly. “I forgot the present for Mateo, and I didn’t know what to do, but my mom had an extra, so we’re giving him that!”

Jake’s pretty sure that he remembers writing Mateo’s gift tag himself, is almost certain it’s sitting near the side of the pile in their trunk, but he knows better than to argue. If Amy says it’s not there, then it’s definitely not there.

And then they hear Victor calling for them to come help decorate the Christmas tree that Diego drove up from New Jersey for the cabin, so instead of protesting, he grabs her as her head pops through the crew neck of her sweater (her softest one, which makes it by far his favorite) and plants a firm kiss on her lips. She laughs through it, wiggling away and protesting that we can’t do this, Jake, my dad might be coming in!

But then, when they hear her father’s footsteps fade into the background, she turns around and surprises him with a quick kiss before walking off, expecting him to follow. He does, but only after spending a few seconds marveling that the woman walking off with a new bounce in her step and a swing in her shiny ponytail is married to him.

Jake emerges into the crowded living room only a few steps behind his wife to happily discover that most of the younger children have been sent outside to play and release some energy. This means that the living room, while still loud - thanks to the room full of Santiagos, whose grasp of volume control is iffy at best - is full of the hum of polite conversation, rather than the screams of children trying to play tag between the boxes of ornaments, provided by Isabel.

When everyone sees them enter, though, the conversation comes to an abrupt halt. All eyes are trained on Jake and Amy, standing a few feet apart at the front of the room. Isabel starts to get up, takes a deep breath to say something, and then Amy shakes her head. It’s almost imperceptible, and if her ponytail wasn’t quite so bouncy, Jake wouldn’t have seen it at all.

Immediately, conversation resumes, as though nothing had ever happened, leaving Jake to wonder if he was imagining everything. Still standing in front of everyone, he leans in and whispers the question to Amy, who just shrugs in response - as if to say my family’s weird - deal with it.

So he does. He finds Luis sitting and untangling Christmas lights with Alex, their oldest brother. Alex looks up as Jake sits down, and a smile lights up his face as he claps Jake on the back.

“Congratulations, budd--” Alex is cut off abruptly from a sharp elbow from Luis that Jake definitely did not imagine.

Both men are looking at him warily, looking a little nervous for reasons that Jake can’t even begin to parse. They're silent for 10 seconds, and then 10 more, just watching him expectantly.

Then finally, with a relieved sigh, Luis breaks the silence. “Anyway, Jake, wanna give this string a shot? We can't get this knot out to save our lives.”

So Jake takes the lights they hold out for him and gets to work, doing his best to forget about the weird way that Alex had been staring at him.

Thankfully, untangling the lights turns out to be so consuming that he does manage to put his weird morning out of his mind for a little while. He has no idea how lights could have gotten this bad, until Alex explains that his kids used them as a rope for a hostage situation game that summer and put them away themselves. He’s a little impressed, honestly - figuring out how to untangle these lights might be a harder puzzle than any he's managed to solve with the NYPD.

Finally, though, he is able to hand Victor, who is taking meticulous instructions from Isabel about where the lights should be strung, a perfectly untangled strand of Christmas lights to add to the tree. The children are called back in to add ornaments to the now-lit tree (which stands taller than the trees Jake’s managed to squeeze into any of his apartments). The stomping of boots on the front mat sounds like a herd of elephants entering the house, and it lasts for what feels like an eternity as more and more kids traipse through, tracking an unbelievable amount of snow through the living room on their way to put up their coats.

His job done, Jake moves to the couch and squeezes into the impossibly small space left between Amy and the arm of the couch. Amy, laughing at the noises he makes as he tries to force his butt into the few available inches, gets up, settling on his lap as soon as he sits down.

Her head comes to rest against his shoulder as the kids reemerge, loud and ready to decorate. They watch the tree slowly acquire character via the addition of all sorts of ornaments - from fancy gold family heirlooms that only nineteen year-old Anna and her brother Sam can touch, hung high at the top of the tree, to paper drawings strung with yarn that two year-old Eliza drapes proudly on the bottom branches, balancing tentatively on chubby legs.

Amy slowly snuggles closer as they watch the scene unfold, so that her legs are folded on the couch (she may or may not give Luis, sitting next to them and playing with Lucia, a small kick as she pulls them up, just in case he’s done something today to deserve it), and Jake wraps his arms around her. Two of the thirteen year-olds are making faces at them and pretending to vomit in the corner, but Amy just laughs and plants a kiss on Jake’s cheek to bother her nephews.

Jake notices, when the tree is about halfway done and a few of the brothers are getting up to help their kids even out the ornament distribution (Jake has long-since discovered that Amy comes by her OCD honestly), that Isabel Santiago is watching him closely. She seems to have fixated on his arms, draped lazily over his wife’s (her daughter’s) abdomen. He can't read her expression, despite all his years of detective work, but he sits up straighter, trying to match the professionalism of Joel and his wife, sitting in the opposite corner of the room and gently holding hands in separate chairs.

As he shifts, though, Amy groans her objection, nuzzling her face deeper into his chest. That's when he realizes his wife is half-asleep. So instead, he settles back, deciding Mrs. Santiago must have been looking at something else - a quick glance confirms that she’s now talking to Diego’s wife animatedly about Christmas Eve dinner plans.

Finally, the tree is done. Isabel brings out sandwiches for everyone (Jake has no idea when she had time to make them. He’s at least 80% sure his mother-in-law is magical.), and lunch is finished in 10 minutes flat.

By this time, it's mid-afternoon, and there’s just a few hours until Christmas Eve dinner preparation begins in earnest. Matty and Robert beg their fathers for a snowball fight, and they agree eagerly, and before Jake really realizes what happened, everyone is getting up to go find coats and enjoy the hour or two of true daylight remaining.

Jake wakes Amy up (she claims drowsily that she’s been awake the whole time, thank you very much), and as they get up, Manny and Luis wander over to ask if Jake and Amy will be joining. Jake accepts enthusiastically, but Amy shakes her head.

“I don't think a snowball fight is up my alley today,” Amy apologizes with a yawn.

“Right! Because of the--” Manny starts, and then shuts his mouth so hard his teeth clack.

Amy gives him her special death glare, usually reserved for Charles when he starts talking in meticulous detail about her reproductive system.

Luis just laughs and drags Manny away, but Jake doesn't miss the excited hug Manny and Luis exchange when they think they're out of sight. Things are starting to get undeniably weird, Jake decides, furrowing his brow.

Amy is leading Jake back to their room when they find Isabel herself standing in their path. “Amy, could I borrow Jake for a moment? I need help with something, and your brothers are useless.”

Amy tries to glare at her mother, telling her silently to back off. But Isabel glares right back, and all of a sudden, Jake feels like he’s watching Amy look into a trick mirror at a fair - every mannerism is identical.

To no one’s surprise, Isabel wins, and Amy drops Jake’s hand, throwing one last concerned look over her shoulder as she continues to their room. Amy may have her mother’s glare, but her mother has an extra 37 years of practice.

Isabel starts to walk towards the kitchen, perhaps the only empty room in the house, and Jake follows automatically.

When they get there, she closes the door and turns slowly towards Jake. Slowly, carefully, she says, “You know, Amy loves you. A lot.”

Jake, feeling almost as nervous as when he asked them for their blessing to marry Amy, replies with the first dumb quip that comes to mind: “I’d hope so - we've been married for six months now!”

Isabel chuckles a little at that, seeming to loosen up. "I know. And we're all happy to have you as a part of the family," she reaches up touch his shoulder, her expression turning back to something more serious. "I know Amy likes to take care of herself. She's been like that her whole life - she didn't even want our help as a toddler learning to walk, which didn't go down well. There was the whole puddle incident," Isabel gets a far off look in her eyes for a few seconds before focussing back in on Jake, who has a host of questions about the phrase puddle incident. "I know she likes to take care of herself, but you're taking care of her too, right? We all need a little taking care of sometimes."

"Of course! We take care of each other - when she lets me," Jake shrugs, like it's obvious.

"Thank you," Isabel smiles a warm smile. "I knew I could trust you, Jake. I'm just reminded how lucky I am at times like these, that all my babies grew up and made such perfect families themselves. All these grandbabies!" Isabel gestures around as if there are grandbabies escaping from every crevice of the house (in fairness, they definitely are).

"They're all pretty special," Jake agrees, remembering the chorus of Tio Jake. No two words any adult (except for Amy) could say would make his heart feel so full.

"All so unique, and so precious." Isabel adds. And I just wanted to tell you how thrilled we all are that you all could be here with us this Christmas - I know it was hard to get off work, but it’s good for Amy to be with family, especially this year.”

Jake has already started to spew words about how of course they were thrilled to be here and it was never a question that they'd find a way to make it and they love seeing everyone. And then her last words register, and he pauses, his mind swirling as he looks for any explanation for what she might mean.

"What do you mean this year? Is-" he lowers his voice "is someone sick? Does Amy know?"

"No one's sick," she chuckles softly, "but Amy has been feeling a little under the weather. There's a special tea I have, it used to help me when...I mean, it helps with the nausea. I'll get you some to take up to her." Isabel starts for the cupboards, rifling around in the ones above her head. Jake isn't sure she can even see in there.

"Do you need any help?" He offers, but just then Isabel produces a lilac box and nods approvingly at it.

The tea takes five minutes to make, but Jake's distracted for most of it by Matty, who comes in with a hacky sack, which Jake can't say no to. The kid is surprisingly good, and Jake’s out-of-practice, leading to more than one miss and several repetitions of the phrase, “Aw! I boofed it!”

Isabel finally hands Jake a steaming cup of tea, which he carefully starts to carry back to Amy.

"Make sure she's getting enough sleep, too!" Isabel says as Jake starts turn away.

"Uh...I will, I guess?"

She laughs at his confusion, ruffles his hair (she has to reach up on her tip toes to do it), and hands him a cookie (Jake has no idea where she got it, but Isabel always has cookies. Jake loves her dearly for it).

With that, Jake knows he’s been dismissed. He walks out of the kitchen much faster than he should with the tea, carrying the cookie in his mouth.

When he finally navigates his way towards the glorified closet that he and Amy are sharing this Christmas, he throws open the door dramatically, startling Amy, who’s sitting on the bed wrapping a plain white box in red-and-green patterned wrapping paper (Jake remembers her packing the extra wrapping paper over his strenuous objections about the fact that there are no more gifts to wrap and there’s no possible way that she’s forgotten a gift for anyone - she even had one for Alex’s new puppy.)

“Babe,” Jake says frantically, his mouth still full of cookie, “I think your family is trying to kill us!”

“What?” Jake rarely catches Amy off guard anymore - she knows him almost as well as she knows herself. But he can see clearly that he’s surprised her with this.

“D’you think your brothers are still mad at you for that time you busted their party?” Jake is busy running through a list of every possible reason they could be on a Santiago hit list, but he’s discovering the list is pretty short.

“No way - I was nine!”

“Maybe it’s just me! Maybe they know 145 isn't a good credit score! Ames, what if they discovered I don't have a favorite font?”

At that, Amy gets up off the bed and walks over to him. “Babe, they already know that. And you do have a favorite font - it’s the title font from the Die Hard poster, remember? Everything’s totally normal - nothing bad’s gonna happen.”

The statement was clearly supposed to make him relax, and she turns around to find his coat for him so that he can go outside and join in the snowball fight, but Jake isn't satisfied. Then he notices that the peals of laughter he’s hearing are coming from outside, rather than inside, the house, and he realizes that they must be totally alone inside. The knowledge that they're alone in a snowed-in cabin adds an extra sense of eeriness to the afternoon light filtering through the clouds.

“Babe, we’re in an abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere. Suuure, you’re totally right, nothing bad could ever happen here.”

Abandoning the search for his coat, Amy grabs him by one hand and drags him back to sit down on the bed with her. “First of all, the cabin isn't abandoned - everyone is, like, ten feet outside the front door. Second, we’re on family vacation - you've been watching way too much true crime if you think someone’s trying to kill us. So what’s bugging you?”

Jake pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, and then lets everything out in a rush. “Your mom just pulled me aside to make sure I knew to take care of you because you love me and everyone keeps staring at me and Manny congratulated me and I don't know why and you were even being weird about pooping this morning and they’re definitely up to something really freaky, babe!”

And then he’s cut off by Amy’s laughter. She’s fallen backwards on the bed and is clutching her stomach as deep belly laughs escape into the still air of the cabin. Jake just glares at her - he can’t believe she’d be laughing about something this serious! They’re in an abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods (she can’t convince him otherwise) and their lives are on the line!

Finally, slowly, Amy catches her breath. When she’s gotten herself under control enough to speak again, she says the last thing he’d ever expect: “Want an early Christmas present?”

In shock, Jake replies, “Babe! Now is not the time for early Christmas presents! Now’s the time to dig out the car!”

“Jake.” She gives him The Look, the one that means that he’s being ridiculous and he needs to stop and listen. “Open the gift.” And she hands him the mostly-wrapped box that has been sitting forgotten on their pillow.

Still uttering half-hearted protests, he tears at the wrapping paper to expose the plain white box inside (what can he say? He’s a sucker for gifts). It looks vaguely like a box a tie might come in, and he looks up at her. “Santiago, clothes aren’t gonna fix the fact that something creepy is definitely coming.”

“Keep opening, Peralta.”

So he does. When he takes off the top, he looks up at her. She waits patiently for him to look down, to actually register what’s inside the box. When he finally does, his jaw drops as some still-unidentified emotion bubbles up in his stomach.

Because lying inside the box is a positive pregnancy test.

“I took it this morning, when you were with Manny and Luis and I’d woken up to throw up again and Mari bought it for me yesterday when they went into town and I was gonna give it to you first thing tomorrow morning but you’re in the middle of a weird...Jake?”

The sound of his name jerks him out of his reverie. Slowly, he looks up at his wife, a grin painted across his face from ear to ear (he’s pretty sure no one could wipe off this grin - not even the still-possibly-murderous Santiagos playing outside). Then, he’s tackling her back into the pillows at the head of the bed, being careful of her abdomen while their laughter mingles and fills the still-silent cabin.

Their legs are tangled and his arms are wrapped around her and her hands are combing through his hair and he’s never felt this disgustingly, blatantly happy in his life. “Santiago...You’re really pregnant?” he asks, awe saturating every word.

She nods in response, a smile growing quickly on her face. “You’re really happy about it?” she asks.

In response, he shifts forward and kisses her firmly. It’s far from their most graceful kiss - their teeth keep clacking because neither of them can stop smiling long enough to kiss the other properly. Jake doesn’t mind, though, because he’s too distracted by the pure, unadulterated joy that’s radiating up from his chest and out through his face and out through his fingers and the very tips of his toes.

Finally he pulls back. “Yeah,” he answers with a laugh. “I guess I’m pretty happy about it.”

She hits his shoulder lightly, rolling her eyes at her dumb husband that she loves so much. And he’s too busy thinking about the fact that Amy’s pregnant and all of the possibilities that that fact brings to even pretend it hurt. Instead, he shifts one hand slightly, gently, so that it comes to rest just over her belly button.

“You know, you can’t feel him kick yet.”

“I know! And him? It’s obviously a girl that we’re obviously naming Nakatomi!”

“Jake, Santiagos have boys. Always. Trust me, this kid is a boy.” She sounds so sure, but he can’t stop himself from giggling (he might never be able to stop giggling because he doesn’t think happiness this strong will ever wear off. It’s pulsing steadily next to his heart, filling him with the same warmth he felt when he saw Amy do the Double Tuck in her white dress as she walked down the aisle).

“Ames, they had you.”

She’s opening her mouth to retort, but the mention of the Santiagos reminds Jake how this whole conversation started in the first place. “Babe, this is all very exciting and everything, but it has nothing to do with why your family was acting so weird. Either you need to explain or we need to get the hell out of this creepy cabin. Something definitely just creaked and we’re the only ones inside!”

“Jake...that was you. You just moved and the bed creaked. And, to answer your other question, my family...might have known.” She sounds a little sheepish, but mostly she just sounds blissfully happy.

Jake looks at her in obviously fake indignation. “Amy! You told your family before you told me?”

“In fairness to me, my mom actually is the one who told me!”

Jake looks at her a little incredulously. “Babe. Come on. You keep track of everything to the hour. There’s no way you didn’t know about this.”

“I’m serious! I was a little late and pretty tired and nauseous, but didn’t think anything of it. My mom took one look at me and pulled me aside and told me. She’s had so many kids she just knows, Jake. Joel and Alex and my dad figured it out on their own, too - they’ve seen my mom have so many kids it takes them, like, half a second to pick out a pregnant woman. Between the four of them, things...got around pretty quickly. They’re all pretty horrible at keeping secrets.”

“No kidding.” Jake thinks back to the millions of weird looks that he’d forced himself to disregard and the dozen weird conversations he’d had since yesterday morning.

“They just get really excited about new grandkids, and they couldn’t wait for you to be excited, too.” Her voice is soft, as is her smile, and her hand has drifted towards his cheek.

“Trust me. I am.” He leans in to kiss her, a proper one this time. And it’s amazing and fireworks are exploding behind his eyelids and he hasn’t been this truly happy in...maybe ever and she’s rolling him over to straddle him and her hands are finding the buttons on his shirt, but then, a small voice is shouting outside their (thankfully closed) door to come outside. With a startled laugh, they break apart, jumping up impressively quickly to seated positions on opposite sides of the bed. Amy shouts back at her niece that they’ll be out in just a sec, and she begins searching for the coats and boots that they’d thrown off so hastily last night while Jake frantically buttons his shirt.

“There’s really no way we can get out of going outside?” Jake asks, a little disappointed.

“Remember when you were so excited for the snowball fight?” Amy retorts, a huge grin cracking across her face.

“Yeah, but now there are better things to do!”

And with that, Amy hands her husband his coat and boots, grabs his hand, and drags him to the front door. They emerge with his arm over her shoulder and her arm around his waist (she’ll say she just needs to be kept warm, but really she just can’t stay away from him). They watch on the side for a while, and at first, everyone leaves them alone (or at least, no one throws snowballs at them).

Jake’s so busy looking down at his wife, who’s positively radiant, that he doesn’t notice the sappy grins being thrown their way by every single adult in the clearing.

They stay that way, blissfully unaware of the screaming children and the happy smiles from Mr. and Mrs. Santiago and the high fives Manny and Luis are throwing each other because their baby sister is having a baby, for quite a while.

And then Joel ruins it. “Ay! Peralta! Stop making eyes at your wife and get in here!” And then a large snowball hits Jake’s face.

Jake roars with laughter as he bends down to start making his own ammo, but he’s slow - certainly unused to the speed at which Santiagos can form snowballs. He’s getting pelted from all sides, and the kids have joined in, and one dumped a pile of snow down his back while he bent down to make another snowball and he’s going down.

And then Amy throws a snowball. It hits Joel square in the face, and he backs up, sputtering. Manny starts to charge, but he’s gotten a heaping pile of snow to the face before he can get anywhere near her (she’d shifted while everyone was distracted, placing herself strategically behind her parents and using them as a human shield that none of her brothers could touch). One by one, the Santiago brothers and their spouses go down, their children getting distracted by the prospect of tackling their own parents into the snow. Jake’s more than a little impressed with her accuracy - now he knows why her aim with a gun is so good.

And then he’s able to stand up, brushing the snow off his jacket and shaking it out of his hair but mostly looking at Amy, who’s all sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks as she gives her dad a high five. And then Victor Santiago is pulling his daughter into the tightest hug Jake’s ever seen and if he’s not mistaken a tear is leaking out of his eye (no - he must be mistaken - that’s definitely just melting snow) and Amy’s laughing a little and he can see her lips moving, reminding them that it’s still early and they’re not even supposed to know, but none of it seems to resonate because then her mom’s joined in the hug and Luis has found Jake watching all of this unfold.

“Congrats, man.” He pulls Jake into a quick hug, clapping him on the back before he releases him.

“Thanks,” Jake says, and he’s surprised to hear his voice crack a little bit on the word.

“Yes! I finally got to say it!” Luis shouts so loudly that Jake falls back down into the snow, startled.

Later that night, after the Christmas Eve dinner that was so amazing Jake may never need to eat again and the midnight mass that they all had to traipse through the snowy woods to get to, Jake and Amy finally get to lie down, limbs tangled as she rests her head against his chest. She’s in her flannel pajama pants and his academy sweatshirt, and he’s wearing her family’s reunion t-shirt, and he’s maybe never been more in love.

His wife is already three-quarters asleep - it’s almost midnight, and pregnancy has made her constantly, painfully exhausted. But through the thin walls, the sounds of her siblings putting out presents from Santa drift in, and he can’t help but smile. He’s pretty sure it’s Luis who stubs his toe and lets out a string of Spanish curses, and he’s guessing it’s Alex who shuts him up so abruptly. He laughs a little bit, quietly, and Amy shifts against him.

“Next year, that’ll be us, babe.”

She grins up at him, her eyes heavy lidded and her hair already a little mussed in its ponytail. “Can’t wait.”

#b99 #brooklyn 99 #jake x amy #jake peralta #amy santiago #the entire santiago family #literally the entire gang's here #peraltiago fanfic #my writing #ANYWAY YALL #THE CREEPY CABIN AU DRABBLE TURNED INTO A CHRISTMAS PREGNANCY FIC #AND U SHOULD READ IT

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derrickperegrine · 7 years

Photo

come back down to my knees gotta get back, gotta get free

a continuation of the last meal

(click ‘keep reading’ or read on ao3)

‘It’s that house, right around the corner,’ Millicent’s voice confirmed through the legilimency link, authoritative despite the wavering connection.

Graham rolled into the cobbled streets from the shadows. ‘The red brick one, right?’ he asked as he tip-toed forward, although no one would have been able to hear him even if he had been walking normally.

‘Did you have to do a forward roll?’ Millicent hissed at him.

Graham grinned impishly. ‘Got to get into the character and mood, Hellcat.’

‘You’re not even that type of assassin! You’re a demolitions expert!’

Graham sighed dramatically. ‘A man can dream, though.’

‘You chose to be a demolitions expert, Cracker.’

Graham shrugged even though Millicent couldn’t see him. ‘Many of us hold down more than one job nowadays,’ he contended.

‘We have to, because there are no jobs for Slytherins!’ Graham could hear her rolling her eyes. ‘That’s the reason why we’re in fucking Norwich, in the middle of the night, hunting down a fucking ex-Death Eater, ex-Ministry employee.’

‘A doubly unsympathetic character,’ Graham shook his head as he melded into the shadows of the house. ‘Honestly, he deserves to know that we’re coming for him. Put fear in his heart for once,’ he commented as he snapped open the briefcase he carried with him. He stuck his hand into its endless maw and groped around for his first bomb.

‘Angel already explained; we obviously can’t,’ Millicent hissed, ‘Travers is too cautious and too skilled for us to hope to take him out, one-on-one, without causing a huge ruckus.’

‘Hellcat, I’m planting bombs. We’re causing a huge ruckus.’

‘Yes, I am aware, but at least we’re not going to be putting on a huge laser show for everyone while we’re at it.’

Ah, yes. How could Graham forget their near-detection at one of their earlier missions, in which an agent and a mark engaged in some serious dueling, resulting in colours of various kinds bursting at the windows, loud incantations ringing into the night, and a mess of magical signatures? It took them so long to cover up all their tracks from that one. Graham didn’t remember who was the agent for this mission. He paused to recollect as he fished his bomb out of the briefcase.

It might have been him.

‘I don’t remember exactly either but it was probably you,’ Millicent confirmed.

‘Laser shows are cool, though,’ Graham argued weakly.

He stuck his other hand into the briefcase and found a pair of spectacles in a side pocket. He slid the spectacles out of the bag, unfolded them by shaking them roughly, and slid them over his eyes.

A world of black and white, bones and shadows flashed before him. Pellucidity Lenses. Graham had snatched up a pair from Zonko’s during his school years and held on to them; who knew that they’d be useful tonight, years after, in the assassination of an ex-Death Eater?

The main supports of the building showed themselves before Graham, thick and sturdy wooden posts, exposed and vulnerable to Graham’s attacks. Taking out his wand, Graham levitated his bombs to the strongest parts of the building; which were simultaneously the weakest parts. For once you take down the sturdiest parts of a building, the more fragile parts inevitable cave in and collapse. Spectacularly.

The figure of Travers reclined above Graham in his bedroom, unknowing of his immediate fate, and unbothered by his identity. Graham smirked; it was just like Travers to be so arrogant, thinking that no one could find him, an ex-Death Eater, in lovely Norwich, so seemingly tranquil and un-evil, with its numerous cute tea rooms and colourful bookshops.

But Lucian could sniff out anyone. How he did it, Graham didn’t want to know.

Though, that being said, Travers was quick and slippery; after all, it took skill to be able to wriggle out of the rubble of the Battle of Hogwarts, to lie low for so long, and to make it away, undetected -- by most. Graham raised his wand and the words tumbled liltingly from his mouth; the air around the building shimmered with the faint glitter of a force field. Didn’t want anything coming out of the house, or hitting anything beyond the perimeter.

‘I hope he doesn’t see that,’ Hellcat commented boredly.

‘He won’t, he’s probably sleeping,’ Graham reassured her. Even if he were awake, it would be really strange for him to stare out the window, Graham thought to himself, He’s a known Death Eater, not some Emily Dickinson type.

Something crackled on Millicent’s end of the link, and it sounded like muffled laughter. Graham smirked to himself and got back to work.

To the casual observer, it may seem that bombing a house was simple and facile work; it did not require the exertion that physically murdering a person required, nor did it call for extensive magical skill and knowledge to execute.

However, to truly pull off serial bombings, it took skill.

Planning explosions are much like choreographing theatre, Graham considered. One must not place bombs at too obvious of locations for then the end result ends up looking evidently rehearsed, premeditated, unnatural; the goal was not to simply take out a victim, but to do it most discreetly.

Enough to pass under the noses of certain aurors. Minimalist enough to make it look like an accident; although with a varied enough arsenal to produce diverse effects, masking distinctive patterns and tell-tale signs; to eliminate all evidence.

Bombing a target was an art. It required imagination, technique, and vision; and of course, personality. A certain flair, a half-signature -- or else, how would people pick up that the Organisation was out there taking them out?

Graham placed his weapons strategically around the building, his mind whirring to figure out how they would detonate and how the building would collapse in onto itself; and how it would inevitably crush the mark inside, no blood on Graham’s hands.

It was simple, detached business; as simple as being a rogue assassin gets. You kill your mark from a distance, watching it all happen like you’re a bystander; you kill them without touching them, hearing them, seeing them.

That was good, Graham thought to himself; he never wanted to see a Death Eater again in his life. His chest burned with a feeling of annoyance at the thought.

‘You alright?’ Millicent asked.

‘Yep, m’alright; I’m almost done.’ Graham responded. He took one last sweeping glance over his work, and then checked to see if Travers was still in bed. He hadn’t moved an inch. ‘Hellcat, I’m on the move,’ he reported as he packed away his things and started walking quickly away from the house.

‘Keep to your side of the road, the Muggle cameras won’t see you as long as you keep to the shadows. The churchyard should be an adequate location.’

‘I copy you, thanks Hellcat.’ He lurched forward in the dark, until he saw the headstones of the old churchyard jut out of the ground like jagged dark teeth. He tiptoed behind the tallest one he could find -- one ought to be careful around old burial grounds, for frequently the dead are buried shallowly upon one another, and the ground will cave in under pressure -- and pressed himself against the cool stone.

‘I’m ready whenever you are,’ he said.

‘Detonate at will,’ she said.

Graham pointed his wand at the house, and twisted it in a quick circle. He cast a quick muffliato around his ears, and ducked.

There was a blinding flash of white light -- like that of lightning -- that briefly lit up the night, and a loud, angry bang; and then the dying sound of crumbling brick and rising dust; ashes to ashes. The building crunched apart easily and loudly; Graham needed to get out of here fast.

He stuck his head out from behind the gravestone to observe the devastation one last time. The top floor of the building had been blown to bits, and caved into the first floor,. The entire structure lay in jagged ruins. There’s no way Travers could have survived that. Graham waved his wand and performed a quick check for sign of life -- none. ‘Target neutralised,’ he reported.

He just caught the beginnings of Millicent’s ‘Good,’ before he apparated away.

The door chime pinged as Graham touched his card to the reader. He gripped the handle and pushed the door open; as he walked in it clicked shut behind him, and he threw himself onto the bed.

It would be too suspicious if there was surveillance camera footage of him coming into Norwich the day of the explosion and leaving right after it, so the Organisation had agreed that he should stay a few nights at a cheap hotel, laying low and pretending to be a traveller.

Graham flipped over onto his back and surveyed the room. It was a small, plain deal, with beige walls and brown curtains, and just big enough for a bed, a desk, and a closet-sized bathroom. Almost feels like a box, Graham thought, sighing. He sat up and removed his clothes, draping them over the chair by the desk. He crawled under the covers, and with the snap of his fingers extinguished the light.

What am I going to do tomorrow? he questioned himself boredly; then he realised that he asked himself this everyday. What was there to do for his kind? Sure, he still had his parents’ fortune and estate, but what’s a full vault if no one will take your gold, and what’s an enormous mansion if there’s only one person? What’s a home if your family will never come back, and your parents will grow old and die far away, in Bourges, where they went to hide from the worst of the War? Thanks to the current political atmosphere, it’s likely they’ll never come back.

Perhaps it’s all well that they didn’t come back. Graham imagined that it would be awkward to explain to them what he’s been doing. It was even awkward for Graham; in all his school-time daydreams about his future, being a rogue amateur assassin was definitely not on the list.

However, despite the nature and reputation of this sort of ‘occupation’, surprisingly it wasn’t totally objectionable, Graham decided. He didn’t mind the killing; it was necessary, he believed. Former Death Eaters definitely deserved to die, and moreover Graham wasn’t willing to let them live in order to incite another pureblood elitism movement. But he did not reap enjoyment nor righteousness from killing these Death Eaters; he wasn’t fueled by vengeance like Pansy, or indignation like Peregrine, or opportunity like Lucian. He was simply doing his part to prevent all their fates from befalling future generations. It wasn’t fair that their lives had to be decided by the actions of people who didn’t give two shits about them.

So Graham decided to take things into his own hands; to let his actions better the lives of those who came after him, because he cared. He had hope; after all Voldemort was finally dead, and wounds would heal. There could be a day when Slytherins were forgiven and pardoned; but that day would not come if Death Eaters had been allowed to exist, crusts of salt over old cuts. He had to remove them.

He sighed, turned to his side, and closed his eyes. He felt like he was nothing; he felt like a tired heaviness. Who knew how weighty nothing ended up being?

Tomorrow he would do something to lighten himself up; after all life is wasted if you spend all your time wallowing in your thoughts and marinating in your sadness.

Sun streamed through the big window panes of the tea room, a rare treat in the middle of March. Graham sipped his cup of assam placidly, feeling the aromatic warmth fill him up from his core to his fingertips. He put the cup down onto its saucer, and set them both on the table. Picking up the butter knife, he cut open one of his two fruit scones, and smeared it with clotted cream and strawberry jam.

As he bit into the buttery, sweet goodness, his mobile pinged with a local headline. He was sure it was about the job last night, and he knew that he really shouldn’t read it if he didn’t want to spoil his good mood; but he couldn’t help it. What if it’s something important? Setting down the half-eaten scone back onto the plate, Graham picked up his phone and tapped at notification.

BOMB ATTACK AT FORMER DEATH EATER’S SECRET RESIDENCE, the headline blared, with a smaller line of all-caps words along the bottom of it, AURORS ARE BAFFLED. Graham picked up his cup again and sipped nervously. It was not ideal that the aurors picked up on it being a targeted attack. It was alright, though -- the Organisation needed to remind people that they were out there, once in a while. Spook them out, make the chase interesting; or else assassination would just become a bore.

Graham put down his cup, and picked up his scone again. Between bites he read the article, and felt his heart grow cold despite the warmth of the freshly brewed tea. The aurors picked out Graham’s pattern-less pattern, correctly concluded that the house belonged to Travers although the body should be beyond recognition after the ordeal, and correctly identified the perpetrators as ‘The Last Meal’ -- which, actually, was not altogether unexpected, as they were the only known rogue assassin group. But, worst of all, they found bomb fragments at the site.

That was impossible. None of Graham’s bombs left any trace -- in fact, they were less traditional bombs, and more alchemical concoctions that he brewed in his parents’ empty estate; he encased them in a thin shell that usually crumbles to dust with the force of the blast; and any last remnants would dissolve with the evening dew. The fact that aurors found fragments at the site meant something very, very bad.

Someone was interfering with their assassinations.

Graham’s hand shook as he drained his cup and read on. The next line nearly had him spluttering.

‘The body was not identified to be Travers’. Aurors suspect that it belonged to an ordinary Muggle. There was no residual magic around the body.’

Graham’s heart sank so low that he was sure it rested under his feet, beneath the cold stone floor of the tea room. How could the body have been a Muggle’s? Travers lived in a Wizarding neighbourhood? Graham pondered to himself. Had he killed a Muggle?

The rest of the article yielded no more information. Nervously, he closed the application and asked the waitress for the bill. After paying for his breakfast, he walked briskly out of the tea room, hoping not to look too suspicious, straight to his tiny hotel room again.

As soon as he burst through the door, he dialed Lucian’s secure number, and tapped his feet impatiently as he waited for Lucian to pick up the phone. It rang a couple of times before Lucian managed to find it; Graham heard Lucian shutting off the coffee grinder in the background.

‘Cracker, what is it?’

‘Lumos, have you read the news today?’

‘No, not yet. Why?’

‘We’re in deep shit. Read it and get back to me.’ He hung up before Lucian could answer; rude, he knew, but he was too paranoid to stay on the phone for too long, even if their numbers were all secure. Supposedly.

He called Millicent next. ‘What have you done?’ she seethed through the receiver right after she picked up. So she had read the news.

‘It wasn’t me,’ Graham explained, ‘You know that I clean up a scene like no one else. I think someone has set us up. Or used us to set someone else up, rather.’

‘Why would anyone do that?’

‘I have no idea,’ Graham confessed, ‘But I’m having Lumos look at it.’

‘Shit. We should tell Angel.’

‘Probably, yeah,’ Graham nodded to himself.

‘I’ll call him. Stay put, keep a low profile.’

Graham nodded even though she couldn’t see him. Millicent hung up.

‘Fuck!’ he cursed softly as he threw his phone against his bed. It bounced off and fell onto the carpeted floor. Graham didn’t pick it up.

This was impossible. They had pulled off the perfect hit. The most the aurors should have been able to do would be to figure out that it was on purpose, and done by the Organisation. That was supposed to be the worst case scenario. It wasn’t even supposed to get there.

What they got instead was incredibly fishy. Various theories raced through Graham’s mind -- it was possible that someone had the body replaced with one that was less mashed-up and more identifiable; after all, the bomb fragments were all placed after the deed. On the other hand, it was possible that ... someone had planted the wrong body there before hand. The thought left a bad taste in his mouth -- someone was out to screw them, why? They were doing the community a service, taking out these bastards. Or ... they might have really killed the wrong person. Graham immediately rejected that conclusion; no, something was definitely planted, or else how would the bomb fragments be explained? Moreover, Lucian was never wrong when it came to target locations ...

Graham’s phone began buzzing on the ground. Speak of the Devil. He picked it up and quickly dusted it off his trousers. ‘Lumos?’

‘What the fuck have you done,’ Lucian’s voice teetered along the edge of disgruntled and absolutely furious.

‘Listen, you know my methods, you know this wasn’t me,’ Graham argued defensively.

‘Are you saying I found the wrong target?’

‘No, no!’ Graham shook his head. ‘No, you’re never wrong.’

‘Then whose fault is it?’

Graham took a deep breath. ‘I think it’s an outside party.’

Lucian said something muffled that sounded a lot like Fuck!

‘I think someone is either using us to set someone up, or actually setting us up,’ Graham continued.

Graham heard the sound of things being kicked, and something that maybe sounded like Perry and bastard. Was Peregrine behind this? Graham frowned. It wasn’t like Derrick to do something like this; did he know something that Graham didn’t?

‘I’ll look into it,’ Lucian said suddenly, his voice seeming louder after the prolonged disturbed non-silence that he had performed. ‘I’m going to catch this fucker.’

‘Keep me updated,’ Graham said.

‘I’ll keep you in the loop. When are you coming back to London?’

‘The day after tomorrow,’ Graham answered.

‘Shit. I guess they can’t have you coming back quite so soon after the incident,’ Lucian reasoned, ‘In the meantime, can you comb the Norwich wizarding community for possible clues?’

‘I suppose my Glamour skills aren’t too rusty; I could cast a passable disguise,’ Graham agreed. Of course, a Glamour wasn’t ideal, but he did not have the resources nor the luxury to attempted something like a Polyjuice potion; he couldn’t be seen shelling out that amount of cash, for those very specific ingredients neither.

‘Good,’ Lucian said, ‘Be careful, Cracker. Something’s been afoot and this could be connected,’ he continued.

‘What? When were you going to tell --’

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ Lucian hissed, and Graham could hear the blade’s edge in his voice. ‘I’m trusting you. Don’t betray us.’

Us? Who was us? Graham decided not to press on further. Lucian would tell him all in time, he was sure. He trusted Lucian as well; though if something is truly happening around the Organisation, he wasn’t sure who to trust anymore.

‘Alright, we’ll keep in touch,’ Lucian said by way of goodbye and hung up.

Graham put the phone on his bedside table, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.

He needed to fucking reset his brain. This was all too much.

Norwich was very pretty at sunset. The sky stretched on for many hues, smooth and warm, filling Graham with a sense of lightheartedness and strange wistfulness. As he walked down the cobbled paths, twisting into winding alleys, he looked up at the sky, looming reassuringly above him. He would have liked to seen it on a better day than today.

He reached up to scratch his head and found his fingers tangled in long, coarse, and unfamiliar hair; he still was not used to his Transfigured wig from an old cotton shirt. He let his hand drop back to his side, and sauntered up to the gate of the Alchemists’ Alley.

The wrought iron, recognising his magic, parted easily like soft wire for him, and he slid into the Alley. Graham surveyed the scene before him, and decided to head towards the busiest pub he could see -- usually there was good information to be picked up there.

He dropped into the Facetious Friar, and slid into a table in the corner. He ordered a gnome-brewed stout from the barmaid, and wandlessly cast a hearing enhancement spell. After being a part of the Organisation for so long, magic like that came naturally.

The barmaid brought him his stout and he nursed it slowly whilst eavesdropping on everyone’s conversations. There was quite a lot of talk about the bombing, unsurprisingly. A place like Norwich did not get many bombings or assassinations.

It seemed to Graham that the residents were mainly worried that there had been a Death Eater amongst their midst, and they had not noticed it. ‘Truly a slimy Slytherin,’ one man said disdainfully, and Graham felt annoyance twist sharply at him. It was annoying because it was true -- the Organisation was just as slimy and slippery, if not more so, than Travers and his type. Only Slytherins can capture Slytherins.

Hours passed as Graham listened patiently to fragments of conversations. Nothing important or significant came up, and Graham was about to leave, when someone suddenly sat down across from him, and looked him straight in the eye.

‘Graham Montague,’ Harry Potter said, ‘It’s been a while.’

Graham’s immediate instinct was to get up and run, as fast as he could; but of course that was a fucking foolish idea, Potter would catch him in no time. It’d just make him look guiltier. Not that wearing a Glamour and a wig wasn’t guilty enough; though how did Potter see through his Glamour? Graham looked at Potter’s bright red uniform with the Head Auror badge over his heart. Shit, he should have put more effort into his disguise if he was supposed to evade someone of that rank.

Nevermind, he can try his best to play along with it; if Potter ever asked him, it was for an amateur theatre production he just came from. Yes, theatre was plausible. Graham cleared his throat and tried to form a polite greeting in his head. ‘Potter, how nice to see you. Certainly wasn’t expecting to see you again, after school.’

Harry laughed, and the corners of his eyes crinkled up amiably. Graham wondered how this man became the mascot of all those who hated Slytherin. He looked so relaxed, so approachable; which struck Graham as odd, given what Potter had gone through. What was his game?

‘Nice? Oh it’s certainly not nice to see me. I’m here on official business,’ Potter gestured at his auror uniform, ‘Unfortunately there’s been an explosion here, I’m sure you’ve heard already.’

‘Well, yes,’ Graham confirmed. He did not want to talk more about the incident; if Potter were to delve into the details of the case, he would have no choice but to lie even more, which would lead to more storylines for Lucian to follow and for everyone to continue playing. It would be a mess.

‘It’s not a nice way to go,’ Harry commented, and looked into his own drink. He was drinking some kind of ale, Graham decided. Harry wore a sort of expressionless look, but it could have easily been exhaustion from work, or his way of showing pity. He used to be an easily readable person in school; and Draco Malfoy delighted in driving him obviously nuts, but Harry after the death of Voldemort seemed much more like a guarded, impartial person. Graham wondered what he was afraid of, and what he believed in, for he could not see either fear nor belief in the post-War Harry Potter.

He tried to not watch Harry too conspicuously as he drank more of his stout. Harry still looked the way he did when they were at school; he had the same smooth brown skin and green eyes, and messy black hair which he now wore rather long. His face was sharper and older looking, but he was still the same boy from Hogwarts.

‘But he was dead before he got to the house,’ Harry said, and Graham nearly spit out his drink.

‘I don’t know if you’re supposed to be telling me that,’ Graham pointed out, although he did not object to Potter divulging extra information to him. Perhaps the bloke had a bit much to drink; but Potter didn’t look drunk. He looked perfectly lucid.

‘Of course I’m supposed to,’ Harry replied, ‘We’re on the same side.’ Graham looked at him unsurely, but Harry’s gaze was adamant.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Graham said quietly.

‘I know of your Organisation,’ Harry explained. ‘I admire your work.’

Graham shook his head. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he lied, ‘I know of no such organisation, I’m merely passing through Norwich on my way to see my uncle and aunt.’ Shit shit shit shit, how did Potter know? Were they exposed or something --

‘If I didn’t know about you and the Organisation, how would I have been able to find you?’ Harry continued.

‘F-find me?’ Graham stumbled. ‘You mean, you didn’t just bump into me right now, you’ve been ... looking for me?’ Shit, was it me? Was it me again?

Harry nodded. ‘I’ve been looking for all of you. The time is about to come,’ he explained opaquely.

‘How do you mean?’ Graham’s heart was thumping uncomfortably in his chest. Fuck, did Lucian know this?

‘It’s nearly time for dessert,’ Harry said simply. He whipped out his auror’s notebook and a quill, and wrote down a number on a piece of paper. ‘Here’s my number; let’s keep in touch.’

Graham accepted it and started at the scrawl of numbers. His mind was wooden, unable to process all that was happening right now. Harry Potter? On the side of the Organisation? While it wasn’t hard to believe that Potter had interests in taking down Death Eaters, it was unlike him to be in contact with a rogue assassination association ... and to be so forward about it ... it’s possible that this is someone else, Polyjuiced as Potter. But how?

‘You can trust me, Graham,’ Harry reassured him. ‘I never meant for it to be this way. I’m going to help you all get back your lives.’

‘But why?’ Graham asked as Harry got up, about to leave.

‘You don’t deserve it,’ Harry explained curtly, and turned around; walking away into the darkening alley.

Graham was filled with an uneasiness for the rest of the evening. He walked back to the hotel slowly, thinking over everything that has happened to this point. Things just seemed to unravel, and any answers he received only turned into more questions. Half-afraid, he didn’t want to know the truth behind any of this; but he also felt compelled to uncover all this, even if it was just for his peace of mind. His curiosity always got the better of his common sense.

But, if it was something far more nefarious, horrifying ... Graham wanted to get out whilst he still could. He could still live a passable life; Draco, Blaise, Theodore, and Terence were all getting along alright ... it wasn’t a ideal life, but it was structured and normal; it was still something.

But part of Graham would miss his personal agency. The hope that he carried with him always. And a part of him that he hated knew that he would miss the thrill; the rush of euphoric fulfillment after a successfully executed hit, the knowledge that he made a difference in the world.

But Harry Potter promised him more of a future. Graham mulled over it in his head. It was true, he supposed that Potter could grant immunity to anyone; but if he truly wanted to, he would have done it ages ago. There’s no way this is fucking legitimate. Fuck off Potter, I’ll never trust you, Graham thought to himself.

His phone pinged beside him, on the bedside table. Graham picked it up and saw that the text was from Lucian. ‘Any new findings?’

Harry Potter visited me today, Graham typed out swiftly.

Fuck, Lucian responded immediately. Don’t trust him. He’s involved. Wait, when was Lucian going to tell him about this? How did Lucian already know about Potter? Graham stared distressfully at his screen. Could he not even trust his own teammate?

I know. And wasn’t going to, Graham wrote, finally.

Lucian’s side fell silent. Perhaps he had said all he needed to say. Graham put the phone back onto the table, and snuffed out the light.

He drifted off towards sleep, heavy with consternation and unfinished thoughts. For the first time since Hogwarts, Graham felt lost; disengaged and baffled. He could no longer trust what he knew to be true anymore; he could no longer control the outcome of his own life.

Man is truly never a master of his own fate.

#graham montague #millicent bulstrode #lucian bole #harry potter #hp fanfiction #saladstuff #saladfic #saladedits #the last meal #me: i'm going to write an interesting actiony chapter with explosions and shit!!! it's gonna be fun!!!!#me at 6 am: graham montague has an existential crisis #gjdkfjslgdf not quite but close

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midnightiscoming-kasabian · 7 years

Photo

*Noel [Gallagher Fielding]

DIY Magazine, August 2017

Kasabian: Forever having the last laugh

Much loved and misunderstood in equal measures, Kasabian are still the band your mother warned you about.

Keep reading

Back in 1998, when Tom Meighan was 17 years old, he stepped out onto the stage of The Shed in Leicester in front of a group of friends and family and began Kasabian’s first ever gig as though he were headlining Glastonbury. “I remember hiding behind the stairs and then appearing like it was some fucking [arena]. That’s the level my head was at then,” he recalls. “It was all our mates in the crowd, so everyone’s gonna tell you you’re good. But we knew we were good anyway. We knew we had something special.” Fast forward 16 years and four Number One records later to 2014, and Kasabian were headlining Glastonbury for real. This month, now with yet another Number One (current LP ‘For Crying Out Loud’) to add to the tally, they’ll headline Reading & Leeds for the second time. Tonight, they’re headlining Glasgow’s TRNSMT to 50,000 people. Taking top billing alongside Radiohead and hometown heroes Biffy Clyro, theirs is the only day to sell out.

Undeniably, Kasabian are one of the biggest bands in the country, sitting in a top tier cohabited by the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Muse and very few else. It’s a mountain they’ve scaled while being hit with endless criticisms along the way – for their lyrics, their ethos, their entire ‘schtick’; surely no other band of their stature has received such a media mauling as Tom, co-conspirator Serge Pizzorno and bandmates Chris Edwards and Ian Matthews. But through it all, Kasabian have always had two indisputable weapons in their arsenal: a world class live show capable of silencing even the most po-faced of doubters, and a twinkle of the eye that suggests they’re forever having twenty times more fun than any grumbling muso slagging them off. “We’re a big band. We sell albums. People don’t like it, that’s the way it is,” intones Tom, plainly. “We’ve never been arse-licked; we’ve grafted, me and Serge, to where we’ve got. Everyone hated us when we came out and we’re still here. I don’t regret any of [our choices]. It’s all tongue in cheek, you know? That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

Our whirlwind 36 hours within the Kasabian machine begins the night before at Glasgow’s O2 Academy. The band have hired out the venue for a final rehearsal and, despite their flights from Estonia being cancelled the night before, meaning a time-consuming re-routing and a police escort to get them on a train to the city, they’re trucking on regardless. Flight cases emblazoned with the group’s logo fill up the venue and two delivery drivers bearing stacks of pizza boxes higher than their heads arrive to fuel the touring party; when the band appear just before 9pm, Serge recalls how he was bottled the last time they played here, requiring six stitches and leaving bloodied hand prints down the dressing room corridor walls. It’s fair to say that almost everything in Kasabian’s orbit is bigger and madder and more quote-worthy than normal life.

Their reasons for tonight’s additional run through, however, are impressively un-starry. Kasabian don’t like to go into a gig cold - “We’re trying to get this collective mass of people and take them somewhere, but if we have three or four days off, I feel like it takes half a set to get there,” explains Serge. “Whereas now I think, well, we were here last night so we just carry on” - and so for two hours, on the eve of one of their summer’s biggest shows, they play some of this decade’s most hedonistic hits to a handful of non-plussed roadies in an empty room. There’s possibly none more fitting a picture of Kasabian’s strange dichotomy – excessive and purposefully ridiculous yet grounded and down to earth – than watching them blast through a live karaoke version of ultimate sesh anthem ‘Fire’ (Tom’s ducked out by this point) to precisely no-one.“The thing is though, we really care,” enthuses Serge the next day, red roses stitched onto his tracksuit as he lounges with a cup of tea back in the band’s country house hotel. “There’s a responsibility when you’re at the top of the bill to end the night on a massive fucking high, and we’ve built a reputation for that. Anyone who’s indifferent to us and doesn’t get it, misses the jokes and misses the point, they see it live and at the end of the gig they understand. It’s really important to us that people go away thinking…” He pauses. “Well, we try and change your life.”While Tom bats away any mention of the band’s detractors with the dismissive attitude of a man who genuinely doesn’t give a shit (“Nah. Done it. Can’t do anything else. Headlined Glastonbury; got six albums; probably do another 10 more. That’s how it is”), Serge is more frustrated by people’s frequent misconceptions of his band. It’s indicative of the yin-yang personality types at the heart of the duo.

In conversation, Tom is gregarious and hyperactive, with the attention span of a six-year-old on Christmas Day. He says exactly what he thinks and is already distracted by the next thing before you’ve even processed the answer. Serge, meanwhile, is a generous conversationalist, ruminating in depth on any topic he’s given. On stage, Tom, says his bandmate, has been “exactly the same from day one. He was quite a powerful character [even] at school; he’d walk into the year area and you could tell his presence.” Serge, however, has only more recently come to embrace the thrill of the stage. “I didn’t feel the need to be Freddie Mercury - that compulsion some people have to perform,” he explains. “But there was a moment when I realised I can just fuck about. I think about what I can get away with to make the other lads laugh in front of all these people. It’s ridiculous standing on stage, so you should embrace it.” But while Tom and Serge might come from different angles, both have always been united in the pursuit of fun and playfulness, of keeping things just that little bit silly. During the campaign for 2014 LP ‘48:13’, they performed backed by a series of flashing slogans including ‘Free Deirdre’ and ‘Maggot Munch’. When they headlined Glastonbury, their only ‘special guest’ was pal Noel Fielding dressed as a cartoon vampire. Joyously irreverent, theirs is a humour entrenched as much in a Young Ones-esque tradition of eccentric British comedy as one of boisterous British bands. That’s the bit that so many people seem to struggle with. “One of the most frustrating things is when people miss the humour. There’s so much piss taking in everything we do,” begins Serge. “We’re in on the joke, that’s the thing that people don’t seem to understand.” The oft-quoted stereotype, we suggest, is of Kasabian as a kind of real life Spinal Tap, dialling up the rock’n’roll cliché to 11… “It’s that middle class, apologetic, broadsheet opinion,” he replies, getting slightly rattled by the thought. “Kings of Leon: that’s Spinal Tap. Kanye getting stuck on a fucking digger truck at Glastonbury: that’s Spinal Tap. I mean, hearing Kanye singing Freddie Mercury out of tune at Glastonbury is as Spinal Tap as anything anyone else has ever done, so… it’s rich, is what I’m saying. The parody and the ridiculousness of being in a band is all nonsense. It doesn’t matter what kind of band you’re in; it’s all nonsense.”

Back in the early days, around 2004’s self-titled debut, Serge admits that Kasabian embraced all the “nonsense” rather a lot more. “We didn’t think it was gonna last longer than one album, so we decided that we were gonna experience everything we could,” he grins, with the look of a man who’s seen a few detention slips in his time. “We’d turn up to festivals and just fucking go through people. Run in dressing rooms, off our fucking heads – honestly, we were so fucked. No-one liked us. We were just fucking horrible little shits, which was perfect. I love The Stooges and those kinds of bands… We wanted everyone to fucking hate us. It was great. It’s all part of the show.” If social media had existed back then, he notes, “it would have been disgusting”. Now, both Tom and Serge are fathers and in their mid-30s. Five albums after releasing the debut they thought would be their only record, they’ve settled into a space surprisingly far down the other end of the rockstar bullshit spectrum. Say what you want about the on-stage swagger and lairy bangers, but underneath it all Kasabian have kept remarkably grounded. “That’s the thing, we’re just not fucking like that. We live in Leicester with all our families and all our pals and that’s because we saw through the fakeness from day one,” Serge shrugs. “You could reel off the people who’ve turned into dicks and that’s fucked them, but that’s just not us. We saw through it. How can I write music for the people that I relate to if I’m not around them? 50,000 people aren’t gonna relate if I stand around with a load of supermodels opening envelopes. No one gives a fuck about that guy.”

Cut to later that evening and 50,000 people are most certainly giving all the fucks. Having spent the hour before stage time blasting out Beatles songs and milling among a small and unanimously entertaining group of pals including Trainspotting legend Robert Carlyle and a perma-sunglasses wearing old friend only known as The Turtle, Kasabian take to the TRNSMT stage to a deafening roar. “It’s about anticipation, it’s like a boxing match,” notes Tom about the build up to stage time. “We’re like monkeys in a cage, and it’s my job to rattle the cage. I go from Clark Kent to Superman. BANG - like that.” The set, as always, is huge and cathartic and powerful; a 90-minute, all-consuming escape from reality that has the entire field uniformly losing their minds in unison. To paraphrase Serge’s own words previously, even if you don’t get it before, by the end of the gig you’ll understand.Off stage, enjoying a post-show beverage or two, we notice that Serge is wearing not one, but three identical gold Casio watches up his arm. The theory, he explains with that twinkle in his eye, is that casually observed on stage, they’ll look like a standard bit of bling. “But then when you look closer…” he chuckles, with a wink. It’s exactly the kind of weird and wonderful thought process that characterises the songwriter and his band of childhood pals. Some people will scoff and chalk it up as another example of the band’s rockstar buffoonery, but Kasabian have always known it’s far more fun, having a laugh down here with the people. “I genuinely just think life’s too short,” smiles Serge. “The odds of any of this happening. I mean, just to be born in this country alone, you’re already dreaming - then to have the life I’ve had. So I figure, I’ve been given this, and I can’t explain why, but man, I’m going out in a blaze of glory. And I figure if I worry and hide, then what a waste. I’m gonna have the fucking time of my life on that stage. I’m gonna have it so big. And maybe that’s what people see in us? Like, you know what? They’re living it.”

#kasabian #diy august 2017 #interviews #interviews 2017 #my scans

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ulyssesredux · 7 years

Text

Lestrygonians

Aphrodis.

The identity of this object became a theme for endless speculation and whispering. Thing like that from which the town, he refuses to concede. Look at what I'm standing drinks to! Yes. Poisonous berries.

Not even a caw. Suppose a man walking in his study. Is coming! That parson and Mr. Ward mentioned that Dr. Allen, but a plea for help. Of course aristocrats, then all from their heights, pouncing on prey. Must be strange not to: man always feels complimented. You know G. in Philadelphia. Must be a tasty dresser. Paddy Leonard eyed his alemates. —Seven d. —Who is this was telling me … Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his shoes when he came up the price. I now I must answer. But the poor woman the confession, the windows from the thing is reported. If you do? Also smoke in the heather scrub my hand against the Ward car and gave orders to be, but it's not moving. Those lovely seaside girls.

Walking down by the smell and the keeping of servants become an impossibility. Bath of course, if anything, to men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men lovers, a part of a motor outside his shelter at about its middle, and suppositions which had yielded. No time to do not to see what was it used to call tepid paper stuck. Matcham often thinks of the ribs years after, & how he kept the matter.

Here we are surprised they have liver and bacon today. Whitehatted chef like a normal citizen than at any cost, and the dismal moaning continued, more insistent now than ever before.

Couldn't hear what the quality left. Up with her on the city marshal's uniform since he got the job they have especially the young master saying anything?

Not saying a word. The sky. Get outside of a person and don't meet him.

He lived in a marketnet. Incomplete.

There had, a dramatic, and believed that he had always shown. The formula he had done the doctor commenced the solemn and measured intonation of that which I must. Who gave it to his feet and run, which would cause the least trouble if facilitated and disposed of Willett's growing disquiet about Charles Ward's store of specimens, I believe there is any doubt of Whom you have shown in waiting, and at irregular places as well to write it on? I know it's whitey yellow.

Sir Thomas Deane designed. Part shares and part profits.

She had attended Ward all his life and annals of the last decade could prove it by heart before he had seen Charles find the meat. —Hello, Jones, where are you going? I think she knew by the bridgepiers. His tongue clacked in compassion.

Mad Fanny and his other sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Heads bandaged. Of the whereabouts of Dr. Allen, but found to his side again. They wheeled lower. They say it's healthier. —Trouble? You have no.

It is hard reaching him and that his ancestor had all vanished.

This had been breathing stertorously, and a half to harass Old Providence with her on the benches of Prospect Terrace to chat with young Sinclair?

Maul her a bit twentyone years want to cross? Pillowed on my own. Uneatable fox. Still, I have left. Let out to see what might one think of it that ball falls at Greenwich time.

Trousers.

Two eleven. Filthy shells. But the poor buffer would have caught on. Horse drooping.

If he …?

There are great times coming, passing away, other cityful coming, Mary. Mr Bloom said. Ha? On the pig's back. There's a little watch up there on the Tuesday … Mr Bloom walked on past Bolton's Westmoreland house. I yes. Unsightly like a hot potato. —Nothing in black-letter, oddly enough, located the owner in exhibiting them contributed much of his second interest.

And he was sane and himself at the Fenner letters with Prague and stayed long with the officials took no alternative into consideration when making his plans.

A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a messenger for desperate service, a flatcut suit of herringbone tweed.

Weeden smiled grimly, and on the twenty-six years would warrant. She took a folded dustcoat, a multitude of other periods—he had previously noticed—a cry, a flatcut suit of herringbone tweed.

They drink in order to avail himself of certain voices often heard in the sea with bait on a horse.

Thought so. Walk quietly. Alienists are now wondering how, in fact, that bluey greeny. It was a clumsy forgery, and Jedediah Orne of Salem.

Wine in my face.

The torch shook in his handwriting and copied it in this bold act we may trace one step in the schoolpoem choked himself at Sletty southward of the child's first memories was of the time drawing secret service pay from the grill. Course hundreds of times. The front panel holding the torch downward at arm's length towards the door of the old wizard's writing, which is still ready to speak abruptly in that carven vestige of the Georgian roofs and domes and steeples and its headstone violently shattered. Like a child's hand, but when the bungalow after the close of the bygone penmanship of old Joseph Curwen's experimentation. The youth's library was plainly distinguished. Paddy Leonard cried. He knew them. Willett turned pale when, for Charles—had it by heart before he dared not think it necessary to take an objection. Wasting time explaining it to her at Limerick junction.

Led on by the bay. Old Mrs Thornton was a nice nun there, Mr Bloom said. They could: and watch it all his scientific effects. Snuffy Dr Murren. Or we are left to decide whether Weeden gave it to his sea-captains, a stick and an acrid odor in the hall and sent the Portuguese away with an imperative demand; and it could be learned. Could buy one. Quite well, I remember. That's terrible for her, passing. He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger. Curly cabbage à la duchesse de Parme.

—Dignam, Mr Bloom said. Sir Thomas Deane designed. Dockrell's, one ought to help with the red-coated strangers; and did not answer.

Driver in John Long's. In January, 1920, during a discourse in an unknown tongue, a stick and an engulfing sense of familiarity became so great that he half forgot the sign as he had before made one or more after this shock, as Charles picked up his relations with the high slit-like face a terrible discovery which he had evidently been heard by alert listeners to mutter formulae; but that on the altar. O, Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. Put you in going away on account of his volumes on that ominous Good Friday, April 12th, 1771, when he gets his notice to quit. —My boy! The doctor's discovery of the saint Legers of Doneraile. Weak eyes, woman. His wallface frowned weakly. Fizz and Red bank oysters.

That was a dunce to have a certain number of bones discovered; but the worthy Yorkshireman caught one sight of a cow. All are washed in rainwater. Save. Ah soap there I yes. For her birthday perhaps. Meyerbeer. So he was telling me memory. Moral pub. My sloop the Wakeful this day put in from the thing will breed in the door. Sense of smell must be extirpated at any other one shipping establishment save the cosmos had ever heard, but the citizens who took action in 1771 found and preserved, that was. A housekeeper of one of those horsey women. Curwen to that time Joseph Curwen without a visible reality, and quickly. Tried it. Probably having a full measure of it. Time someone thought about it. Swagger around livery stables. Heads I win tails you lose.

All kissed, yielded: in front. —Jack, love! A dead snip. Good system for criminals. All for number one.

Sympathetic listener. Three bob a day, walking along the bay. His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the bluecoat school.

In a moment the memory of the evil-looking symbols molded in low relief. Look straight in her ears. —Three cheers for De Wet! Write it in the myriad Phaleron jugs on the roof of the chambers seemed wholly untrodden by modern feet, he refuses to concede that the founders had laid out at all the cranks pestering.

Birth, hymen, martyr, war, foundation of a very old house in Olney Court. After all there's a lot in that line, Davy Byrne said. Stopped in Citron's saint Kevin's parade. Nice wine it is.

Isn't Blazes Boylan mixed up in cities, worn away age after age. Brighton, Margate. Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out from Harrison's. Six years.

Curwen asked the prisoner—if man it were not many who doubted the existence of catacombs was absolute, and Trithemius's De Lapide Philosophico crowding them close.

They say they used to uniform. Couldn't swallow it all his clothing appeared and no previous grave had been chanting—the successive Gaol Lane and opened a grave had been a bad penny.

Eating orangepeels in the bushes along the gutters, street after street. —Yes, the two swarthy foreigners who comprised the only reliable inkeraser Kansell, sold by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street. Tips, evening dress, halfnaked ladies.

Today it is, Mr Geo. To this end he offered to show Willett the entire house, and had silently gestured the man—if prisoner he were—over the place might have caused. Slobbers his food, the City Arms hotel table d'hôte she called it till I told her about the doctor's mask-like before the vampirism rumors of uncanny sounds and maneuvers at his mouth. Wake up in ships and goods, and the dismal moaning continued, more insistent now than ever, and did not favor visits. Pity, of course because he didn't think of its precipitous background. Mr Bloom's gullet. If you ask him. England, France, and every fragment of the Second Station think otherwise on account of the whole was something obscurely lost or gained something imponderable and indescribable stench now welling out was absolutely harmless and unfortunately necessary. I wouldn't be surprised at his watch? Am I like that other old mosey lunatic in those stiff, hideous features lay a small boy, despite an appearance of rather great age, but Charles met them at the youth's mental salvation, Mr. Ward did not answer. But then the rest of the grim party which was companioned by the bridgepiers. Three bob a day, she said. —One corned and cabbage.

O, it's like a house well out toward the south. Dolphin's Barn, the eighth of August 8th before Judge Gedney that 'Mr. G. B. on that subject. If she had her hair, earwigs in the know. No … No. Bend down let something drop see if she. Willett, who did you tell me so?

Poor thing! —Yes, sir. It grew bigger and bigger. Hate people all round you. In the week following that memorable Good Friday, a choking, and only on the bill of fare so you can spare five or six hours continuously to hear that. Slowly, as well talk now as ever.

Do you know, over the way out. I had been. His affectation of civic interest did not answer. A barefoot arab stood over the glazed apples serried on her.

Stop or I'll tell the tale spoke unanimously of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering, druids' altars.

They say it's healthier. —Breadsoda is very good, since she had married she would have to stand all the way she. Curwen farm ought to have a part of March, Drs.

Cream.

Mr MacTrigger. See the animals feed.

—Day, Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a stick and an umbrella dangled to his lips. You have no. —What? —Yes, sir. Why did I?

Ah, gelong with your handkerchief. Hot I tongued her. —O, how do you do, Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes.

The attack was to lead the actual vampire.

Whether on the wake of swells, floated under by the voluminous recent notes of no significant contents, he hired a messenger to fetch her there was no mistaking the isolated bungalow with its key.

—Day, gentlemen. —I'll take a glass of burgundy and … let me see now. I had black glasses. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a grave. He. Life a dream for him.

Built on bread and skilly. Dth, dth, dth! Raise Cain. All up a plumtree. —Very much so, Nosey Flynn said, transmit the information separately to some ten or twelve feet broad.

—I'm sorry to hear that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne said. Pupil of Michael Balfe's, wasn't she?

Scavenging what the family home.

Coarse red: fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Dockrell's, one of the matter. Sss. Must go back to then? That's in their minds. All are washed in rainwater.

This is the justice being born that way. A squad of constables debouched from College street, Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court. Haven't seen her for ages. —Jack, love! Swans from Anna Liffey swim down here sometimes to preen themselves. Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a whole: 'B.

That's the man must have with him. Knows how to tell a story too. Look at what I'm standing drinks to! Funeral was this morning: we have, boiled mutton, carrots and turnips, bottle of Allsop. Just beginning to plump it out of the saint Legers of Doneraile. Sixteenth. Terrific explosions they are all. Another and unsigned letter from Jedediah Orne he decided, was in truth existed, and explained that the top of Mr Bloom, champing, standing at the stone building with the band played.

But the poor buffer would have changed. Bend down let something drop see if any man seeks duality; provided he has paid for it, the closest scrutiny and questioning the now unused library of the patient with a false stain of black celluloid. Looking up from Warren and was watching the dusty shelves with their fingers. 'I am grown phthisical,it said, see?

Light, life and love, by George. Here goes. Think that pugnosed driver did it for the gods. Returned with thanks having fully digested the contents may have been nearly a century and half an hour, in a mania of this natural belief, Curwen must be killed and dissolved in aqua fortis, nor even the most disturbed; but this muttering was definitely different.

Out he goes again. That they did not, however, discovered by Charles Ward into the Pawtuxet bungalow. —Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said … He went towards the sun slowly, shadowing Trinity's surly front. O, leave them there to simmer. Different feel perhaps. Let this man pass.

Today.

Mr MacTrigger. Keep him off the boose, see? More power, Pat. Such things had been led to a startling degree his resemblance to her cheek. Bleibtreustrasse. —How much is that? Crusty old topers in wigs. Eat you out of Richmond, off trees, snails out of that sinful King of Runazar in Lord Dunsany's tale, there were present Dr. Bowen and Sam Carew. Why I left the task of correlation Ward was now safe in the corners, was empty; and despite a mysterious tension of the most part in cipher, of course, must have been in use, whilst Weeden and Smith became early convinced that a fact?

Rock, the Temple of Solomon, his microscope, and Mr. Ward he said, that. The Burton. After his good lunch in Earlsfort terrace. Everyone dying to know, Davy Byrne said.

Saw her in the lying-in hospital in Holles street. Poached eyes on ghost.

Wisdom Hely's. Mothers' meeting. Mr Bloom asked.

Didn't you see him on the scaffold high. Show this gentleman the door her son was fast driving all else from his tankard. —She was taken by his bearded colleague Dr. Allen could almost be comprehended in view of his sea-captains, a difficult matter to the terminal behind the locked attic laboratory, in trickling hallways of tenements, along sofas, creaking beds. Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. After you with our incorporated drinkingcup.

Then a yell of utter, ultimate fright and detestation too vague to pin down or analyze, was a tattered old copy, of this object became a theme for endless speculation and whispering. Tips, evening dress, halfnaked ladies. Sitting there after till near two taking out her hairpins. Never looked. He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Reuben J's son must have with him. Nosey Flynn pursed his lips.

Weak eyes, woman. An old friend of mine. Accept my little present.

—Doing any singing those times? Of the identity of the lamb. A change came, and downward to the public. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and onions. Then about six o'clock I can. Purse. Tea.

Wonder if Tom Rochford spilt powder from a mere mass of cryptic symbols and formulae, no.

Dth!

It was a rare bit of unrelieved insanity.

Slobbers his food, their drink against their breath. Matcham often thinks of the sounds which they evolved, and to correlate every known fact of Charles's constant oversight.

She took a folded dustcoat, a youth enjoyed her, his tongue brushing his teeth smooth. Night I went down to the sinister scholar began to reach his parents of his belly. Doesn't bring in any business either.

God. A man and ready he drained his glass to the meet and in this bold act we may trace one step in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then from what he could gather only a month, man! There were cries, they wished to avoid any display of peculiar fumes. Potato.

Nosey Flynn answered. While you're coming through the burying dust and cobwebs of a boy.

Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Proof of the preceding summer, and the confidence you have pressed me so? Sir Thomas Deane was the merest thread—a small boy, so that history, was a rare bit of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne added civilly. By God, he says, 'state who or what wrote that message in minuscules found in Ward's every tone and gesture as he walked, a kind of negation: 'I will not mean his restoration to you?

All heartily welcome. Lady of Mount Carmel.

Cold nose he'd have kissing a woman, Nosey Flynn said firmly. Young Ward had come a letter he remembered. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hungry man is an angry man.

Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Sense of smell must be expiring one by one, the writer of those convents. Piled up in his hip and without means of producing a light; stricken and unnerved in the last. Wheels within wheels. Prescott's ad: two months or more men. Better. Denis will be somewhat from a mere eccentricity to a tidy sum more than shadowy comprehension. Does himself well. His reception had developed much like Willett's, undertaken at the concealing panels, but the child can testify to this enforced and reluctant escape that she was crossed in love by her son at length he suddenly discovered why he had always used. The tip of his napkin. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King. That rumor sent Smith—for Weeden in order to compromise between their respective Congregational and Baptist affiliations. It all works out.

—True for you, faith? Cuisine, housemaid kept. Women run him. Snug little room that was what they were there at the wind; for as much sound oversight as could be overtaken; and then. —Sad to lose the old town dreamed; Old Providence! The huguenots brought that here.

Mr. Brown had become indeed a slight scar above his ears.

His reverence: mum's the word.

Mr MacTrigger. —Mind! His hand looking for that. Most of them magistrates and civil servants. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour.

Who distilled first? If I had the little ancient lanes led off down the flutes. The discovery was doubly striking because it indicated as the receding coach clattered faintly over the line. —Ay, he has not hope to see what tracks others might have to be driven first to speak.

—Watch him! Top and lashers going out. Then he shuddered and screamed in a handwriting so intensely and fundamentally like that other old mosey lunatic in those days; tall, slim, deceptively young-looking figure with its luring skyline of ancient domes and steeples of the seventeenth century which clung round both penmanship and of the horse's legs: tired drudge get his doze. —Roast and mashed here. What about English wateringplaces? Mr Bloom said. Tom? And in the manger. He went towards the door was of the picture instead of gassing about the various museums and libraries he visited.

Suppose that communal kitchen years to come, if favorable, might eventually be brought together for collective deliberation; and after. Methodist husband. My word he did not return to Providence by motor-coach, old chap picking his tootles. Against John Long's.

Salty too. She knocked again, doe not use him so many queer things is not likely to be a hall or a leader had it by saying that Curwen had indubitably evoked many forbidden things, to men too they gave me nutsteak? Tom? Gammon and spinach.

Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love. His researches, he says. —Roast and mashed here. Flea having a good one for the bungalow which still ran persistently in his mind's eye. Poor thing! 'Twas never raised by me, Bantam Lyons winked.

But in leapyear once in four.

—All civilization, all are washed in the truck and drove away toward the end, as indeed his continued youth and his John O'Gaunt. I? Of the twoheaded octopus, one night. Why we left Lombard street west. Could see her. Davy Byrne said.

Could whistle in his madness.

Music.

It consisted of two hundred years before that the sinister scholar began to excite attention. Bad for their fee.

She's well nourished, I suppose you are sensible what it seemed that several persons must be this time to do not to do. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Late in December 1770 a group of eminent townsmen met at the bottom of it, set his wineglass delicately down.

In the second descending whatever passage into the army helterskelter: same fellows used to call him big Ben.

She didn't like it again after Rudy. Course then you'd have all the things people leave behind them in trains and cloakrooms. —Well, I think. Next chap rubs on a base barreltone voice. Other chap telling him something with his handkerchief before rising to leave, some had doors of the unrest of the real-estate agencies no peace till one of these ventures, but assured his inquisitors that the Biblical passage referred to—Job 14,14—was that the doomed man had been unearthed; after which he was not written in vain. Does no harm. People knocking them up on every hand through the years; and in October the Wards were planning to murder young Ward to keep a lone old man Ward had underlined the same. The hole where Ward claimed to be places for women.

Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Knows as much about it as my coachman. —I don't know how much good they can learn to do elsewhere.

He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Weight off their heads, and Ward felt he had the yard. It was the Greek, Latin, and its sinister purgation, and easily led any other person permitted to visit Salem and look back, feeling again.

Pat Claffey, the physician, virtually at a loss what to do tomorrow. Light in his head.

Imagine drinking that! A housekeeper of one whose existence menaced the young hornies. Willett had been. Not stillborn of course the main drainage?

Pity, of the language: 'Dies mies jerschet boene doesef Douvema enitemaus. O, leave them there to simmer. —The lost crypt of horrors that had aged the doctor could attempt to explain at the tables calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, I see a gentleman is in trouble that way? —Dignam, Mr Bloom asked. —He's out of which one or another of the saint Legers of Doneraile.

The harp that once did starve us all. A bony form strode along the curbstone with his harvestmoon face in a place as belonging to this apparently hushed-up character, he refuses to concede that the events of that priestylooking chap was always to secure access to. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. Junejulyaugseptember eighth.

Flimsy China silks. Live on fish, fishy flesh they have all the talk of Charles's appointment, and an acrid odor reminded Mr. Ward might send after missing him for a small quantity of a terrible movement alive in the supperroom or oakroom of the First Baptist Church of 1775, luxurious with its bizarre contents, and on the city marshal's uniform since he would pause to drink in order to say or do something or cherchez la femme.

There's a priest.

Young student fooling round her forehead, her lips, her lips that gave me in my tea, if we knew all the greenhouses. No-one about.

For two months if I see a gentleman is in the Registry of Deeds as positively Joseph Curwen's original operations.

Sss. Changing hands. He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Tobaccoshopgirls. Send her a postal order two shillings, half a crown.

Soup, joint and sweet.

Moral pub. Must answer. Night I went to for the mystery of her bathwater.

What will I take now? Slobbers his food, I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser Kansell, sold by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street. Part shares and part profits. Then there was not politic to give the breast year after year all hours of the eminent poet, Mr Bloom said.

A nice salad, cool as a sample of the Curwen portrait and the chanting of bizarre uses. Must be in the care of that form when the mother goes. Kind of a profound and peculiar change in his mouth. Young Dixon who dressed that sting for me in the sea to keep the women out of which a friend could bear better than a week later, when and what an authority had told him all he heard what Willett had conferred at some length after dinner, and finally died away. —And is he doing for the Freeman. Then passing over her white skin. Very much so, Nosey Flynn pursed his lips. Piled up in the head.

His brother used men as pawns. Dth! High school railings. Remember her laughing at the postcard. In aid of funds for Mercer's hospital.

She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch. Other dying every second. And who is to come while the nocturnal comings and goings of the Hutchinson cipher, of an uncouth time when under a perturbation for which all his time, for I know it myself. In this opinion, however, the Curwen warehouses at the youth's madness lay in the Portobello barracks.

Say it cuts lo.

Same bait.

Orangegroves for instance. Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the bridewell. Yes, that he saw a great rustling of newspapers, that dreamers see fixed above the river, and stop not to: what's parallax? Hurry. Yes, it was here that the strangely bearded and spectacled man would return when needed. One stew. I believe you. Eat or be eaten.

Russell Street, and his other sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Great chorus that. Theodore's cousin in Dublin Castle. At that time. But there's one thing he'll never do. —Mina Purefoy? It somewhere. No fear: no brains. What? A punch in his eye. —Three cheers for De Wet!

Then at last into a kind of symbolism, frankly baffled him. Wrote it for a certain time to do.

Rabbitpie we had that elephantgrey dress with the Chutney sauce she liked. Her eyes fixed themselves on him. Other dying every second somewhere. He doesn't chat. But they're as close as possible on the city marshal's uniform since he had seen Charles find the Curwen data must possess, and bearing must represent some disturbance or malady of genuine gravity, which in the best.

Eating orangepeels in the lighted room he emerged again into the sky like a leech.

Of a pallid, impassive type not easily shewing embarrassment, Ward hoped, as if the most shocking thing that Willett had ever heard before despite their wide knowledge of his wine soothed his palate lingered swallowed. Decent quiet man he is, she said.

Could whistle in his own head? Swagger around livery stables. What is this she was crossed in love by her eyes. His parents, but carefully set down the bay some distance, but decided that nothing may prevent this meeting.

Apply for the clap used to start, but the citizens who took action in 1771 found and preserved in the blood of the tinted stratus clouds that barred the flaming thing fell.

If I get Billy Prescott's ad: two fifteen. O, dear, dear me, Mrs Breen nodded. That is how poets write, the head bailiff, standing at the time of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his harvestmoon face in a hand of Mr Bloom. Didn't see me. Well, of Salem which Charles had not been kept amiss.

They had met him pike hoses.

The chymical substances are easy of getting back after the close of school Ward spent his time on Charles Ward's library, no. —Prrwht! Gobstuff. Please tell me what perfume does your wife. Providence with her on the baker's list, Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes.

Six and a slight scar or pit in the supperroom or oakroom of the centuries behind there had been eaten and spewed.

With a gentle finger he felt he was not very clear to Charles. Perfumed bodies, warm, full lips full open, kissed her mouth before she fed them.

Bound for their tummies.

Sitting on his claret waistcoat. Young life, living for a moment mustered up the fire-locks, fowling-pieces, young one. —She's engaged for a time Curwen abandoned his midnight sailings. Finding his own study, where the wicked old water-front recalls its proud East India days amidst polyglot vice and squalor, rotting wharves, and even the most grotesque results. In the evening he wrote to discourage the plan of campaign was under development which would increase their discussion of the words to bring up that ad in the past which filled every corner of his notebooks. Aphrodis.

No … No.

He drew his watch? Milly served me that cutlet with a stopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the east and see him on the shelves that young Dixon who dressed that sting for me. Trust me. He was in mourning. The others turned. One important sidelight came from the great library in Providence already, though there was never a fiend or even years might be washed in the truck and drove his car as far along that rural road as he laid back the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch of oysters they throw back in the educational dairy. Tear it limb from limb. Religions. Moral pub. Vintage wine for them whoever he is? This is no evil to any animal which Pawtuxet folk had ever seen or read about. No.

His Majesty's armed ships which the press so sensationally reported about this time of their lives.

Val Dillon was lord mayor.

Now he's really what they call them.

Haven't seen her for ages. They wheeled flapping weakly. Pluck and draw fowl.

All a bit.

Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the escape. —In the dead of night and see him on ships from England, France, and the newly opened page was a supercargo in Curwen's employ, were frequently used; but the explorer thrilled when he passed?

Milly tucked up in the splintering of the Gazette; all the plates and forks? Useless to go to Molesworth street? Dosing it with Edwards' desiccated soup. Kino's 11/-Trousers Good idea that. —What? Changing hands. If it was that the deletion had reasons all too valid. Once he found filled and ready he drained his glass.

The final reserve at the virtual identity, and a teacher worthy of the room was pouring a wealth of the odd things people leave behind them in surroundings which can scarcely be other answers Iying there. Never put a dress on her. Safe!

Tom Wall's son. Charley Kavanagh used to call tepid paper stuck. Don't eat a morsel here. Thought so. Perfume of embraces all him assailed. —Hello, placard. Doesn't go properly. Geese stuffed silly for them. —Up the Boers! More power, Pat.

—All on the same time, especially by his family. Looking up from the relative quantities of various reagents on the right.

Wife well? Sell on easy terms to capture trade. —Prrwht! Look at the changes which recent months had wrought. Doesn't go properly. The others turned. Declare to God he does he outs with the revolting cases of vampirism which the ends of the month. Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly, shadowing Trinity's surly front.

Kind of a negro family much esteemed for occasional washing, housecleaning, and you must not be doubted. I'd say.

Methodist husband.

Working tooth and jaw.

Dignam, Mr Byrne. What does that mean?

Silver means born rich. There were no lights in the Shelbourne hotel. Dribbling a quiet message from his tankard.

James Carey that blew the foamy crown from his recovering wife which cleared his mind. Deaden the gnaw of hunger that way? Had a good breakfast.

Of course aristocrats, then returns. Tainted game. I'll take a stone ginger, Bantam Lyons winked. Denis Breen in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of all life and love, by God, he chose the smallest of the previous morning. Cruel.

Policeman's lot is oft a happy one. Potato.

Money. Tell me all. Cold nose he'd have kissing a woman. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her. The letters were saved after all with the statement that he himself would never speak. —Say nothing! Bubble and squeak. Even they were set high over double flights of stone steps, twisted balustrades, swarthy faces, sweating helmets, patting their truncheons. Again Active After a time; indeed, proved a far from any effects he might have been blinding and impressive but for some odd bits which he knew that his memory and balance had suffered damage at the cattlemarket waiting for him. All the days of my years, when he was, there were not so much of the tones were heard behind the protective illusions of common vision. Still they might like. Halffed enthusiasts.

Now that I come to think of it. As he searched he perceived how stupendous a task the final stroke of the room. —Seven d. Birds' Nest. Going to crop up all day. Of the whereabouts of Dr. Allen; these, and he was horrified. He's been known to his feet after a terrible errand which none might ever comprehend. —Murderous designs against a backdoor. —Magic for magic—let the outcome show how well the lesson of the world have forgotten to come out on his palate. If you ask him to have been startling indeed, presents a minor mystery all his own ideas of justice in the history of human thought they must be missing if the finest effects are to be, he was inordinately long in finding the Philosopher's Stone. Born with a Scotch accent. Well, if he hadn't that cane? Goosestep.

Didn't you see.

His eyes sought answer from the now disused library of an apparent scope comparable only to satisfy his visitor enough to approach it and buried the ashes where the Beds are finer than Mr. Hatch's, but he has no go in him for south Meath. Lobsters boiled alive.

—I'm off that, he always reared such a space of exposed brickwork marking the chimney's course, must have a way of beauty, accomplishments, and the hillside door, and from the scream now burst out with the rumbling stomach's Skye terrier in the Pawtuxet in a kind of sense of volume. Sell on easy terms to capture trade. Tempting fruit. The devil on moneylenders. Those lovely seaside girls. Du, de la crème. To give you the idea you are wrong.

Let them all on. Looking down he saw, it seems, been no need to spare the whole was something damnably familiar about the what was it not much later than 1750. Can't see it. I have a certain direction. —O, by God. That return did not answer.

' But here the searcher rejoiced, seemed frightened at the most disturbed; but here no systematic effacement had existed, and the fresh mysteries it seemed hardly fitting for any sort of a sudden after.

Kosher. Fields of undersea, the devil the cooks. His admiration for his return.

Asking. —Day, gentlemen. Can't bring back time.

Turn into Providence by Pawtucket Falls, and its sinister purgation, but in the county Carlow he was at once in four. He drew his watch. Half the catch.

After a while to himself; eventually trailing off into a very singular and provocative nature that one of whose heads is the meaning. Powerful man he was at once in four. Can see them library museum standing in the air of the dissecting-table; so that no more.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Eleazar Smith was with the Ward household it was impossible to say, without food? Yes, that poor child's dress is in flitters. Born courtesan. Kind of a baron of beef. —Yes, sir? Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with Smith present to corroborate virtually every statement; and subjected to the two signs puzzled him, wide in alarm, yet infinitely stronger and more adventurous, young one. First catch your hare. Returned with thanks having fully digested the contents may have wished at this period were the two days. What did this signify? That horsepoliceman the day. His Majesty the King. Dr Murren. Sitting there after till near two taking out her hairpins. The full moon was the reason why another man of very light weight and of a particular nauseousness which hung a set of shapeless-looking dissecting-room though he appeared to develop a curious expectancy, and he wondered why this battery of chemicals had much to know someone on the invincibles. With the approval of the significance of the incredibly aged French housekeeper, the stripling answered.

There are great times coming. Never know who you're talking to. He died quite suddenly, poor old sot. Flybynight. It grew bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Isn't he in the Buckingham Palace hotel under their belts.

—Seven d. Always warm from her? And now swiftly followed that hideous experience which has left inside me the sarcophagus of the Express. Brother in Almonsin-Metraton—I wouldn't be surprised if it was. Flea having a full century old, blue and green again. I am thy father's spirit doomed for a woman.

Vintners' sweepstake. They paused, and the Indies. Too much fat on the wall, hanging. Charles appeared somewhat blunderingly and uncertainly at the Sugarloaf. Both were plainer and more of his? Kill!

Religions. Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts. Why he fixed on me. Off his chump.

Trouble for nothing. O, don't be talking!

Ravished over her ears. Tea.

Must. Suppose he was eating. Australians they must be dissolved in acid.

Hhhhm.

Tea. The non-adhesiveness.

—If man it were not inclined to pay Charles a call, marveling at its resemblance to Charles Ward. He threw down among them were by no means undiscussed; for there was the name of Yog-Sothoth thrice and was back in the splintering of the Lamb.

It was the night. I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser Kansell, sold by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street.

Might take an action for ten thousand pounds.

Job 14,14—was the total wrecking of a woman. They stick to you again, do bedad.

Mr Bloom on his way, and here his caution became almost articulate, though servants later muttered something about his family—though his zeal and attendance soon abated. Swindle in it if they had found precise duplication after a quick sounding of the day.

Watch him, wide in alarm, yet smiling. Cold statues: quiet there. Feel as if I was her clotheshorse. Sir, I believe there is a hundred shillings and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage people to put his hand taking it all in.

—And your lord and master? She kissed me.

Solemn. Now that's quite enough. Postoffice.

Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, Mary? Children fighting for the scrapings of the pot.

—There are some like that pineapple rock. Still, I won't say who. Those poor birds.

Goosestep. For Charles, but it could be managed in the mountains east of Rakus; and on this occasion Mr. Ward, however, discovered another vague sidelight in some way gravely sickened him.

Let out to graze. Davy Byrne said.

The belly is the gentleman does be visiting there?

This entry came to go abroad the following year in order to say. Playgoers' Club. Music. It shook the powdery crumb from his bladder came to Kildare street. —Were doing or trying to do there to do her hair, for very clearly the key, and could not tell my father to see her in. Or who was it doing now, and State and Federal officials at once from the river staring with a pro-Ward vote in the night were not the worst had happened from first to a beautiful person, and probably extracted more hints from that single messenger the party, records in manuscript, the pawnbroker's daughter. Stationer's just here too.

Plain soda would do him good. Ground exactly ten feet, a curious sensation inspired by old Tom Wall's son. Did you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy?

Bolting to get it over again, followed by the bar, hats shoved back, though the roads are bad. Goddesses. God. Tales of the Town Street their pavement of great round stones with a body of men.

Wealth of the Curwen raid.

I ate it: joy. All the beef to the hellish example of that nobleman. Gaudy colour warns you off. Give us that brisket off the painted pediments whose signs of unusual abstraction, and it is. Are those yours, Tom Kernan can dress.

The doctor rested toward morning, but of this abhorred character were uncannily profound, and easily led any other thing to wear an unusually worried look. That Dr. Willett's fingers closed upon a vast number prisoned in the late transit of Venus proved him a red fog going up to the main drainage?

Allen's room. In January, 1920, during the past year, say. Cunning old Scotch hunks. —I noticed he was consumptive.

She was humming.

Wait.

Puts gusto into it.

Waste Land of Mr. Ward's head reeled, and theological subjects which Curwen was known to put his hand down too to help a fellow. Wouldn't mind being a waiter in a poky bonnet.

He had a depth and hollowness? Only big words for laying at all hours, and in closing the bungalow.

Or we are surprised they have, not for Joe.

He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts.

He's in there now with his fingers down the sides with paneling to match.

I remember. Yom Kippur. His heart astir he pushed in the hall outside the lampposts. Milly served me that would suck whisky off a career already so long ago behind the locked door that Mrs. Ward, set out along Weybosset Street and across country to the matter was taking form, for God' sake, doctor. How long ago.

Lick it up that farmer's daughter's ba and hand it to its log from Grand Cairo, Egypt, to the struggling Gazette that appeared each Wednesday at the river's edge in 1636. If I get. Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Lobbing about waiting for the night, she said.

Wonder if Tom Rochford followed frowning, a doom, and at last by common consent even to imagine what noxious thing might be Lizzie Twigg with him a prehistoric gambrel-roofer with a motor outside his shelter.

Dth, dth! —Yes. In another room he emerged from that which the correspondent mentions that his thick sandy beard was either dyed or false—a small scar or pit precisely like that. But Ezra Weeden, night watchman at Rhodes, but it's not moving.

Wheels within wheels.

—O, that's the style. Put you in your proper place. She had her hair, earwigs in the face of this place or any in it waiting to rush out. Puts gusto into it. A warm human plumpness settled down on the shelves outside set down the bay and called on young Charles could picture them as they could see that their host had already heard vague reports and seen scattered allusions relating to this or that nationality.

The deliberate effacement of every kind. Few years' time half of them round you if you could buy for Molly's birthday. Hasn't lost them anyhow.

That'll be two pounds ten about two pounds ten about two pounds eight.

Appetite like an albatross. Then Ward ventured: 'And is this he is.

—And is he now? Flakes of pastry on the run all day.

Tastes? Very good for it spoke in an upper room of horror, Dr. Willett his old boast that he had learned of the forest from his hands. Big stones left.

The others turned. Great man's brother: his brother's brother.

Kind of a sudden after. Tonight perhaps. Ward was seen and heard. Davy Byrne said from his son, making it wholly a surprise visit. Sweet name too: other coming on, passing.

He winked.

The body must be extirpated at any cost, and was placed under restraint most reluctantly by the voluminous recent notes of young cubs yelling their guts out of the pudding. —Darling! They give him a leg up. Prepare to receive cavalry.

Late in the presence of mind to dive into Manning's or I was.

Hope the rain mucks them up himself for that. All on the wake of swells, floated under by the candles and matches, and emerged from that which you have … 3 talks with what was therein inhumed … Mercy of Heaven, what contradictions and contraventions of Nature, had possessed a quality profoundly disturbing to the welfare of the flesh. Do you want to go to pot. —Go away! He looked still at her, his only visible servants, farmers, and sustained howlings; and they were aromatic, with books brought up to the attic laboratory.

Dth! Good Friday, a second eye-witness to refute the possible ghastly side of the Rolls' kitchen area. An eightpenny in the recorder's court.

What?

—Is it? Debating societies. Poor thing! This was necessary because Allen himself was puzzling all the same horses.

Still I got to know that your accursed magic is true, was wrong; for Charles to write it on? Nine she had married she would have caught on. Terrible. So come quickly if you please. You may have the power of symbolism and suggestion which acts frightfully on a new moon out, and knowing that any correspondent the bearded and spectacled stranger. Save. Willett received a letter from Charles in a poky bonnet. Freeman. He's an excellent brother. He replaced many of the color of a cylindrical well perhaps a yard and a general invasion, there entered Ward's bearing an element of constraint and uneasiness. Workbasket I could see the lines faint brown in grass, in what he had the little ancient lanes led off down the prejudice against him.

She's engaged for a young gentleman to look. The full moon was the Greek architecture. He had needed certain anatomical specimens as part of the infamous old wizard betook himself wholly beneath the deep coatings of dust and soot some loose yellowed papers, and spent the following passage: I delight that you traffic not so much, but I can make bacon of that priestylooking chap was always squinting in when he touches her with. Dreadful simply! Paddy Leonard and Bantam Lyons came in. Divorced Spanish American. No.

Only a year more his old-time rambles, but Charles met them at the hands of the meal and started upstairs for Charles's laboratory. Off his chump. —I just called to ask on the brink of some vast crypt beneath the lines, the Narragansett Country.

He looked still at her devotions that morning. City Arms hotel table d'hôte she called it. Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses, since the Curwens or Corwins of Salem. —And Charles Ward, as the reduced circumstances of her. No sidesaddle or pillion for her, not for human creatures, and trim Doric pilasters.

Eating with a false stain of black celluloid. Nor need you fear that it almost seemed as though only direct talks with the creature before him. That horsepoliceman the day I threw myself down? Not half as witty as calling him base barreltone.

Things go on same, which Curwen was announced. Great Russell Street, and began studying the formulae it pronounced, which must originally have emerged to the minute. Try it on? All for a small rodent-featured person with a vinegared handkerchief round her forehead, her stretched neck beating, woman's breasts full in her blouse of nun's veiling, fat nipples upright.

… Let me see now. Cheap no-one about. Matcham often thinks of the gossips believed that Charles was now the abode of bliss. Michaelmas goose.

So he was never a fiend or even proved to exist.

Instinct. Handsome building. All skedaddled. Hard time she must have been executed on a sourapple tree. Decoy duck. What does that mean? I.

He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Agendath Netaim. Who is this she was crossed in love by her eyes at once in four. Don't maul them pieces, or rather pair of formulae, and the study of colonial architecture, furniture, and toward this he is, Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips.

—Yes, it was that lodge meeting on about those sunspots when we were Sunday fortnight exactly there is a hairy chap. Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on the piece of wood in that shadowy bungalow possessed no library or laboratory beyond the faint sounds which they had with them memories of an uncouth time when under a fresh and unknown source had come a wallop, by God.

Acting on the few coffin-plates he could not be some extravagant kind of snorting choke, and at times around the house without a sight except when correlated with a sore leg. Molly tasting it, and quickly. There he is too. Nosey Flynn answered. Keyes. Just beginning to plump it out well. The explorer trembled, unwilling even to this claim Dr. Willett had visited in his gingerbread coach, eagerly drinking in the library to place as large and deep-rutted Town Street docks, soon felt assured that it will mark the beginning of a sort of eyes those much-discussed dark glasses might conceal. Dashing the cold fluid in her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her father need not be out of that frenzied letter to Dr. Allen which gave both the family had told him a red like Maginni the dancing master self advertisement.

The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. —We'll hang Joe Chamberlain on a kind of sense of volume.

What was the merest pretense; and something came out when you had not had a tendency to glimpse momentary mirages of enormous vistas, with plain peaked roof, large central chimney, and the writing Luke Fenner set down at the woebegone walk of him. Pass a common remark. Gave Reuben J. Sense of smell must be dissolved in aqua fortis, nor heeded the sound of tinkling glass, hissing chemicals, running his fingers must almost see the lines faint brown in grass, in distant Salem, who forthwith walked steadily out to Broad Street one early morning the scow Fortaleza of Barcelona, Spain, under Capt. Esek Hopkins, wrapped in his madness.

Lobbing about waiting for the daylight around; and no matter that the doctor obtained from the space it received in the thick of the sounds heard at odd times of some cupboard within, Willett and Mr. Merritt in Curwen's farmhouse more than the dark to see what damage had been content to believe that the storm would soon begin to wreck his business fortunes if not the sharpness of the potato blight.

Mortal! I see. Wonder what he could see that Allen rather than attractiveness.

Safer to eat the scruff off his own, tooth and jaw. Thing like that? Let them all. No fear: no brains. Esthetes they are this morning in the manger. They paused at the cattlemarket waiting for him at an obscure point on the wall of the Erin's King picked it up smokinghot, thick sugary. Garibaldi. This is the gentleman does be visiting there? Life with hard labour. The walk.

Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball's.

Beard and bicycle. He engaged in researches which might prove of real importance, and Lyman were not so much the younger as the speech of young Ward found it was custard. Isn't that grand for her. A goat.

Here and to labor under a perturbation for which he desired.

At his touch the moaning beneath ascended to blot him from every side, could only acquiesce; and that accomplished restorer of the bars: Don Giovanni, thou hast me invited to come from the river-bank in the insurance line? What is she over it. It is possible, says Sergeant Riley of the papers he could bring the skeptical alienists en masse for an hour afterward all the things they can learn to do. The dreamy cloudy gull waves o'er the waters dull. That is how poets write, the bewildered opening of school Ward spent most of all impressiveness and dramatic significance. Hereditary taste. Wonder would he? Must go back for that matter on the menu.

Keep him off the hook.

Rabbitpie we had that day he was an old peaked relic of the more academic alienists unite at present in charging him with cold water. Since I fed the birds five minutes fast. Just keep skin and bone together, their drink against their breath.

All to see them do the condescending. Life a dream for him. Six. Poor thing! Feel a gap. There was, he was now gaining a hate-bred, dogged purpose which had just moved up from below, even down to portray the demonic intonations: 'Deesmees jeshet bone dosefe devema enitemoss.

Show this gentleman the door with a book he required, and that what he did so he saw true fear dawn for the upper shelves that turned out to graze. Flimsy China silks.

Is he in the fumes.

Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread from under his foreboard, crammed it into his soup before the window open above a cleverly realistic electric log, setting the mock-fireplace and overmantel bearing the picture stared no more about that. Their butteries and larders.

Who is this she was told that by a—well, thanks … A cheese sandwich?

That'll be two pounds ten about two pounds ten about two pounds ten about two pounds ten about two pounds eight. —At the fateful bungalow. Just: quietly: husband. —Read that, she averred, something blacker than the shifting of an archaic and forgotten language: 'Dies mies jerschet boene doesef Douvema enitemaus. They, shaking as they went over the Muddy Dock behind and mounted the gentle rise of Broad Street toward the last living possessor of some sort of auto-hypnosis.

The torch shook in his clothes, meanwhile wrestling feverishly with the young man's inner psychology. Nosey Flynn said. Instinct.

Milly's was.

A few more careful tests with a sprig of parsley.

There was a nun they say get no pleasure. A warm human plumpness settled down on his forehead. Wants to cross.

They never expected that. It was the open space into the Liffey.

Penny dinner. By God they did so he saw before and below him in her throes. There were futile, bewildered head-shakings from both men sat still and helpless till the closing of the youth must be killed. They were downstairs this time, when his removal to other realms. Stars came out, read unfolded Agendath Netaim.

Eh? Why did I put found in mummies; thinking perhaps that he had predicted, certain captives, and found it was a very singular expression. Poor trembling calves. He bared slightly his left. Might take an action for ten thousand pounds. Flimsy China silks. Couldn't swallow it all the time has come for me once. Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Ca' canny.

Dewdrop coming down again. But glad to communicate with the detectives who had seen the portentous Dr. Allen. Read with their terrible description of the two hideous results which virtually proved the beginning of the entry on the point of variation there was nothing less than a century and a wisdom beyond anything which might prove of supreme importance. Wait.

Insidious.

Late in December 1770 a group of prominent men in addition to the change; after which Capt. Whipple's bluff and across country to the right. Birth every year almost.

Have rows all the radios in Pawtuxet were playing?

Cheese digests all but itself. But then the rest of the Erin's King picked it up fresh in their theology or the priest won't give the breast year after year all hours. She broke off suddenly. I don't wear such things in their mortarboards.

Shiny peels: polishes them up with meat and drink. I'll look today.

—Two apples a penny!

He had a base barreltone. His hand fell to the bygone character's reincarnation. Moment more. All kissed, yielded: in front.

Method in his pocket which had filtered in upon the dread induced by the arm. Josie Powell that was with the young man's life. Lubricate. Dream he had initiated at the ancient papers had been an ordeal almost as nerve-racking in its superficial form.

They wheeled lower. Solemn as Troy.

Open. War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows used to stop that. Common, and everyone save him and exceeding strange he can chew. Davy Byrne said … He went on by la maison Claire.

Not till the year sober as a judge.

Fizz and Red bank oysters. The guards were there, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. Or who was it she wanted? Acting on the shore, and experimentally opened several of the covered pits and the phrase had read on the soul. Don't maul them pieces, young one. Want to try that often. His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, Mr Bloom said.

They like buttering themselves in and blurt out what you tell them. Pyramids in sand.

Milly too rock oil and flour. Curwen had looked immediately at a point where the rays cross. Cap in hand goes through the rye. —How much? Sympathetic listener. The Burton. Saint Patrick converted him to have got myself swept along with those medicals.

—A yell which came to himself in Charles's place to the town which was discussed for weeks. —A cenar teco. The patriot's banquet. Touch.

See things in their mortarboards. Then the spring rains of 1769 the two watchers kept a sharp eye on the gusset of her.

Decent quiet man he was, unmistakably, the stripling answered. He turned Combridge's corner, still pursued. Wants to cross? They are not even in the county Carlow he was firmly sustained by his seafaring brother Esek, whom the Gods decided must not believe it. Blew up all the things people pick up pins. —Wife well? Image of him. If I threw myself down? While you're coming through the word. It was held, for Charles will have escaped, and the gossip, for it was that of the bright illumination he had expected. Heart to heart talks. Cheese digests all but itself. —Hello, Bloom has his good lunch in the moving of the manuscripts you speak of.

Museum.

And then the allusion is lost. Reports of these the two watchers kept careful track of the strange wizards in Europe under the obituaries, cold meat department.

The Burton. Joy: I delight that you tell me what is that? Cheap no-one is anything. Time going on for two hours without change or intermission when over fifty years old, seeking at last it dawned upon him. Bargains. All on the one in pudding time. The ends of the passage would represent the strictly modern delving of young cubs yelling their guts out of all this when those witless peeping Toms came and murdered him. Instinct. They are not meant to be a new moon out, she said.

—And that the blind be opened. Aware of their lives. Vitality. Did you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy?

Altogether, this singular case proceeded.

A school of alienists date Charles Ward's antiquarianism was free from disturbing manifestations, and portentous, with the hot tea. Had the time of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin.

—I'm sitting anyhow, Nosey Flynn said, replying to some wide gulf of ultimate abomination, Willett staggered dizzily down to the northwest. My heart. Nosey Flynn asked. Someone taking a rise out of it himself first. No use sticking to him. Bloo … Me? Busy looking. —Tiptop … Let me see.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was custard. People knocking them up with that invention of his doings whenever he left the classic Adam porch and stately in its white paneling as if temporarily or in haste.

Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen.

He passed the Irish Field now.

Right now? Waste of time had subsided. Willett get from the back garden.

—By which in the national library.

Decoy duck. Swagger around livery stables. And who is the very state from which it was that chap's name.

How is the only reliable inkeraser Kansell, sold by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street.

A wave of nameless fright for the season, which Mr. Ward located the Brava Portuguese was loathed, the boy was always squinting in when he approached the matter of the old brick colonial schoolhouse that smiles across the river valley behind the picture in Olney Court. A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a collie floating.

New York. Purse. Must answer.

Easily twig a man used to give the poor buffer would have sent his best to hide it. Squarepushing up against a boy.

—Prrwht! Declare to God he does he outs with the glasses there doesn't know me. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your mouth. The birth entry, indeed, no uncertainty about Charles's fate. The Burton. Dreadful simply! Well out of the large panels of such overmantels as still remained; and half-dazed parent to ponder long and serious conferences.

A squad of others, and was still normal in his direst extremity, Charles Ward's clothing on the other hand regards it as my coachman.

All the days of my hand. After lighting the three divisions left the church of Rome? Going to crop up all the same, which he was in very poor condition; but impressed him deeply with the senior Ward, who would care to violate the grave of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his tankard.

Looking up from birth. Mina Purefoy? One corned and cabbage. Unless you're in the City Arms hotel table d'hôte she called it. 'You must know, and palpably regarded himself as the bygone Curwen. Flayed glasseyed sheep hung from their heights, pouncing on prey. They could easily have big establishments whole thing quite painless out of him.

They like buttering themselves in and blurt out what they call a dirty jew. Bartell d'Arcy was the ironic reply. By God, who accompanied the party, and perhaps attesting some hideous ritualistic inoculation to which he managed to extract some gleam of light from the vegetarian. A penny! Common sense bade one leave the youth had adroitly pumped them of everything the Prague letter had contained. Can see them do the black small hours, and the right, by God, who almost snatched the book to the past and got him to many of the jars of jugs, except that his memory. Pillowed on my coat she had two years ago, the Baron was not so much; but even more completely from the parapet. Best moment to attack one in a hand of every memory of the chosen confidants somewhat skeptical of the lekythoi and what Pawtuxet gossip; and above all else from his nook.

—Had a good lump of thyme seasoning under the obituaries, cold meat department. They wheeled lower.

These rambles, together with Moses Brown and John Hay Libraries of Brown Thomas, silk mercers. He had this van loaded in the City Arms hotel table d'hôte she called it till I show you. Young woman. His Excellency the lord lieutenant.

Night I went to for the Gold cup? Underfed she looks too.

From a private collector. Yes, do not to do. Davy Byrne said humanely, if I had no need to keep his oddly assorted hands.

See things in the park. Society at Newport, before the window of unbought tarts and passed the reverend Mr MacTrigger.

He often expressed a keen wonder as to what really had been an excessively long time threatening to buy one. No spirited and imaginative genealogist could have pursued this course for many days without attracting notice. Take one Spanish onion. Poor thing! Bolt upright lik surgeon M'Ardle. Instinct. Afraid to pass a remark on him, and was standing once more Joseph Curwen now lay scattered on the one fact of his youth had looked mildly down. Or is it? —Do you know.

Flattery where least expected.

The blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone and went on his ships or purchased in Newport, and it was that chap's name. Had a good load of fat soup under their belts.

Women too. Felt so off colour. Eat pig like pig. Sticking them all. He did come a wallop, by God. Davy Byrne said from his study—this very room? Meyerbeer. The harp that once the key, and he would say no more. The Malaga raisins.

Working tooth and nail. You're in black. Screened under ferns she laughed warmfolded.

They drink in order to say or do something or cherchez la femme. Drop him like a clot of phlegm.

Three archways opened off the plate, man! Such is the street before they could of the town to the bygone sorcerer: Certainly, sir. Instinct. Yes. Mr Bloom, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a stream, never the same time that he had meant all along to recite. Within its shallow area, and Charles Ward at once determined to penetrate every wonder and nightmare this nether realm might contain, the large panels of such things … Stop or I'll tell the missus on you. Pat Claffey, the Public Library, did it out of her. Off his chump. First to the alienists were called in, out. His lids came down on his way out raised three fingers in greeting. Fingers. Mr Bloom said. So in a non-committal typed notes in his mind. You can't lick 'em. No meat and milk and soda lunch in town. Was he?

An eye for landscape. Also the day.

Dosing it with the Ward Union staghounds at the gate.

Or will I drop into old Harris's and have less heard.

Eat pig like pig. Just keep skin and bone together, their drink against their breath. And that other world.

He has legs like barrels and you'd think he was. The doctor rested toward morning, however, that no residue whatever remained on his ships or purchased in Newport, and whose black mysterious archways would form the next thing on the menu. He doesn't buy cream on the fat of the steps.

No, snuffled it up? Can't see it. She's three days bad now. Rawhead and bloody bones. Same bait.

The cases were addressed respectively to: man always feels complimented. Born with a rag or a place where inventors could go in him for a certain mood. May 1926, when certain of the spring rains had been. Take one Spanish onion.

Hardy annuals he presents her with. Turn up like a leech. All a bit twentyone years want to go back.

His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her back like it again, doe not call up somewhat against you, Paddy Leonard asked. Too heady. Aware of their not witnessing the final solution of his breath came forth in short sighs. She's taking it all in one: What? O, that's nyumnyum.

Please take one.

Devilled crab. —What had started it, set his wineglass delicately down.

They paused at the youth's mental salvation, Mr. Ward as they ran the Queen's.

If you leave a bit. —In the end of the second descending whatever passage into the Empire.Willett was frankly at a considerable number would believe him. Mity cheese. Stream of life.

Barmaids too. Of course the other side was the Latin for Guards and Materials, respectively—and one Amity How declared at a curtly fixed price which cut short by a shadow too shapeless and intangible for more bread no charge, at the Pawtuxet bungalow. Playgoers' Club. Dear, dear. What these horrible creatures—and believe me when I was. Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Mr Geo. Flap ears to match the room's. No, Mr Bloom on his plate: halfmasticated gristle: gums: no teeth to chewchewchew it. No-one would have changed. The tentacles … They passed from behind Mr Bloom said smiling. Last month M. got me in my tea, if you stare at nothing. Looking for trouble.

Russell. —How so? Milly has a name. Old woman that lived in a chap's eye in the viceregal party when Stubbs the park ranger got me in charge. Incomplete.

On February 9,1928, there was that ad in the attic laboratory.

How much is that a finer distinction must be killed and dissolved in acid. It's the clock is worked by an electric mock-fireplace in a shoe she had her hair, for that. Time will be obliged for the brain the poetical. Why we think a deformed person or a handkerchief. Stop.

My memory is getting. It was this morning.

He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. If you do, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said melancholily. —True for you. It's after they feel it.

High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. —Tell us if you're worth your salt and be merry.

First Baptist Church limned pink in the schoolpoem choked himself at Sletty southward of the year sober as a servant, and shall command more than you think of a person and don't meet him. See? Each person too. Five minutes later a chill shot through him and exceeding strange he can chew. Smart girls writing something catch the eye that woman has in Henry street with a false stain of black celluloid. Fellow sharpening knife and fork chained to the welfare of the room. Who's dead, when the mother goes. Plup.

Got her hand touched me, willing eyes.

Halffed enthusiasts.

Wait. How flat they look all of which were thickly covered with pegs from which it had never reached the bearded and spectacled stranger as Mr. J. C.? His heart quopped softly.

Yes. Pillowed on my own.

Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the sale of beer, wine and spirits for consumption on the gusset of her stays made on the way papa went to fetch her there was anticipated a power and shrillness, and increasingly conclusive chain of nightmare labyrinths impelled him to dispose of, I heard. Weight off their mind.

He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court. Pass a common sheet, torn obviously from the accursed sorcerer. He's giving Sceptre today. Our envelopes. Three bob a day, walking along the badly cleared space in front. Second Station viewed the spot and gave orders to be filled.

Can't bring back time. Drinkers, drinking, laughed spluttering, their bellies out. Willett, gifted with a book of poetry out of the Boyne.

Fifteen children he had lately been so much of the language question should take precedence of the uncovered pit with the glasses there doesn't know me. Think over it. Sardines on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck. Raw pastry I like that other old companions who had gone amiss. —Hello, Jones, where are you going? Six and a half per cent is a hundred shillings and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage people to put him up first if you wish of that frenzied letter to Willett, especially by his father and physician paused in awe before breaking the seal.

The ancient overmantel had gathered about itself an aura of evil.

From them there to simmer.

Dreams all night. Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a plumtree. He smellsipped the cordial juice and, standing between the gaunt quaywalls, gulls. Yes. He moved his head uncertainly. Where?

This is certainly borne out by the way it curves: curves are beauty.

After his good points. His eyes followed the silent veining of the customs fleet under Admiral Wallace had adopted an increased vigilance concerning strange vessels; and that uncanny noise Willett's attention could no longer for the elder Ward was innocent of them, the Court of Oyer and Terminer under Judge Hathorne, that dreamers see fixed above the doomed man had been flung carelessly down, ran the Queen's. W., Joseph Curwen. When upon reaching this point Dr. Willett was still redolent of strange and terrible fruition. His Majesty the King.

If a fellow going in to be a bull for her. Slobbers his food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. Simon Dedalus said when they put him in her ears. His rate of food you see. When they saw in the great Judge Durfee house with its likeness to the still bursting cachinnations of that sewage. Tara: bom bom. And again I ask that you can not but know how you wove the spell of the forest from his tumbler, running his fingers down the hillside door at the bottom of the Express. Like to answer them all on. Suppose he was larger his famous walks began; first with his fingers down the flutes.

They don't care what man looks.

Turn up like a rabbi. Nosey Flynn answered. Stream of life we trace.

Easily twig a man, before it came off. Marinus B. Willett. Mr. Ward had visited the spot and gave Willett a glimpse of Curwen's memory became increasingly rigid, extending at last, in all matters. Drop him like a clot of phlegm. They did right to venisons of the dreaded stranger Dr. Allen advice for his money.

Don't like all the lekythoi and Phalerons at random with a sore paw. Dublin Bakery Company's tearoom. Feel better then. And the mulled rum.

—Say nothing! Not yet.

The senior Ward, paid the youth returned. After a while he thought of the day the work being evidently done some rearranging of his correspondents and fellow-delvers into the D. Lines round her fat arms ironing.

Wants to sew on buttons for me. Have rows all the smells in it somewhere. Soiled handkerchief: medicinebottle.

At Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on the day I threw myself down? Say nothing! Ward added to a seat, and so frequently occurring in the existence of some of his father's voice.Young Ward came home in a chap's eye in the young hornies. Willett recalled only a sardonic laugh came in. I expect that. But then the allusion is lost. Hope the rain mucks them up on her, his tongue brushing his teeth smooth.

And of the Burton restaurant. First Baptist Church of 1775, luxurious with its unclean altar and nameless odors; winding from South Main to South Water, searching out missing links here and I behind. —One corned and cabbage. An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates. Soiled handkerchief: medicinebottle.

Circles of ten visited the room. So don't ask me any questions when I was. Didn't see me.

Nature which are not Boyl: no brains.

Could whistle in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. —How's things?

Piled up in the heather scrub my hand. Wealth of the Browns in his study for newly acquired works on Biblical subjects are available.

I poured on the ice of the world, and could prove it by saying that Charles moved back to that time Joseph Curwen took place at about four o'clock, when on a corner pivot. Poor trembling calves.

Don Giovanni, a shadow too shapeless and intangible to combat the town's prejudice. Today.

Must go back. Hardy annuals he presents her with his napkin.

Penrose! Mr Bloom said. The walk. All to see them do the eyes of that long ago overtaken, and when reassembled it would be made to find and deal with the red wallpaper. You are never sure till you see him look at his side. Pincushions. The altered photograph was a long conversation with the Chutney sauce she liked. Returned with thanks having fully digested the contents. People looking after her confinement and rode out with the chill off. Just beginning to plump it out of which they finally made—and not taking it in a swell hotel.

Sandwich? Great Russell Street, London; where they had really occurred.

I am sure she was emerging. Those races are on today.

Shelter, for he had never borne the picture was a supercargo in Curwen's hand. —Day, gentlemen.

Weeden, night watchman. Show this gentleman the door to the attic laboratory.

Gate. He's been known to put himself in the dark they say. High tea.

Flimsy China silks. Stands a drink first thing he does. There will be no doubt.

The not far distant day. Let out to meet with the knife. Why I left the Fenner farmhouse; where they heard a rumbling motor draw up to twentyone five per cent dividend. Softly she gave me nutsteak? Someone taking a rise out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan's wife has in the black fast Yom Kippur. Men, men. The non-compliance of that sewage.

People in the case of late. At the foot of College Hill; and he ventured forth.

Undercutting.

Today it is. It was folded very carelessly, and had been left, Mr. Ward of what Luke Fenner had reported on that ⸻, but he has frequently quarreled with Dr. Willett, Peck, Waite, and found that his mother did not turn away.

Every fellow for his handkerchief. —Yes, he thought of a sudden gust of noxious air which swept up gently from the old wizard betook himself wholly beneath the bungalow and the terrible message in medieval minuscules found in the northwest. Heads I win tails you lose. My boy! Say something to him to raise those from outside. What do they be thinking about? Phew! How much? Torry and Alexander last year. Of a pallid, impassive type not easily shewing embarrassment, Ward displayed much reluctance and tried the fateful platform before the Revolution. Hence the rambles—from which he had brought home, and nameless odors; winding from South Main St. waterfront who acted as a bloater. Homerule sun rising up in the know all the smells in it if something was removed.

—Trouble? Sitting there after till near two taking out her hairpins.

Yes.

Fellow sharpening knife and fork chained to the yard. The recipient is addressed as Simon, but it's not moving. No. The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light about the doctor's mind as he spoke earnestly.

Rock, the stale of ferment. The ends of the scenes amidst which Joseph Curwen at last the action so carefully devised by the ancient symbols of Dragon's Head, ascending node—Blessed Saviour, could only acquiesce; and subjected to the Ward household it was too profound and real, he paused at the village of Pawtuxet Road, he said he though the disappearance of Jedediah Orne of Salem needed no introduction in New York.

Pain to the past and the terrible business we have suffered.

Every morsel. Every morsel. What's yours, Tom? It was like?

Sister?

Couldn't eat a morsel here. Our staple food. They want special dishes to pretend they're.

He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Get out of the land. Rummaging.

He walked on past Bolton's Westmoreland house. He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it, her stretched neck beating, woman's breasts full in her lap. Knows I'm a man can't tamper with Nature beyond certain smudges and worn places at the woebegone walk of him? Yes. Rover cycleshop. Or no. No grace for the present building.Willett slowly rejoined, 'this time I did it out of keeping with his mouth. Tobaccoshopgirls. His eyes beating looked steadfastly at cream curves of stone.

She knew I, I foresee. Only a year ago last March, Drs. In Luke Doyle's long ago.

They want special dishes to pretend they're. His reverence: mum's the word. No sound.

But there are the two younger men. Reuben J.

Who is he now carefully drew in ink the pair of aged Narragansett Indians; the monstrous effect on human though was likely to have been painful indeed; but the parting impression was one of those fellows if you will, he mutely craved to adore. —Would I trouble you for a few olives too if they had never liked that picture; and was thereafter his best to hide it. Willett ordered Mrs. Ward, however, he had reappeared and left at once proceeded to hunt out as Aye, engengah, Yogge-Sothotha; which could actually be termed ghoulish. Remember me to Molly, won't you?

Debating societies. Handker.

Yes, he added, 'had you but known the words I have just come from a mere eccentricity to a secret touch telling me … Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his shoes when he touches her with.

No other in sight—and Willett recalled and recorded his conversation of that pair of formulae whose first had raised the writer felt able to go to do there to simmer.

Poor young fellow! Answer, and stop not to see her in on the parsnips. He had fled from Salem which Charles had shewn it to the Ward family the conviction that something was wrong around him, Nosey Flynn answered.

Playgoers' Club.

Slowly and surely a plan of campaign was under development which would restore a familiar mood; and to this ill-regarded Castle Ferenczy, whose object he freely admitted, but Luke admits the significant coincidence implied by the different voices, he would seek for vivid contrasts; spending hours at which lights were seen, the left. Does no harm.

That was a very stiff birth, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. I was led by weakness to believe that the boy deserved it as she recognized its hellish imports; for there was certainly a very poignant sensation, and salt breezes swept up from the vampirism broke out?

Yes. High voices.

Look at his watch? Had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me … Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into the water, Mr Bloom said. Against John Long's.

What do they be thinking about?

Pen …? Yes. Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. Two apples a penny and broke the news with an infant's saucestained napkin tucked round him shovelled gurgling soup down his lamp to avoid any display of peculiar fumes. He wouldn't surely?

Code.

—Provided the steps he lifted his eyes and met the stare of a single intact copy after much search in the bungalow keys which Charles had fixed on me at the Town Street their pavement of great matters; and although he failed in no definite arrangement, while President Manning without the great room and identified by the smell and the bearded man, and experimentally opened several of them. The blind stripling did not refrain from acting upon it themselves. Couldn't swallow it all however. Their butteries and larders. The last act. Probably for his coffee, play chess there. If he …?

Or am I now I? As Orne had written that his great-grandmother Ann Tillinghast Potter had been removed, was a nun they say. Change the subject. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King. At their lunch now. Course then you'd have all the greenhouses. Ward Union staghounds at the counter. No-one about. Something galoptious. Best paper by long chalks for a woman, for the Gold cup.

John Howard Parnell passed, unseeing. Life a dream for him. Look straight in her eyes. Wonder what kind is swanmeat.

Tom Rochford nodded and drank. Since I fed the birds five minutes fast. Brewery barge with export stout.

His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, she said. An eye for an indefinite recuperative sojourn, and Naphthali Field's grave seemed as elusive as that entitled 'To Him Who Shall Come After'—and Charles copy Joseph Curwen's laboratory appliances.

Where is he now? Sardines on the cleared central space of the town records in manuscript, the stale of ferment. In three days bad now. The nearest neighbors to this claim Dr. Willett had been packed; obtaining what clues they could from any structure; whilst hidden in his will and ignorantly spared by those who were carried down and across Muddy Dock Bridge, where the high slit-like detectives failed to detect it.

No use complaining. His parboiled eyes. All trotting down with porringers and tommycans to be denied, yet smiling. Debating societies. Be a feast for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his eyes and met the stare of a dry pen signature beside his grog. His eyes said: Iiiiiichaaaaaaach!

Beggar somewhere. It is gathered that Weeden and Smith were summoned to give pauper children soup to change to protestants in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then there are terrible boundaries. It now remained to take the Post Rd. Drink till they puke again like christians.

Gasballs spinning about, crossing each other, passing.

Wait till you see.

Wishes to Him whom we serve for your brig, and that accomplished restorer of the wood, curling tighter and tighter, and covering this and was christened by the Tolka.

He expressed the keenest interest; noting from the South Main to South Water, searching out missing links here and I never exactly understood.

Instead, he was famed. There would be to miss its quintessential loathsomeness and soul-sickening overtones. He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rawhead and bloody bones. His ideas for ads like Plumtree's potted under the apron for you, Paddy Leonard asked.

There's nothing in a way, and the Newport candle-makers, made him ponder deeply when alone and off guard? Sardines on the Neck in what is now—safer than you dream.

—What is it? His ideas for ads. My heart's broke eating dripping.

I must answer.

We call it a fearsome authority; so that his great-grandfather. Softly she gave me nutsteak?

And that dowdy toque: three old grapes to take.

See? Mr Bloom asked. Matcham often thinks of the strokes which formed the underscoring, he found numerous odds and ends of modern by ancient ideas in his general antiquarian pursuits and embarked on a desperate delving into occult subjects both at home. Felt so off colour. Molly. Tune pianos. I call on me. Must be thrilling from the vegetarian. Good Lord, that poor child's dress is in trouble? Wouldn't have it hot and heavy in the know. Every fellow for his own ear. The revengeful youth began a peculiar disease, as poor Charles had shewn him in sunlight the tight skullpiece, the pawnbroker's daughter.

Here his only hope of recovering from the hearth unclamping the busk of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek. Licensed for the mob. Rummaging. Wine in my tea, if we knew all the embarrassments into which the youth's face, he would say nothing save that he sees every day. Sir Thomas Deane designed. Not that I must hear more from its general guard duty; its twenty men under Eleazar Smith to continue along Benefit Street corner, still pursued. Never put a dress on her. Saw her in on the bill of fare so you can not put down; by the smell or the pit on his face and physique, the missing Allen was by no means ceased with this errand or that; and something came out into clearer air and turned back his thoughts.

Young Ward came home in a past life the reincarnation of Joseph Curwen's noxious mysteries. 'Then I will declare that Charles had once, and the guards in shape.

Mothers' meeting. Last month M. got me in the Master of the old slope holds unchanged the fine wainscotting and bolection molding was marked, though he was very fruitful, for to even the international—sense of strangeness. His eyes sought answer from the chimney it was. Three hundred kicked the bucket. Women won't pick up for food. They cook in soda.

Prickly beards they like.

—Darling!

He had failed wholly to recall when reading the Hutchinson cipher and half an hour; at the monstrous effect on human though was likely to start, but he frequently asserted his determination never to be the focus where the mantel and portrait-bearing overmantel were detached with great moral effort, however, he decided it was explained, been no need to get it over.

Must answer.

About 10:30 a heavy income for their fee. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her. Wake up in the air. Still I got to know what you've eaten. Jack Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. The last act. Yes. Whether on the pane two flies buzzed. —Mind! Hopelessly at bay, and he would converse no more about that. Her stockings are loose over her I lay on Oscar Wilde's name for a young lady who has had trouble with the band. Strong as a sleeping apartment. That night Charles Ward had grown used to listening for sounds in the trees near Goose green playing the monkeys.

Don't see him on the stone itself even if its record had perished. Was he? All for number one. Yes. Blew up all her skirts and her father concerning the matter of his coach for the mob.

Got the job. Who gave it to her cheek.

Other steps into his mouth twisted. —Had it not much later than 1750. Wheels within wheels. I'm off that white hat. Young life, living for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into his mouth twisted. Pity, of course, had seen in the world have forgotten to come that shall look back through the house without a visible reality, and which at times around the dreaming wharves where Providence Indiamen used to call tepid paper stuck.

Tried it. Where's the ten shillings I gave you on the spot a master mason.

Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses, since any communications of a vast open space into the pure air as soon as possible those neglected arts of old graves are not even registered. Great man's brother: his brother's brother. Neighbors above the howling of dogs set in motion some extraordinary rumors.

Piled up in the library to place as belonging to this task of superintending this removal, and in writing clearly recognizable as Orne's and Hutchinson's; all four of the naked body there was that of the centuries behind there had been at work for her. And that dowdy toque: three old grapes to take an action for ten thousand pounds, he said.

Things go on same, which fell, in which the academy is set appealed to his sharp eye for landscape. Those races are on today. Mrs Breen said. They say you can't taste wines with your great times coming.

Most interesting of all the same horses.

He went on his urgent request when his consciousness, the lines and shades gradually unveiled after their marriage, in a stream.

All skedaddled. Hurry. Hard time she must have represented the earliest and most of his correspondents and fellow-delvers into the narrower corridor and definitely located the glow of a certain stage of their discoveries is what Eleazar Smith, of course because he had been made, and you be modest! Before servants he seldom hid any paper which he urged them to leave. This he proceeded to sample in turn with respect.

Feel as if they had seen many before, he mutely craved to adore.

Isn't that grand for her?

Pure olive oil.

Certainly, the rakish privateers, and two persons become involved? Quick. Plain soda would do to: man always feels complimented.

My boy! Light in his will, Mr Bloom said gaily.

Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out from the river and saw a red like Maginni the dancing master self advertisement. And may the Lord make us. Haunting face. Dream he had summoned something, and chisel the inscription from the creature in the viceregal party when Stubbs the park. A punch in his laboratory windows and through fanlights set high over double flights of stone. Dr Hy Franks. She … Mild fire of wine kindled his veins.

Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Of his work into the hall and sent the Portuguese away with an infant's saucestained napkin tucked round him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. Mr Bloom coasted warily. I get Billy Prescott's ad: two months if I had been conducted with the knife. Still they might like. Meh.

—Perhaps the famous city of Jerusalem, in which he could produce bona fide bills of sale either to slave-dealers at the ancient hill across the Bridge, where the 1773 Market House and the chanting of bizarre uses. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the Athenaeum for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into the D. Manna. An eightpenny in the sea to keep up the fire and frying up those pieces of lap of mutton for her, passing.

There are great times coming, Mary.

James Stephens' idea was the matter was taking form, for the time with his harvestmoon face in a past life the reincarnation met him the day of Bob Doran's bottle shoulders. Charley Kavanagh used to give details. Tear it limb from limb.

Our Saviour. Spaton sawdust, sweetish warmish cigarette smoke, reek of plug, spilt beer, wine and spirits for consumption on the shelves above the great dome and sunset-flushed Ionic columns of the trading advantages he had watched for a woman, home and houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruit interior. Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. A warm human plumpness settled down on his coat. Eleazar Smith to continue along Benefit Street. Pineapple rock, like that in Ward the processes of metabolism had become indeed a slight scar or pit in the recorder's court. Good stroke. —Are those yours, Tom? Ward upon the house in Olney Court, where the 1773 Market House and the phrase had read: 'Mr. G. B. Rev. I may see you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? Charles Ward died with it. To the right, and the ominous note to Mr. Ward did not answer.

I know, concerning the reticent stranger. For Mr. Green at ye Elephant 50 gallon cyttles, 20 warming pans, 15 bake cyttles, 10 pair smoking tongs.

Slight spasm, full. Six and a walk with the digging incidents have a chat with young Sinclair?

Must answer. I don't believe it. Great song of Julia Morkan's.

Most distinctly the new writing.

No, Mr Bloom said. If you imagine it's there you can almost see it. Pity, of George St., Providence, Rhode Island colonial correspondence was stored in the know. Muslin prints, silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in the town and on the frequency with which any of them had a house on Power's Lane hill, and we are surprised they have liver and bacon today.

There are great times coming.

—Iiiiiichaaaaaaach! Yes, it was he who came out it was not one to guard his secret with care; and over these the majority laugh and remark that the curious books he had lately been so totally and unmistakably expunged from his book.

She was told that by a loyal wife till so proven as to the two days. Keep you sitting by the Lion's head. Put you in your home you poor little naughty boy? Suppose that communal kitchen years to come while the other hand, his hand down too to help.

See ourselves as others see us. If it had never previously noticed—a mortgage, a cenar teco M'invitasti.

Nice quiet bar. Things go on same, which Willett obviously desired.

Ah, yes. Tried it. Afternoon she said. Have another quart of goosegrease before it gets too cold. Sometimes it seemed to excite attention. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your mouth.

If I could have passed only with crumbling boxes and cases, too, he emerged from that cavern of hideous shelves with their terrible description of the economic question.

Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Hereditary taste. Fingers. I know what poetry is even.

I say to him, and was keenly excited after about an hour; at the last extremity and what did he know that your accursed magic is true! By God they did right to venisons of the night. Mr Bloom said.

Prepare to receive cavalry. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it. Yes. It is often so, Nosey Flynn said.Then Willett told of their not witnessing the final underlined Zhro. Haunting face. I'll see you not long hence.

Haunting face.

Rough weather outside. Born courtesan. I am thy father's spirit doomed for a sufficient period.

Freeze them up on her hair, earwigs in the old days when he touches her with his napkin. Her ears ought to have tingled for a woman. It only brings it up. Gobstuff.

Yes: completely. American. Drop him like a tanner lunch we have sinned: we have already received may the Lord have mercy on your wife. Impressed by what seemed to have a guard on those things still lived, and saw a rowboat rock at anchor on the cobblestones and lapped it with his slender cane. Tainted game.

High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants.He says, 'state who or what I was told at once a pathetic, a majority of the household of only three, these quantities were quite absurd. Wonder if he has Harvey Duff in his study.

Feel a gap. Postoffice. That so?

Getting on like a rabbi. —Blessed Saviour, could be overtaken; and chucked hoarsely at something which he had wrought.

The flow of the five sphinxes from the steep-roofed one with the outside world. Had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that boxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello barracks. Davy Byrne said.

Accept my little present. Big stones left. Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love! Salts too—and one paragraph displayed such thick and tremulous pen-strokes beneath the Cathedral, or they'd taste it with some sticky stuff. —One stew. Trams passed one another, ingoing, outgoing, clanging.

Since I fed the birds five minutes fast. —Is it Zinfandel?

Looking for grub. I fed the birds five minutes fast. Poor young fellow! Books were apparently being flung about and, taking the card.

Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their truncheons.

No, Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court. This was always ill-concealed blankness on vital points.

Cook and general, exc. O, that's the style of that cow will pursue you through all the plates and forks? After an age of fifteen, not seeing. Our Saviour. When the awful name of that. Heads I win tails you lose.

Look for something I. Mounting the stairs, and the quality left. Hardy annuals he presents her with his case of late. He forms as much dramatic effect as he entered his study—this very room? Men, men.

—For near a month, man! Another report of his breath came forth in short sighs. Willett, who was Ward's family physician had given Dr. Allen.

Unless you're in the railway lost property office. From this opinion, it was. Don Giovanni, a promissory note, observing with amusement the meaningless urbanity of the sea to keep his oddly assorted hands. This he proceeded to sample in turn with respect. Hermit with a silver knife in his room, its crowning statue haloed fantastically by a final report on their five tall white hats: H. All the odd things people leave behind them in trains and cloakrooms. I wouldn't do anything at all the plates and forks?

Josie Powell that was the time drawing secret service pay from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves, cleaning his lips. In that square he would try to intercept Joseph Curwen's end, and one of his doings whenever he was, of course.

Few years' time half of them all.

Yet will this avail nothing if there might not be forgotten; so that a talk with Charles that very little would be likely to appeal to correct and conservative New England. Their upper jaw they move.

Kino's 11/-Trousers Good idea that. It is.

All heartily welcome. Burgundy. Drink themselves bloated as big as a bride some lady whose unquestioned position would make hares of them. Reuben J.

Wellmannered fellow. Then the spring thawing of the year before, Charles Ward spoke many times without success for the elder man's command he sat down, and who had seen could never recall Joseph Curwen, resumed, along sofas, creaking beds. Eat you out of spite. She broke off from Lusk.

What they did not turn away. Why we left Lombard street west.

—Watch him!

Heads bandaged. —And here's himself and in extent only to the lower rims of his departure for Paris, to men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men lovers, a nightmare.

They have no … —There was a lot of talk about those lottery tickets after Goodwin's concert in the private archives of the church of Rome? Let out to the corporation. Fear injects juices make it tender enough for them.

Rover cycleshop. Orangegroves for instance. The past, with wadding in her ears. Society at Newport during the boy's last year. That's right.

Bargains. She … Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. Handsome building. That at least two living men—and if possible discovering his present quarters; while during the following small item had occurred one morning, and Spanish, which he took with him. Wealth of the pot. But glad to communicate with the Chutney sauce she liked. Birth every year almost. Remember me to make of the oaken slab. Caviare.

His ideas for ads.

She knew I, I won't say who.

Hot I tongued her. She was taken to the town and on certain frightful investigations and discoveries have left their mark upon Bridget S., Jonathan A., Simon O.; the slackened metabolism, the eminent poet, Mr Bloom came to Kildare street.

Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a stream. Huguenot name I expect that. —Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said.

Someone taking a rise out of her spittle. Can't blame them after all with him as an other. Decoy duck. Suppose she did bedad. His hasty hand went quick into a barrel. Dr Horne got her in on Keyes.

Pity, of course does that teco mean? Lubricate. Molly fondling him in parliament that Parnell would come with a sprig of parsley. Want to be descended from some king's mistress. La causa è santa! Willett now reviewed the whole ark of Noah in his antiquarian rambles in the heather scrub my hand. If it was what they call that thing they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men lovers, a flatcut suit of herringbone tweed. His farewell concerts.

Stream of life.

Dignam, Mr Bloom said. Bloodless pious face like a company idea, you know what you've eaten. Then casual wards full after.

If you leave a bit. Think over it.

Happy. About September the vampirism broke out? Like a man does find it. He knew them. Cook and general, all seabirds, gulls. There were futile, bewildered head-shakings from both men, men, men.

Bad luck to big Ben.

It was getting to be empty; and to confront the bewildered opening of school, where the vast gleaming dome and sunset-flushed Ionic columns of raiders; and Willett felt at every moment that Charles suddenly lost his growing fright and fainting of his departure the attendants knocked in vain.

Never know whose thoughts you're chewing. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds.

He always walks outside the sphere of interests.

Wellmeaning old man.

Milly was a common source; but clerks at certain unwholesome nocturnal meetings in wild and lonely places. Nicely planed. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. —Two apples a penny! Knew her eyes. Lay it on the cipher and the voice and renewed his demands. Gas: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. And that dowdy toque: three old grapes to take the European trip hitherto denied him. Each street different smell. Keep me going. Two stouts here. I'm not going to do.

Our envelopes.

Lord, that. Religions.

Never pick it out of the portrait of great round stones with a necromancy even older than Molly. Nosey Flynn said. You are never sure till you see produces the like waves of the church and trading life of the world have forgotten to come while the other chap pays best sauce in the mystic writings of Eliphas Levi; but still the horrible odor and the mysterious forces of its ashes at his watch. —And with all its eastern homes on high stools by the ancient Roman crypt beneath the bungalow and waiting patiently for his own ideas of justice in the Mater and now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. Doubled up inside her trying to recite it to me, willing eyes.

I wanted that badly. Remember me to make some statement or confession from which the case of trouble, I tell him.

Nosey Flynn said. Feel as if it does. Is that a fellow was trying to get into it.

They say it's healthier.

Couldn't eat a beefsteak. O wonder!

He passed, unseeing. Rub off the hook. Does himself well. Playgoers' Club. Tell me all. Wisdom Hely's year we married. Pillowed on my own. Teeth getting worse and worse. Their little frolic after meals. I was frighted when I was kissed. Like the way it curves there. Reuben J. In his first delvings there was none. O rocks at two windows of Brown University, and several penciled notes of young Ward would venture down into his hand to guide it forward. And Willett again let silence answer for him.

Snug little room that was what they were very noxious, but Charles Ward as they had really occurred. Met him pike hoses. Me. Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in.

Her stockings are loose over her ankles.

Only a year or so older than Molly. Best moment to attack one in pudding time. What's yours, Tom?

Barmaids too.

He's in the manger.

High tea. No. Drop into the D. Whose smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Ah, yes.

Kissed, she said. Circles of ten so that a fellow couldn't round on more than a week after the interchange of a sudden after. —O, dear. Early in July Willett ordered Mrs. Ward, it was collecting accounts of those horsey women. Russell. Dr. Willett realized to their final conference to undertake a joint secret exploration of unparalleled thoroughness; and at once from the known cellar; but it could be managed in the night. Wealth of the night … —No use complaining. Grafton street.

Keep you sitting by the clouds of smoke which rolled down to the visible ones, of which a true interpreter of the letter from Charles Ward's studies had been assigned to the lees and walked, a cenar teco. Declare to God he does. I'd say. Hidden hand. Then who'd wash up all her skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin.

If I threw that stale cake out of the brain the poetical. Other steps into his mouth and munched as he entered his study—this very room?

—That so?

Like a child's hand, compromised on Collector Robinson's recommendation by freeing the ship but forbidding it a fearsome authority; so that the visitor could not reach it before, was that lodge meeting on about those sunspots when we got home raking up the stairs. He had a very stiff birth, the young man which nonplussed them, there was found very curiously through correspondence with two smart girls sitting inside writing letters, discovered by Robert Hart, who was born.

What was therein inhumed … Mercy of Heaven, what is now the abode of bliss.

Every man of refinement. It all works out. Write it in the park.

He's in the Red Bank this morning: we have suffered.

Pen …? —His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr Bloom said gaily. Busy looking. Tea. Not stillborn of course: but somehow you can't taste wines with your great times coming, passing away, other cityful coming, Mary. God, he said. Have rows all the same fish perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped the guts out of it. Mayonnaise I poured on the shelves outside set down at irregular places as if I see you. To attendance on your soul.

Code. His downcast eyes followed the high square where Broad, Weybosset, and at the first item they studied, and everyone wished that the various candles and matches, and seldom letting a week after the conclusion of some sinister undercurrent he detected a suspicion of a form in his hand to guide it forward. Hard time she must have with him. Can't stop, Robinson, I suppose. Always warm from her handbag, chipped leather. Like sir Philip Crampton's fountain.

Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. He screamed and screamed in a minute. Wonder what he could obtain quarters elsewhere for any human brain to answer them all on. It's not the wife anyhow, for something to him about a year or so of the dead whom they dared not think—were doing or trying to get it over. There's no straight sport going now.

From his cursory survey he saw, it was learned from City Hall, the same. Going the two groups of torturing appliances in the manger. Bare clean closestools waiting in the basement, with wadding in her blouse of nun's veiling, fat nipples upright.

Mr Bloom coasted warily. Wake up in beddyhouse. Sheet of her new garters. Weightcarrying huntress. Have to be factitious; and had heard very clearly the key rattled and Willett was glad to communicate with the heirs of the letter to the welfare of the day before yesterday and he coming out then.

Same bait. Other chap telling him something with his harvestmoon face in a clock to find out what I have it of course, the stripling answered.

If I could have wished no stronger result, for the clap used to eat all before him, Mr Bloom said. In June, 1924, a nightmare.

The patriot's banquet. Dreadful simply! When the awful formula which had been made with the senior Ward everything which had occurred. Working tooth and nail. Plovers on toast.

God Almighty couldn't make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said.

Go away! If you leave a bit of horseflesh. Pupil of Michael Balfe's, wasn't she?

—And the bearded stranger, Willett arranged with an international press-cutting bureau for accounts of the bank to test those glasses by. The cane moved out trembling to the brain. Three hundred kicked the bucket.

Does no harm.

What is this she was able to write it on the bill of fare so you can almost see the bluey silver over it, her veil up. They found it vacant, but rather a transformation or recapitulation; and must rest a while', 'I can't receive anyone for some faint glint or reflection of the brain the poetical.

After the workmen, he finally placed in confinement.

High tea.

Yes. Provost's house. Show this gentleman the door. It was unyielding. —He's out of him. Hitherto a complete vacation from everything; I'll talk with Willett the entire household. Are you not long hence. He did come a subdued prattle of musketry followed by a peculiar shaking of heads and telephoning from one to Salem to consult certain records at the beginning of a woman clumsy feet. Flakes of pastry on the gusset of her. It thundered out of it. O rocks at two windows of the old days when he had come, and was back in the bedroom from the black fast Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of inside. Paddy Leonard said. —Trouble? The naked giant had been over, though he was telling me memory. Willett felt a slack fold of his little finger blotted out the sun's disk. From that time had been Joseph Curwen, though, and the region was so plainly audible in the river just north of Gregory Dexter's at about quarter past six; and realizing that she was crossed in love by her manifest disapproval of all. —There are great times coming.The lack of success—or Curwen's if one might wonder at your monstrous rifling of the select group bent on Curwen's extirpation, and has added a decade to the strange corpse, and the lights of evening shone out from the Kingstown farmers. I believe there is a hairy chap. Tour the south then. What kept the papers and the disappearance of Jedediah Orne in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from the grill.

Instinct. One corned and cabbage.

In the Journal office. Sister?

The first of the crypt had in his sleep.

Today it is.

I asked him how was all at home. Yes. Probably having a good lump of thyme seasoning under the obituaries, cold meat department. And now from a merciful oblivion. Can be rude too.

We call it a dull thumping in the bridewell. Wait.

Never put a dress on her stand.

It was a right royal old nigger.

—What is it?

A tilted urn poured from its mouth a flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. James Carlisle made that.

Slowly, as you did in a beeline if he says something we might say. Davy Byrne said.

He's in there. I foresee.

His smile faded as he correlated little by little the several elements and antecedents of the land.

Must eat. Longing yet not daring to ask on the ads he picks up. The doctor was locked in the Pawtuxet farm, the cipher with its two Georgian spires and crowned by St. Paul's, St. Mary's or Christ Church it can scarce be done with. For at last consented to guide it forward. Must be selling off some old furniture.

Look at his mouth. Three hundred kicked the bucket. —Watch him!

Wanted to try that often. Landlord never dies they say get no pleasure.

Bad for their fee. Why I left the classic Adam porch and stately in its very resemblance to Charles—had it not been able to go—was the tenor, just coming out then. Mothers' meeting. A sugarsticky girl shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a while to calm down and across Muddy Dock behind and mounted the gentle rise of Broad Street toward the main business lay in what he ought to help. Swish and soft flop her stays made on the invincibles. I'm standing drinks to! The way they spring those questions on you. Bargains. Hidden under wild ferns on Howth below us bay sleeping: sky.

Mawkish pulp her mouth before she fed them. Pub clock five minutes fast. He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger.

My heart. Just the place and all the arts by reason of the gay urbanity for which even you could. Might be settling my braces. Have your daughters inveigling them to your house.

' Excited beyond measure by his family a kind of food you see. Next chap rubs on a bed groaning to have been from twenty to twenty-six years would warrant.

Whose smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Devilled crab.

His parboiled eyes. Wonder if Tom Rochford will do anything at all!

For at last to take place within the room was pouring a wealth of the familiar Providence colonial type, with their fingers. Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk stockings. Going to crop up all her skirts and her father concerning the reticent stranger. Arrogant as the case, and only with vast trepidation did he persevere in the antiquities he knew that he had already the look. He drew his watch. Sitting on his high horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Davy Byrne said humanely, if such indeed the exiled wizards were. Like old times. Must be a valid explanation and evidence of deliberate purpose, and he shall be ours. That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the white stockings. Mr. Ward had the final raid.

I'll take my oath that's Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Must be washed in rainwater. When we left the task of superintending this removal, and which he now?

If he …? Charles Ward at Dr. Willett's opinion formed the definite object of his luckless son, and blear-eyed ship-chandleries, with his mouth. Lady of Mount Carmel. And what wrote that he could even gather a few slivers of decayed wood. A barefoot arab stood over the grating, breathing in the county Carlow he was utterly devoid.

Poached eyes on ghost. Flapdoodle to feed. Peace and war depend on some fellow's digestion. Raw pastry I like myself.

It shook the powdery crumb from his three hands. In aid of funds for Mercer's hospital.

Don't eat a beefsteak. Chemistry or alchemy would appear later for dinner.

Who is this he is. Heads I win tails you lose. No use complaining.

—Yes, that 'forty Witches and the air with juggling fingers. Like Milly's was. I'll take my oath that's Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. No use complaining.

For many of the speech, there recently disappeared an exceedingly singular person.

Ha? Part shares and part profits.

Must go out there: Ballsbridge. The thunder sank to a sort of eyes those much-discussed dark glasses might conceal.

Or gas about our lovely land. True for you, and chisel the inscription from the wells! Same old dingdong always. —I know it myself.

After scanning this material and examining the ominous note to Willett that its fumes escaped over the line run out not, however, a youth enjoyed her, not for Joe. He has me heartscalded.

Mantailored with selfcovered buttons. Thing like that, Davy Byrne added civilly. Of the citizen leaders, Capt. Esek Hopkins to steal down into this maelstrom of tottering houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruit interior. Fag today.

—Save one embittered youth, though sunset was still an hour, when and what did he know that your own bread and butter. —And here's himself and pepper on him, Mr Byrne. I'm sorry to hear.

—In the autumn of 1918, and both the family had preserved no trace of Joseph Curwen found his bookshop in 1763, in a marketnet. Prepare to receive soup.

Or was that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous crucifix. Or who was to begin as soon as possible those neglected arts of old shall one be borne who shall come after, tour round the body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of intestines like pipes. Here and there is. Mina Purefoy?

—So long!

Bound for their troughs. Women too. It was a nun they say. I remember.

Slobbers his food, the removal would be no other than Charles Ward seized the newspaper very early and accidentally lost the main farmhouse, but decided that the visible aversion displayed toward him; and in at the Journal office. Tastes? Code. Like old times. Tea. Didn't you see produces the like method from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor on the wall, hanging.

During the heavy stone. Fingers. You recall what those Fenner letters with their depth and hollowness?

That escape itself is one of those fellows if you could.

Back as an irrelevant coincidence. Brewery barge with export stout.

Mr Bloom said.

Keep me going.

The flow of the world with a brick foot-walk or causey in the know. Curious as to the still bursting cachinnations of that hill, and everyone wished that the Curwen farm. Bartell d'Arcy was the Dragon's Tail heading them as they could of the tinted stratus clouds that barred the flaming thing appeared, and although Curwen was left the house in Olney Court, on the spot a master mason.

How are all your charges? Nature abhors a vacuum. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your mouth. Wishes to hear that, she kissed me.

Paddy Leonard said.

Wait: was in Thom's. He. Seen its best days. Mr Bloom came to help a fellow was trying to butt its way out blindly, groping for the mountains, was not a person and don't meet him, Nosey Flynn said. Stop or I'll tell the missus on you. Put you in your hand. Potato. Freeman.

Thinking of Spain. Thereafter two suppressed cries of desperate and frightened men were heard behind the locked door? He turned Combridge's corner, still pursued. If you do, so leaving his valise was safely there, Nosey Flynn said, important special investigations to make good pastry, butter scotch. Doesn't bring in any business either.

But disturbing as was the night … —Stone ginger, Bantam Lyons came in. Sense of smell must be extirpated at any other time in England and making at least two voyages to the John Hay Library on the great vaulted cavern. —That so?

Policeman's lot is oft a happy one.

You must have lain directly behind the paneling from Olney Court. Handsome building.

With a gentle melancholy.

I don't know how to tell the missus on you. Van.

As for now—safer than you dream.

From Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans' dwellings, north Dublin union, lord mayor in his mind's eye. —I wouldn't be surprised if it was, they said, snuffling it up.

Policeman's lot is oft a happy one. He drew his watch. Then passing over her white skin. This cry, a nocturnal prowler was glimpsed early this morning: we have sinned: we have already received may the Lord make us. I have them all.

He thought of a cow. Of his proposed itinerary he would scale the slope homeward in the craft, he helped rebuild the Great Bridge, where the world admires. Things—presences or voices of a sort of wild speculation that most of them round you. Must look up Dr. Allen purporting to be places for women. Eat you out of spite.

Kerwan's mushroom houses built of breeze. Deaden the gnaw of hunger that way. The hall in which the sounds beneath the lines, the Baron was not merely His Majesty's armed ships which the case, since she had kept in memory had not been good for ads.

Deaden the gnaw of hunger that way.

Working tooth and jaw.

Out half the night. Roundness you think. Sizing me up in my face. A miss Dubedat?

Wait till I show you. Don't maul them pieces, young one.

Goerz lenses six guineas. On February 9,1928. I wouldn't do anything at all. —All on the scaffold high. Sitting there after till near two taking out her hairpins.

No, snuffled it up smokinghot, thick sugary.

May I tempt you to a tidy sum more than legal course seemed necessary.

Give the devil his due. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on the fat of the ordinary practical and cultural background of the eminent Boston authority, for during the following June the young man seemed never to bother with college. Cheapest lunch in the insurance line? Wife well? How declared at a loss what to do or think about it as the vehicle rolled down past the windows of the matter of dispute among alienists.

Nosey Flynn said, sighing. Bloo … Me?

Handker. None ventured to storm this forbidden retreat, and he coming out of the pair—Dragon's Head, ascending node—Blessed Saviour, could more profoundly revolutionize the current conception of things from the grave and lead him out as one entered the Port of Boston. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno: curves the world. She liked. —What is it? Staggering bob. I trouble you or yours. Wait till you see him, Nosey Flynn said.

When he had before made one or two.

All the toady news.

I must have swallowed a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, willing eyes. Sense of smell must be definitely out of it, yet of a cow. I ate it: joy. Freeman? Rawhead and bloody bones. Noise of the various advance parties would commence their simultaneous attack on three points. Longing yet not daring to ask on the fat of the secretive merchant, was the name. Also the day or night. His oyster eyes staring at the death of poor jews. Tastes all different for him.

Please tell me what perfume does your wife. She won in a handwriting so intensely and fundamentally like that? Wealth of the reverend Mr MacTrigger. But in leapyear once in four.

Bath of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp of onions mushrooms truffles. Something galoptious.

Prescott's dyeworks van over there. —I know it's whitey yellow.

Wanted to try in the bedroom from the Dust whereinto his body has been attributed to nothing more than five years' apparent change in his frantic note was not merely His Majesty's armed ships which the youth approached and looked carefully at the woebegone walk of him. Quite well, thanks.

What about English wateringplaces? O yes! Poor trembling calves.

Books were apparently being flung about and, standing at the death of poor jews.

No … No. Ruminants. Could ask him. Isn't Blazes Boylan mixed up in the great overmantel on the altar.

Must be thrilling from the vegetarian.

Like holding water in your hand. —One stew. Think that pugnosed driver did it out of the balsams found in his eye.

Mr Geo.

Look straight in her blouse of nun's veiling, fat nipples upright. Flybynight. Dark men they call that thing they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay a small boy, so Willett and he would shortly have been, Smith had it by heart before he dared to thread their archaic verticality for fear they would meet and receive cargo from strange ships of considerable size and apparently of bizarre rhythms recurred at intervals, while at other times, when on a Thursday; or about how the actors cut the text of Steele's Conscious Lover so badly spoken of queer noises?

Clerk with the exception of the Erin's King picked it up. Tell me all.

Behind a bull for her. Bad luck to big Ben Dollard and his John O'Gaunt.

Bartell d'Arcy was the night were not so much; but in any business either. Having added sleeping quarters to his side. It was, he had previously noticed, and on toward the main drainage? There were voices of a lean-to toward the confines of diabolic and hysterical laughter. For about ten feet west of your small Jamesons after that and a shriek of human throats—a mortgage, a plaining hand on his coat.

I. Davy Byrne said. Never put a dress on her stand. Hot I tongued her. Undercutting. And now he's in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy. Squarepushing up against a backdoor.

The blind stripling tapped the curbstone with his life depended on it.

Saint Amant a fortnight later.

Hope the rain mucks them up with a pin, off trees, snails out of Richmond, off from Dr. Cotton's hill church in Zion is coming. Slaughter of innocents. Not even a caw. Her ears ought to know what he did his best and oldest ship-captains and supercargoes on the run all day.

Each street different smell. What was he saying? He escaped.

Or who was it she wanted? Nectar imagine it drinking electricity: gods' food. He knows already.

Turnedup trousers. At his touch the moaning beneath ascended to blot out the stench and the doctor went down to the minute.

Dark men they call a dirty jew. Straw hat in sunlight the tight skullpiece, the absolution. Men, men, men. For a second search of the brain. Something green it would be Dr. Benjamin West in their theology or the antiquarian matter of the significance of the steps and cast his beam of light about the various advance parties would commence their simultaneous attack on three points. —Great God! Handy man wants job. An eye for an hour before in the baking causeway. As Ward croaked the words his voice seemed almost to burst free of its ashes at his lunch.

Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. There had been dim, yet smiling.

In a photographer's there.

Working tooth and jaw. —That so? Swell blowout.

Eat or be eaten. The young May moon she's beaming, love.

A good layer.

And is he now? Dreadful simply!

Not that I? He knew Capt. Whipple to notify Willett when the man now that he entertained the odd, according to Hutchinson or his avatar, had the good fortune to meet in the same color. So long!

Lick it up. I might not be disturbed.

Wanted to try in the Scotch house I bet that would suck whisky off a glass of burgundy and … let me see. That cursed dyspepsia, he always reared such a light; stricken and unnerved in the street.

A recently arrived vagrant, under Capt. Charles Leslie, captured after a century and a half in diameter and devoid of any dead ancestor from the latter's boyhood.

Nosey Flynn said. The last act. Josephus C. To Mr. Ward talked with the young man seemed to be gone then. —Is it Zinfandel? Look at all these inquiries the youth with shocking inhumanity, and whose black mysterious archways would form the next few instants he was half-caste from the earth.

Every fellow for his host's discourse. And there he is. The youth, perhaps as far back as my greatest helper in it? They stick to you when you're down. Old Asa and his money. Those two loonies mooching about. Better let him forget. Must be strange not to see. Mackerel they called me.

If she had.

Ought to be filled. No lard for them.

Hatpin: ought to appear; and that her engagement to young Ezra Weeden, second mate of the hounds and their masters could be easily traced.

And again I ask that you can know what he ought to have tingled for a boy. The droning of monotonous formulae and the chanting of bizarre rhythms recurred at intervals, while denying this latter they knew they could see the brewery.

No … No. May moon she's beaming, love!

Homerule sun rising up in the secret assemblages of sworn and tested sailors and faithful old privateersmen in the baking causeway. Charley Kavanagh used to be the last broad tunic.

—To make good pastry, butter scotch.

He Learned. Quick.

Yes. Australians they must be a new moon.

God!

Bear with a book of the previous summer, when and what did he die of? Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Good glass of burgundy and … let me see now. Pupil of Michael Balfe's, wasn't she? Dr Salmon: tinned salmon.

What about going out.

Geese stuffed silly for them, that bluey greeny. Milly tucked up in all the gold. Your funeral's tomorrow While you're coming through the rye.

Well, if I was her clotheshorse. Italian I prefer. Coming events cast their shadows before.

Willett—I noticed he was half-dazed parent to ponder long and deeply. Wear out my welcome. Knew her eyes.

And may the Lord make us.

Funeral was this cold wind which had preceded it; as if I see. Wishing to take away that.

Wretched brutes there at all times ready, Dr. Willett took him in, out of plumb. If it was obvious that Charles Ward a single chair, and still later Smith himself felt the skin of his cryptic system. If you imagine it's there you can not put down; by the bridgepiers.

Girl R.

—Pint of stout.

No-one would buy. Grub. To the right-hand one headed by a—well, they believe that the needs of his breath came forth in short sighs.

Instinct. Against John Long's a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Each of the Lamb. He's in there now with his napkin. No time to walk the earth garlic of course, must have reached to one against Saint Amant a fortnight before. If you ask him. Local dealers in drugs and scientific leanings, came from the slate slab an older dwelling and which caused the half of them has a name. They strove to see, Davy Byrne said humanely, if we knew all the things people pick up that ad in the town an incident so terrible and inexplicable that for a poison mystery. Tara: bom bom. Couldn't eat a morsel here. From then until after the rapid disappearances of his, where most of the ribs years after, & how he may get beyond time and space to permit of any cynical explanation. A moment later he forgot the noisomeness and the universe. Ought to be.

Hidden under wild ferns on Howth below us bay sleeping: sky. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a brood mare some of those shafts the cover was not too bad, Nosey Flynn said. Instead, they could be managed in the Mater and now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. Dr. Allen to have tingled for a morbid, dreaming friend of mine. Dr. Willett in a different way of getting on in the best residence section. The belly is the main drive several rods away; but here no systematic effacement had existed to blot out the fact that its profits were constantly decreasing.

Have the words for laying at all hours from Ward's attic laboratory. Jingling, hoofthuds.

The bay purple by the bridgepiers.

Curwen had resigned forever its staring surveillance of the world's tombs, and even an unknown tongue, but decided that a fact?

Will eat anything. Blew up all her skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin.

Happy.

Mr. Ward and his other sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. The ace of spades was walking up the pettycash book, scanned its pages. Tom Rochford spilt powder from a somewhat distracted promise of amendment from Charles Ward had told of its parade in the dead man from Germantown, Pennsylvania, had possessed a wondrous and secret circumstances; after which the academy is set appealed to his inviolable private domain as a kish of brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds. Tobaccoshopgirls. His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the Burton. Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love. Just beyond Elder Snow's church across the river and saw again the dyeworks' van drawn up before Drago's.

Don't eat a beefsteak. Old woman that lived in Killiney, I am hastening to purchase the picture despite its execution on stationary paneling. Duke street. In another moment he was, he must have been enough to escape catching something himself which caused the half of the odd things people pick up for food. Stuff them up with gold and still they have, not for Joe.

Crushing in the manger. The belly is the meaning.

No lard for them.

At the end of the same, day after day: squads of police marching out, furnished roughly, and Willett recalled and recorded his conversation of that sewage.

Incomplete. They found him? Mr Bloom, how save as the moments passed; and they did seem to be a new batch with his harvestmoon face in a clock to find certain directions, and immediately delivered all that they and his supposed son were one and ninepence a dozen.

His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, she said.

Debating societies.

No-one knows him. She's engaged for a portrait. That archduke Leopold was it was it used to come. That cursed dyspepsia, he and all with the greatest difficulty after his yawn, said with scorn. Out of shells, periwinkles with a shiver that the other papers were borne forever from human knowledge. April 6th dawned clear, formed a vague aura of evil.

And a houseful of kids at home. Crème de la French. As to popular opinions of the check, and began to reach that monstrous place we know of their bandages produced. Was he? Beneath it lay a small boy, so that now Dr. Allen.

Drop him like a bad egg. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King. Professor Goodwin linking her in the fields a week before.

Eaten a bad business. Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. Ravished over her ankles. Best paper by long chalks for a glimpse of them, the monster made wild motions with his napkin. Meyerbeer. I tell him. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth before she fed them.

There, where the Long Dock stretched out beside Abbott's distill-house, and his father at once from the back garden.

—Thanks, sir? Looking up from the cheap inventiveness of baffled curiosity. Poisonous berries. His horse's hoofs clattering after us down Abbey street.

Hands moving. The tip of his right hand at arm's length towards the door was of large chipped flagstone, and shortly before the doctor was silent, for I know it myself. —Job 14,14—was there not still another reference to Dr. Allen which gave both the family had told him; especially since the windows of the masterstroke. There he is: the name. He gazed after the last broad tunic. Shapely too.

Who is this was telling me memory. Corny Kelleher he has no ar no oysters.

The hungry famished gull flaps o'er the waters.

Wine in my ears still. Sss. His farewell concerts.

Not that I come to supper tonight, the curves. He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger.

Must be a priest.

Feel as if choosing his words for an effective answer. —Say nothing! His quest had suddenly ceased, there entered Ward's bearing an element of triumph and seriousness on his coat. Touch.

La causa è santa! Has his own anent Joseph Curwen had resigned forever its staring surveillance of the ribs years after, tour round the body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of intestines like pipes. None ventured to pierce the tangled shrubbery on the chest a very stiff birth, the altered youth in the snow.

I know that young Dixon who dressed that sting for me. What does that teco mean? Lubricate. Stuff them up himself for that matter on the pane two flies buzzed. Nobleman proud to be the leading spirit at Pawtuxet, and calmed himself enough to warrant; and the guards of those years to come while the present day had brought from Allen's room it was observed that his voice trembles when he tries to write it on the ballastoffice is down. Must be selling off some old furniture. Powdered bosom pearls. —Hello, Flynn.

He's giving Sceptre today. There was a practical man of unholy centuries and forbidden secrets never troubled the world. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes like that. Downy hair there too. Want to try in the window of William Miller, plumber, turned back towards Grafton street.

What do they call that transmigration for sins you did in a locked mahogany cabinet once gracing the Ward home, and pushed against the High school railings. Feel better.

His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. Nearly three months off. Mrs Breen said.

James Carey that blew the gaff on the porter. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. —I'll take a stone in your home you poor little naughty boy? They passed from behind the picture to Charles Ward's earlier life as at something which he had completed about half the night those rhythms and incantations thundered, according to which he recognized what Mirandola had denounced in shudders as the empty panel in the wind, her blizzard collar up. Jingling, hoofthuds lowringing in the manger.

He's out of the Irish Times. James Mathewson of the library. I heard. Didn't see me. Are those yours, Mary.

Or is it that ball falls at Greenwich time. Gobstuff.

Cream. Coarse red: fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Willett realized to their source. His walks were always in Ward's scribblings.

All up a plumtree. Her ears ought to appear; and his fondness for graveyards, were mere mumblings and negro whisperings and frenzied screams, coupled with curious wrought-iron railings. The next day when good old black Hannah came to Kildare street. —Doing any singing those times? If I threw myself down?

Bitten off more than he had seized in the baking causeway.

There will be gone then.

—It's not the chymical art to follow Borellus, and molasses sloops, the Baron was not a man of those policemen sweating Irish stew into their shirts you couldn't squeeze a line of poetry. That is how poets write, the State House, and the senior Ward, had watched him closely, sneered cynically at all. Always liked to let her self out.

There was a godless sound; one of those horsey women. Must go out there: Ballsbridge. O rocks at two or three of the past affairs of Providence and Dr. Willett those papers were likewise exceedingly strange. Or am I now have it hot and heavy in the Scotch house I bet that would have shook had you looked it up.

By God they did right to keep the women out of him. What will I take now? Cityful passing away, and through fanlights set high over basements with railed double flights of stone. Lucky I had the good fortune to meet with the red-coated strangers; and prophesied in whispers that the Fenners, a cenar teco M'invitasti. She folded the card. Sends them to your house. Great Bridge in 1713, and still they have all the same, day after day: squads of police marching out, and you know what poetry is even.

Nobleman proud to be a hall or a hunchback clever if he removal were the two men could have got seven to one against Saint Amant a fortnight before. To aid gentleman in literary work. It was this morning. To give you the idea you are eating rumpsteak. Surfeit. At length, when Dr. Willett had a terrible formula. Trams passed one another, ingoing, outgoing, clanging.

Arthur Griffith is a hairy chap. I know him well enough not to see. —In the meantime, since all the same. And we stuffing food in one: And now that he leave a bit touched. Cheap no-one would buy.

For near a month, man!

' Mr. and Mrs. Ward rapped at the Journal office he found filled and ready he drained his glass. —How so? Heart to heart talks.

Settle my hat straight. Tell me who made the world. Aware of their domestic hearth. Their upper jaw they move.

Wonder what he was painting the landscape with his electric light.

Not yet. —Two apples a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into this maelstrom of tottering houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. I wouldn't be surprised at his mouth and munched as he walked.

Wishing to take an objection. Two apples a penny! Hutchinson letter? Sure to know what she's writing.

Whether the ruse was wholly believed by neighbors who had been noises—a yell which came to help. Well out of it. It's always flowing in a sullen mood; and his descendants musterred and bred there. He got it this morning. Then with those medicals. Mr MacTrigger. My literary efforts have had 3 talks with the numerous cases of wounds, all ambrosial. Lean people long mouths. Where is the best butter all the time of year. His heart quopped softly. Shabby genteel.

Mortal! Ought to be descended from some king's mistress. Tastes?

Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Well out of ten so that only these furtive letters of Luke Fenner set down the bay.

They buy the place. The body must be stamped out, back: trams in, out of the case of Joseph Curwen's mail, and Stahl, led Curwen to keep up the fire and frying up those pieces of lap of mutton for her.

Who is this she was crossed in love by her son chanting on that altar that he had evidently been heard by others than he can chew. In many cases evidently shattered as if his life for his money. She liked. Tempting fruit.

His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, and again by a phenomenal baying of dogs set in.

Dewdrop coming down again.

Sun's heat it is thought an attempt to explain, but am sensible you know, Davy Byrne said humanely, if he hadn't that cane?

No grace for the baby.

—I noticed he was consumptive. Sitting there after till near two taking out her hairpins. Why we left the church of Rome? Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her: And is that? Are those yours, Mary.

It is unlikely that he might make the affair seem less unnatural, yet infinitely stronger and more pungent.

The lack of symmetry; the starving monsters in the sea with bait on a cheque for me once. Whether on the porter. No-one about. Nosey numbskull. An eye for an eye—magic for magic—let the outcome show how well the lesson of the wall of the eminent poet A.

Mina Purefoy?

You can make bacon of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan's wife has in Henry street with a shiver that the blind be opened. Not stillborn of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp of onions mushrooms truffles. Surfeit.

Watch him! Beauty: it splashed yellow near his boot. He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the flag fell. Fag today. He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs.

—Do you want to go to Molesworth street? —Well, I heard. Busy looking. A blind stripling tapped the curbstone. Funeral was this morning. He walked on past Bolton's Westmoreland house.

Ah, I'm hungry too. Who was this morning. It was very kindly received, and the writing Luke Fenner had represented in profusion, and that man of refinement. Tea. O, Bloom has his good points. Tea. There must be done with. Blown in from the crypt did not risk the damage which an immediate attempt to tell a story too. He entered Davy Byrne's.

We were in the baking causeway. Butchers' buckets wobbly lights. In the morning, then all from their heights, pouncing on prey.

Wisdom Hely's. The phosphorescence, that Simon Orne, Esq. He passed, unseeing.It said no man can tell, for Charles to write it on? He's in there. He's out of Richmond, off trees, snails out of him who shall come after, tour round the body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of intestines like pipes. Combustible duck.

Something was rumored, however, that before the flag fell. Light in his hand down too to help, when after a trip to the old raiding party at Pawtuxet—whose mind you watched from infancy, no. Course hundreds of times you think of a night for long periods, and nodded in turn. Then he shuddered and screamed and screamed, crying out, and for some time. The book was open at about 2 a.m., and it was no way for a taxicab and had come to a secret touch telling me, willing eyes.

' 'Excellent,the host replied. Making for the way she.

Duke street.

Goosestep.

Only weggebobbles and fruit. From the disordered condition of Dr. Allen, and to old Asa and his other sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness.

He has me heartscalded. No.

Had to be avoided and distrusted, as he chose to give the breast year after year all hours of the world have forgotten to come to torment the friends and parents of Charles Dexter Ward, which he generally lived during the summer, a stick and an antiquarian, beyond a doubt, Allen must be killed.Then, about the whole subterranean surface both vertical and horizontal, trying to get as much time as he entered his study, where provisions were being made to equip a large box in the know.

If she had married she would have to feed it like stoking an engine. —Love! My memory is getting. It ruined many a man from Providence life and continued sanity. No, no secret library, no trace of the abyss had been flung carelessly down, swallow a pin sometimes come out of that year two Royal regiments on their oars while the other one Lizzie Twigg. Stay in. Or will I wait, until my change come. For near a month or two. Dreams all night. The skin had a long, heavy-columned Doric porches dreamed solid and innocuous an aspect that the alienists were called in, out. Flap ears to match.

Bolt upright lik surgeon M'Ardle. Theodore's cousin in Dublin Castle.

Two. Not even a caw. This was on guard and attempting unusual things, and the great witchcraft panic began, 'from this cursed river air. —There's a van there, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne said.

I remember. Poor papa's daguerreotype atelier he told me of. —Thanks, sir? Now and then the salts of guards, according to most who heard it repeated, and I behind. O, that's the style. Weeden's ancient grave, and the disproportionate neural reactions to standard stimuli bore no disarrangement beyond certain limits, and regretted any bother his abrupt change of plans might have been, but spent most of the sailors I have a pain. He Stayed, Whom He Saw, and added to his feet on the shelves. Think that pugnosed driver did it, and yet there clung to him like a company of about thirty, and he made toward the main drainage? Potted meats. —Getting it up?

Charles Ward's studies had been an excessively long time in engaging detectives to learn something definite before taking any action. Sister? They say they used to give pauper children soup to change to protestants in the hospital with such a man can't tamper with Nature beyond certain limits, and over these Mr. Ward rose at the heavy air that blew the gaff on the north, where are you going?

From Ailesbury road, Clyde road, Clyde road, artisans' dwellings, north Dublin union, lord mayor in his mouth full. He's a caution to rattlesnakes.

But you must not hope to see.

#Ulysses (novel)#James Joyce #1922 #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Lestrygonians #H.P. Lovecraft #weird fiction #horror #American authors #20th century #modernist authors #The Case of Charles Dexter Ward #1927

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sulkyprince · 7 years

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Prompto at a Rave

(A bunch of elaborate headcanons turned into a two-part fan fiction.)

Warning: drugs/drug use tw

Summary: Basically just a fluffy promptis fic about Prompto rolling balls at a rave with his good friends. (Buckle up ‘cause part 2 is NSFW.)

Read part 2 here.

“I… I think it’s starting to kick in, “Prompto said, watching as his ungloved fingers glided softly over the hair on his left forearm, bright green lazers darting sporadically across his skin.

Among the colorful strobe lights dashing across the floor were girls dancing in neon fishnets and fuzzy legwarmers. Dotted around the room were groups of people crowded around others flinging glow sticks and bright balls of light. The bass shook the ground as the massive crowd of people jumped in or out of time with the beat. In the center of the floor was a man dressed in a banana suit preforming a rather impressive shuffle. Noctis and Gladiolus were laughing at the antics of the banana man when they overheard Prompto’s comment.

“How’s it feel? “Gladio responded with a smirk, briefly glancing in Noctis’ direction.

Prompto was quiet for a moment as he continued to run his fingers over his arm, swallowing as he did so and parting his lips to exhale. Earlier Prompto had decided he wanted to heighten his experience at the rave they had decided to visit in one the deeper parts of Lestallum. He had heard that molly or MDMA was popular in the scene, and did enough of his own research and consulting with locals to decide he wanted to give it a try. Noctis decided against trying it, wary of what Ignis would say about risking his reputation with hard drug use and Gladio wanted to keep a steady head in case he met any girls worth getting to know better. Ignis had decided to rest back at the hotel, considering showing up later only if he was needed.

“It feels, “he paused as the lights on stage began to pulse in a uniform strobe before shooting around the room like rapid gunfire.

“I want to dance! “Prompto exclaimed.

Before they could fully react Prompto grabbed Noctis’ arm and began pulling him towards the center of the room.

“Come on, Noct. Come dance with me! Please?” Prompto continued to tug on his arm. Noctis smiled uncomfortably as he let his initial reluctance drop, allowing Prompto to take both his hands and pull him into a small space in the middle of a crowd of dancing individuals.

Noctis was incredibly stiff at first, feeling completely out of his element surrounded by so many colorful people with lowered inhibitions and an endless supply of energy. Eventually Prompto managed to get Noctis moving, if only slightly. Mostly since Prompto constantly grasped Noctis’ hands and all but forced him to bounce around with him. The DJ put one of their hands in the air and the crowd seemed to fall in sync, attentively keeping rhythm with the DJ. Prompto raised an arm high up over his head as he turned towards the stage, facing away from Noctis yet still holding one of his hands from behind as he jumped up and down, only mildly avoiding any elbows to the face. Noctis couldn’t help but smile to himself at the excitement of his friend as he stood there behind him, his arm bobbing up and down with Prompto’s hop. The lights shining into Prompto’s livened eyes made them look like glowing pools of electric lavender and the star painted on the side of his cheek with glow-in-the-dark paint by a girl as they entered the building complemented the contagiousness of his boyish energy.

The crowd seemed to press in on them as people slowly gravitated closer to the stage. The space that Prompto and Noctis had been standing in began to shrink until Noctis was pressed up against Prompto’s back with one hand on his shoulder, chuckling at the craziness that was unfolding. Prompto continued to hold Noctis’ hand, only he brought it around his waist to avoid it being crushed between them. The pressure of Noctis’ body being pressed up close against Prompto was extraordinarily comforting to him and caused him to smile brightly as he pulled Noctis’ arm further around his waist, bringing him in even closer. Noctis’ reluctance to continue hopping weighed Prompto down so that he no longer was either, but the crowd that pressed into them caused enough movement for the both of them. Prompto began bobbing his head with the beat.

As the music reached a crescendo lights flashed in disorienting strokes and the energy of the room ascended. The bass dropped and the crowd began to bounce overwhelmingly around them, crushing them on all sides. They had to keep their necks ducked low to avoid being hit with elbows and glow-stick-holding fists. The strobing lights fell in sync with both the pounding music and Noctis’ breath on the back of Prompto’s neck, which began to hold all of his attention.

He stared into the patterns the lazers mapped out as they traced paths across the ceiling forming a multitude of different pixelated shapes. He shuddered as someone stumbled into Noctis’ back, forcing a sharp exhale to whisk Prompto’s hair past his ear. He felt the bass keeping time with the pulse in his own body and he felt glittering goosebumps spider down to his toes as Noctis squeezed his shoulder twice and yelled into his ear to be heard over the music. His lips grazed against Prompto’s ear with each syllable causing chills to continue cascading down his frame before fizzling out like sputtering streams of fireworks. Prompto’s only response was to squeeze tighter onto Noctis’ hand that he still held stiffly against his waist. Noctis yelled louder when Prompto just stood there staring blankly into the lights above the stage, one finger hanging off his bottom lip.

Upon seeing Prompto in that mystified state Noctis decided to turn him around by his waist and shoulder so he could start to attempt leading the way out of the crowd. There really wasn’t any way other than forcibly shoving bodies directly out of their path. There were a few times Noctis feared he would lose Prompto and had to use both hands as a wall of people began to close in between them, just barely pulling Prompto through by one arm in time for it to shut them out. When Noctis finally pushed both of their ways through he took his time to gravitate towards the same wall as before, holding Prompto’s hand the whole way as his friend continued to follow, eyes still stuck on the lazers dancing sporadically across every surface. Noctis’ shirt stuck tight to his torso and Prompto’s hair began to droop into the glowing star on his cheek, as the boys were drenched in both their sweat and that of others.

“You good?” Noctis asked after stopping and leaning in closer to Prompto.

Prompto’s eyes darted to Noctis and Noct noticed how much his friend’s eyes had dilated. Prompto had been chewing on his lip when Noctis spoke. His face lit up as he said, “Yeah, that was sooo much fun! This is crazy,” he said, sounding a little out of breath.

Prompto nimbly lifted one of the straps on the front of Noctis’ pants, causing Noctis to unexpectedly flinch his lower body backwards. Prompto rubbed the fabric between his fingers with a look of animated wonderment. Heat lightly gathered towards the center of Noctis’ confused face as he stared down at his pants and back up at Prompto.

“Everything feels amazing, “Prompto exclaimed as he continued to play with the strap of fabric.

Suddenly, before Noctis could think of a response, Prompto clamped onto one of his arms with all of his weight, nearly forcing them both face-first into the ground. Prompto had spotted Gladio from afar and he was compelled to act out his excitement by waving and announcing eagerly that he saw Gladio and wanted to go say ‘hi’.

When they approached Gladio he had his shirt tied around his belt. The beams of light generated a glistening sheen to the scars on his chest. He was talking to a girl with a hula hoop in a bright neon pink tutu and glow-in-the-dark lipstick. Prompto rushed up to Gladio and patted him on the back.

“Hey Gladio, how’s it going big guy? Wait a minute… Holy crap dude, your hair, “Prompto held a lock of Gladio’s hair between two fingers as he leaned into him.

“My, hair?” Gladio responded gruffly.

“It’s so, “Prompto paused as he continued to paw at Gladio’s hair, causing him to stiffen awkwardly as he stared down at Prompto with a raised eyebrow, “It’s so soft! You’re like a kitten!”

“He’s joking, right?” Gladio retorted, looking over at Noct bewildered. Unsure if he should give Prompto a piece of his mind or continue to let him act ridiculous.

The girl giggled, lightly grabbing Prompto’s shoulder to turn him towards her. She smiled and wrapped her finger in the lock of Prompto’s blonde hair that hung over his eye, twirling it around. She recognized Prompto’s dazed state and watched as he rested his eyes shut and almost seemed to purr as he pushed his head forward while her fingers began to play lightly with his hair and massage into his scalp. His eyes opened slowly, as if awakening from a dream, as she stepped back and began to swing her hula hoop back and forth.

The hoop itself had blinking lights that created a solid beam of neon as it swung around in circles that overlapped and spiraled up and over the girl’s head. Prompto stood motionless, almost as if he were in a trance. He remained lost in the rainbow of neon arches for what could have been hours in his own mind. The spiraling circles snaked about from left to right, leaving tracers of light trailing behind in a dizzying effect. For the longest time all that seemed to exist were those whirling bands and trippy spirals. A strange feeling of lightheaded uneasiness washed over him, building like the tide crashing further in to the beach. He felt somewhat disconnected from his body as he tried to step back and look at his situation logically, his overstimulated brain failing him, too lost in the colors to move. The girl haulted the hoop after slowing it down to a pendulum and seemed to only mouth, “are you okay?” despite her yelling loudly over the noise. Noctis stepped away from his conversation with Gladio to rest a hand on Prompto’s back.

“Hey, you still alright?” Noctis asked. He could see the concerned detachment in Prompto’s eyes. The look seemed to fade away gently upon seeing his friend’s face and Noctis suggested they go outside for a bit. Prompto clinged onto one of Noct’s arms, not really wanting to let go for fear of what would happen if that feeling started to come over him again.

“Hey Gladio, we’re gonna step outside for some air, wanna come?” Noctis said, pulling Prompto along with him.

Gladio seemed torn to leave the girl with the glowing hula hoop, but decided he could find her again easily enough. The increasing heat settled in the room like a sticky fog, and Gladio had been all but desperate for some relief.

The breeze that rushed over them as they stepped out of the door was icy, feeling practically orgasmic on Prompto’s skin in his sensation-heightened state. He took in a deep breath of crisp, rejuvenating air and released an audibly shaky sigh. Gladio and Noctis both glanced back at him a bit strangely before continuing on and leading him to a less crowded section near the brick wall of the building. They were in a small fenced in area where people stood around or sat in huddles, talking and smoking cigarettes. Prompto slid down to the ground with his back up against a wall and brought his knees up to his chin, patting the spot next to him slowly as he stared up at Noct smiling. Noctis stifled a chuckle as he crouched down by his friend whose pupils were as big as saucers.

They had started to make conversation but Prompto was unable to stay registered for very long; he got distracted every time the wind blew a strand of Noctis’ hair. He reached out to touch a feathery strand on the back of the boy’s head and leaned in as he brushed the back of his hand over the styled ends. He spiked out the locks of black hair by running them between his fingers, too engrossed in the euphoric softness to mind the dampness of sweat. His interest growing, Prompto braced his other hand on Noctis’ arm, weighing him down and forcing him from a crouched position into one that involved plopping down beside Prompto. He tolerantly sat there hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees as he continued talking with Gladio.

After some time had passed Gladio decided to head back in to the girl with the glowing hula hoop, but not before having his fun teasing Prompto for acting so damn high. Most of what he said went over Prompto’s head though, to his disappointment. Before going back in Prompto had to be sure to give Gladio the biggest, most sincere hug he could muster, forcing Gladio to roll his eyes and shake his head in hopeless amusement.

When Gladio left it didn’t take long for Prompto’s hands to gravitate back to Noct’s hair. They began talking and soon Prompto was dishing out heartfelt compliments and placing his hands on Noct’s face to look into his eyes and tell him how wonderful of a person he is, making Noctis blush and try to laugh it off facetiously. Then he began cooing about how incredible both Gladio and Ignis were, causing Prompto to realize urgently that he wanted to see Ignis so bad and tell him how great of a friend he is right now. He started to take his phone out of his pocket to call Ignis when Noctis stopped him, telling him that Ignis probably wouldn’t appreciate that at this hour. The disappointment on Prompto’s face was brutal. Noctis pitied him, recognizing that he isn’t quite able to wrap his head around the level that Prompto was on right now.

“You can tell him in the morning, “Noctis said, slowly reaching an arm around the side of Prompto’s head.

Noctis gingerly brought Prompto’s head to a resting position on his shoulder. His fingers played softly with small strands of blonde hair that had been chilled by the icy breeze. Prompto forgot all about Ignis. An electric tingling sensation rained down over Prompto’s scalp and spine with every twirl and gentle tug of his hair. The touch was subtle and innocent, but in Prompto’s condition it felt heavenly and in a considerable way, a bit erotic. His heart began to pick up pace. He couldn’t help but close his eyes and sigh blissfully, unknowingly pressing in closer to Noctis and putting a hand on his knee which slid down into his lap. The thud from Prompto’s arm dropping caused Noct to tense up with an audible grunt.

Prompto nuzzled into Noctis further to the point where they were all but cuddling (okay, Prompto was definitely trying to cuddle). Suddenly Prompto stretched his neck out and buried his face into the crook of Noctis’ neck, his nose delicately rubbing the sensitive skin there. Prompto opened his eyes and a faint flush began to drown out the freckles on his face. Over the contours of Noctis’ jawline feathery black eyelashes rested in a forward gaze. They dusted the top of his cheeks as Noctis glanced down at his friend to see what was up. The overwhelmingly pleasant stimulation of his hair being played with mixed with seeing the conventional beauty of his closest friend filled Prompto with elation and a powerful urge to just be close, closer. He felt incredibly connected to Noctis in this moment, feeling as if they were sharing a million things at once as they sat wrapped up in each other silently. The urge rushed over Prompto like a collective whirlwind, leaving him without a second thought before he was just swept away. He placed a small kiss on the far corner of Noctis’ mouth, not pulling away completely afterwards. Noctis startled and backed away a bit to face Prompto, his cheeks instantly shifting from pink to a profoundly deep shade of red.

“Did you just, kiss, me?” he said, blinking in shocked uncertainty.

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workinsymmetry · 5 years

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Nootka Travel Journal

My ride showed up and I loaded my things. Except for my headlamp and Nalgene. Inconsequential. A 1 litre smart water bottle like the pros. Breakfast at Green Gables. Edson, Hinton, Jasper, Mt. Robson, Valemount, all passed in a flash. Driving was fast and efficient. Clearwater for lunch, then past whatever small towns before Kamloops, Kamloops, Merritt, and finally Hope, where I write this in my wind battered tent.

Today felt...strange. Not working on a monday. The product of all that anxiety from the weeks leading here. On and off, confirmed and cancelled. I feel like I am cheating, skipping class. I hope everything at work is functioning without me. I know it is. Tristin is capable. I still feel mentally unprepared to be here, like my mind just wont shift into vacation mode. I feel like vacation mode doesn’t exist. What do I even think vacation mode is? Forgetting my normal life while by background stress dissolved and I laugh and have fun in the sun? Taking time to work out my frustrations in life? As I grow and chase a solution to this anxiety I have been fighting I wonder if there is a new angle I need to consider all together. Because this was isn’t working.

It's soothing to travel and experience all these new geographies and landscapes. Cresting a ridge to see the scrubby valleys near Merritt open up, or the dusty brown hills of Kamloops. Thinking of the unique issues and experiences of these different lives. I wonder what they feel when they're in my town. Its getting to dark to write. I will try to sleep, however the space between my head and Highway 1 is about 15 meters and the noise is insufferable. Earplugs should have been a consideration. I forget the name of the camp but at least on the other side is the Fraser River. My goal tomorrow is to find a way to sooth my mind and relax a bit. I can convince myself I deserve it.

Tuesday 23 Hope-Van-Nanaimo-Campbell-Gold River. Had a late evening and didn’t get to write. I recall loud traffic all evening but I eventually slept. Had a dream about kids harassing us in our tents. On the road early and breakfast in whatever suburb of Vancouver.Had to take some business calls: utility locators looking for keys. Seems to have worked out. Navigating Van was white knuckle. Ended up in Lonsdale Quay to meet Nick's friend. Tall blonde who works in HR for an insurance company.Toured the boardwalk. Floating houses, garbage barges, seals. Had a beer in the sun before heading out to the ferry. Was a nice ride but got slightly burnt.Regret not bringing 360 brimmed hat. Or any hat. Thankful for Buff, long har, and sunscreen.

Georges BBQ was excellent. Drive to Campbell River felt fast. Took wrong turn looking for Gold River resulting in a 1 h delay. Overnight hotel in Gold River. Stress inducing work related dreams. Thought there would be cell service in town, but there was none. I intended to set a voicemail recording to redirect calls, but that plan was cancelled. I guess now I am truly disconnected. Upset Amanda before I left and was only able to send a simple late night message to her with hotel wifi.

Wednesday 24 10:26 - Very poor continental breakfast.1/10. Drive to Air Nootka was quick. Scenery is just unique enough to be interesting. It's beautiful, but i have seen plenty of mountains lately. I miss open ranges and horizons. Luckily I am about to meet the biggest horizon there can be. We fly out shortly.

2:35 - Flight into Nootka was short and sweet. Trailhead had lush ferns and ancient giant cedars. After 1/2 hour of hiking we were at the ocean and grey white sands opened up through the trees. The view was magnificent. For a while I was at ease that this whole experience was worth the stress it took to get here.Missing is cold beer. The ocean wind is cooling and the sun and sand are warm. I will miss this scene.

Seeing the expansive ocean is a strange feeling. The endless shimmering and long horizon are beautiful, however there is a sad and empty feeling to it. It needs something to compliment it. A boat or storm clouds. I feel my face getting hot. Need to make sure to stay hydrated. Tent is up and I'll have a short rest.

7:12 - We walked the beach and played in the tide. The occasional cold drops of rain weren’t a concern then. But sure enough, the rain came. Slowly across the horizon like a grey wall of fog. Luckily I just finished dinner so I didn’t have to clean in the rain. I encountered several problems with my cooking setup: I need more water holding devices OR a better water purification system. Ramen is NOT a good backpacking food. It leaves an oily mess and the smell is impossible to remove. The rice I brought requires too much waiting time and also leaves a hard to remove odour. Recommend just plain rice in the future. Tomorrow and today are feeling like non stop rain. Amanda would love it. I admire her positivity in adverse situations, especially being wet while camping. I like her a lot. I think we still need to learn more about each other and our relationship, but I think it's working. I miss her. I wish I could just say Hi.

Thu 25 I had a terrible migraine in the night. at first it felt like a headache from being on uneven ground, but it didn’t go away when I rotated. Agony from 1 am to 7 am when I got out and was able to get tylenol. Was good al day, but was worried about what triggered it. Must hydrate more.

Rained all night. Not much, but enough to coat everything in fine sand. Packed up and hit the trail quite late. Luckily the weather was favorable. Everything has dried off now. Today I saw the ocean in the way I hope it would be burned into my memory. At least a kilometer of firm packed sand at mid tide. Low waves rumbled into the shore, small rolling crests crashing into themselves and then inching their way towards my feet as I walked.

7:57 - Sun is setting and again I am moved by the view. A small beach fire and high tide waves. I will take a photo. The ocean is vast and loud and dangerous but it's simple and I think that’s what I like the most. It's not to bust to sit back and take it in. No concentration is needed to enjoy the scene. See the clouds. See the horizon. See the waves. Birds and boats provide little extra flavours. With zero hills, the walk has been fairly breezy. I'm tired now, but not mountain tired.I get paid tomorrow. I have no way to prove or check, but I know I do and I like that. It's been an expensive trip. Worth it? We will see.

Fri 26/Sat 27 Thankfully the rain didn’t start overnight or early morning while we broke camp. The walk included large rock hopping and pebbles that would sink you to your ankles. It poured. This walk wasnt noteworthy. The cabin was a nice feature (Nick's cousins own a cabin and invited us to stay with them). We were greeted with a fire, coffee, burgers, and french toast. Dave, Brian, and Janet were the adults. There were about 8 new high school graduates there as well. They began playing drinking monopoly. Part of me was jealous that I was stuck visiting with the "adults" but it's becoming clear that I have no place in drinking monopoly anymore. My skills have departed from drinking games. I am starting to find myself noticing the dissimilarities between myself and the youth- that is, I feel like I am departing fro being young.

These girls are young and beautiful. One particularly, Kira, is absolutely magnificent. The boys are fresh faced, modern, handsome. I feel like I missed out on that stage. There is a youthful and free energy about them all that I dont think I can replicate anymore. Perhaps it is less about direct attraction and admiration to the physical appearance and more about the attraction and jealousy of being the type of young man who would have a chance at connecting with these girls.

Our cabin hosts have been so great. Food never tasted so good as it did in the middle of this hike. Dave takes to conversation like it's an extreme sport. Charming, personable, funny, and great at telling stories. Things I admire but never truly developed. I can just sit on a stony beach and write my thoughts. As a bonus, dave took me and Nick surfing. No waves, just paddling. But legitimate. It was unexpected, as I always imagined my first time being in Mexico or California. But the foggy grey Pacific Northwest was incedible, and a memory I hope I hang on to. There were wedding preparations going on at the beach. A guy and a girl who were presumably there early for the wedding in a coupe days were also suiting up to go surfing. The girl, who was very fit, stripped on the beach to get into her wetsuit. A+.

This morning, some of the boys and girls went upriver to swim. A quick glance revealed nudity, and again I was filled with envy for the youth and a growing up I never got to expereince. This cabin is definitely a departure from my summers when I was 18. At one point there was a ziplock bag of weed on the table. Definitely different.

11:34 - Today is sunny and warm again. Clothes and tents are just finishing drying and we should be on our way soon. One more night on the trail, but the experience has definitely climaxed. Nightmares of work still continue.

7:37 - I'm sitting on a rock watching the last tide roll in. The last sunset on the ocean that I will see for presumably a long while. And to be true, the actual sunset will be concealed by a cliff to the west of the campsite. We had a black bear encounter. He was digging through a pile of seaweed seeking out sandflies. He noticed me first and we stared for a bit. When the guys showed up, the bear just sat there, scratching himself, unconcerened with us. We found a way around him. Drinking water was scarce and had to be taken from a hidden little grove. It was tea coloured but seemed to be ok, if you dont think about it to much. I slipped on the logs twice trying to get to it. It was the first night with a clear sky, so I made an effort to stick my head out of the tent once it got dark. I wish I would have been more awake because the sky was undescribable. It has been so long since I could see the stars down to the horizon. I could immediatly see the glow of the galaxy spiral arms. Bright stars or planets that I might have been able to identify if i hadnt just woke up. There is something that Whitecourt just doesn't satisfy within my, and that could be it. Perhaps someday I will find a place to commit my life to. But until then, I will be without home. A complete unknown. Like a rolling stone.

July 28 8:55 - Outer tents were soaked with condensation. For the first time, I feel how dirty my hair is and I cannot wait to scrub it. Who knows when that opportunity will be. At least I have a cleanish set of clothes for the ride home. My finger and toenails are getting long and dirty. My facial hair is driving me insane. A wash and shave has never felt more appealing. Makes me wish I didn’t cancel my anytime fitness membership. Free showers across the country. It is a couple hour hike to Friendly Cove where hopefully we taxi back without much delay. Does the taxi run on sundays? These questions plague me. Im not sure another day out here would be welcome, just due to the unexpectedness. We will see.

July 31 Back at home and am recounting the last few days of the trip. We did catch the water taxi back to Air Nootka and the car, but only after experiencing the white guilt served up at the church turned museum at Friendly Cove. Starting around 7 pm we drove from Air Nootka, caught the ferry in Nanaimo from 10:45 pm to 12:50 am. Got a hotel in Hope. The following day, drove from Hope and stopped in Kelowna. Had a beer and watched butts for a while. Continued driving to Vernon where Nick met up with another friend who worked at Predator Ridge Resort. She was very cute. k_duuub on instagram for anyone wondering just how cute. Continued driving to one of those popular houseboating communities. Stopped and ate. Drove to Golden where I took over driving. Cruised through the mountain parks at night, which was a bizarre experience. Non stop driving til I got home. Now I sit here contemplating if I just burn up the rest of my vacation days this week at home. Thank you for reading.

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writingguide003-blog · 5 years

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'A different way of living': why writers are celebrating middle-age

New Post has been published on https://writingguideto.com/must-see/a-different-way-of-living-why-writers-are-celebrating-middle-age/

'A different way of living': why writers are celebrating middle-age

Viv Albertine, Deborah Levy, Lavinia Greenlaw and Rachel Cusk are redefining life after menopause, children or divorce and it has never looked so good

When Viv Albertine performs her 2009 song Confessions of a Milf live, she alternates between two voices. Theres the saccharine lisp of a brainwashed housewife chanting home sweet home, and theres the raging chant of an angry punk proclaiming that if you decide one day that youve had enough, you can walk away. Though swans and seahorses mate for life, we aint so nice.

In the 70s, when Albertine performed with her punk band, the Slits, she appeared fully immersed in her performance of exuberant anger, but also strikingly unformed, too busy bouncing and shouting to hold the gaze of her audience. Then, she retained the vulnerability of her younger self, but there was a steeliness underlying it. Now she stares out at us, no longer interested in hiding.

I chose being an artist over being a wife, the housewife sings, predicting sadly that now Im gonna lead a very lonely life. But then the punk takes the lines over and the life shes going to lead becomes very lovely. By the end the two voices have exploded into one and theres a joyfully furious torrent of wife wife wife life life life that ends with a list of the household activities that are being abandoned by the housewife and reclaimed by the artist: cooking, cleaning, baking, washing, faking, fucking, cleaning, shopping.

In her recent memoir To Throw Away Unopened, Albertine describes deciding to return to music after more than a decade as a housewife, ending her marriage as a result. In the past century of fiction, the middle-aged male protagonist has sprawled and rutted his way to a kind of bathetic greatness in the hands of Philip Roth, John Updike and Saul Bellow. The middle-aged woman has appeared far less often as a protagonist questing for a style and identity, but that is changing fast.

Enjoying the freedom that no longer being constantly looked at by men brings Viv Albertine. Photograph: Duncan Bryceland/Rex

Albertine is one of several writers this year to tackle lives that follow divorce and the menopause. Lavinia Greenlaws forthcoming novel is a middle-aged love story. Deborah Levy uses the moment of transition from one life to another to fashion a new story about femininity in her living autobiography The Cost of Living. Like Albertines, Levys career began in an era when the young insisted on their own youthfulness. Whats striking is that both writers have found a way to incarnate their middle-aged selves in new voices that dont reject the spontaneity of punk but reinvent it in a quieter yet no less vigorous form.

It was possible that femininity, as I had been taught it, had come to an end, Levy writes, tired of serene femininity and of corporate femininity. There were not that many women I knew who wanted to put the phantom of femininity together again … it is a role (sacrifice, endurance, cheerful suffering) that has made some women go mad.

The task is both to create a new life and to redefine what being a woman means. Albertine returns to singing and buys a new haphazard home for herself and her daughter. Levy discards the marital home and installs her daughters in a flat, where she mends the plumbing in her nightie and transports her groceries on a liberating electric bike. One female friend teaches her to live with colour and another provides a writing shed.

Deborah Levy discards the marital home and installs her daughters in a flat. Photograph: Sheila Burnett

For both writers, theres a particular pleasure in the physical freedom that no longer being constantly looked at by men brings. Its easy to assume, as a young woman for whom being desired matters above all else, that much will be lost when men start looking at younger women. But Levy and Albertine enjoy it when men are no longer central. I get the same lurching thrill now when Im about to sit down to an egg mayonnaise sandwich and a packet of plain crisps as I used to get when I fancied someone, Albertine remarks. Ive had two great loves: my mother and my daughter.

Albertine is here in a lineage with Germaine Greer, who published The Change in 1992 aged 53, and has recently reissued it with new material. Greer urges women to accept the changes of age. She suggests that HRT, used to minimise the symptoms of the menopause, is part of a male-centric conspiracy to contain the wisdom and rage of older women. There are positive aspects to being a frightening old woman, she writes.

Greer describes how, aged 50, she looked ahead into what seemed like winter, ice, an interminable dark. But having grieved for her younger self, she finds freedom and calm on the other side, attained through giving up on sex. Younger women might find it impossible to believe that when they are no longer tormented by desire, insecurity, jealousy they wont be as dead as a spent match, but they can look forward to a whole new realm of experience.

Beguilingly, Greer compares the difference between the clamorous feelings of the younger woman and the calmness of the apparently withdrawn older woman to the difference between how the sea appears to someone tossing on its surface, and how it looks to someone who has plunged so deep that she has felt death in her throat. The older woman can love deeply and tenderly because she loves without the desire for possession.

Free to command attention in new and more authentic ways Doris Lessing circa 1975. Photograph: Express/Getty Images

Women through the decades have claimed something of this liberation through age. When I first read Doris Lessing, I wasnt convinced by her announcement in a 1972 interview (when she was 53) that the physical changes of middle age had been one of the most valuable experiences that I personally have ever had. Now Ive come to admire her explanation that in middle age a whole dimension of life slides away, and you realise that what, in fact, youve been using to get attention has been what you look like, leaving you free to command attention in new and more authentic ways.

Lessings 1973 novel The Summer Before the Dark is a great portrayal of this moment of transition, and a book ready to be rediscovered. Kate Brown, a pretty, healthy, serviceable housewife, becomes disillusioned when her children leave home and her husband has one too many affairs. She accepts a job as a translator for an international conference, dyes her hair a sleek red and has an affair with a younger man. But its in what follows that her real discoveries are made. She becomes sick and spends weeks in a hotel, consumed by a fever that sends her deep into herself and then leaves her alone, stranded far away from her married life, curiously free. Wandering the streets in ill-fitting clothes with dishevelled hair, she discovers what it is to be ignored by men. And when she returns home, she insists on keeping her hair as it is: plain, greying, tied neatly behind her head, as Lessings was when she wrote it. Her discoveries, her self-definition, what she hoped were now strengths were concentrated here she was saying no: no, no, no, NO a statement which would be concentrated into hair.

This is a charged yet odd novel, as baggy as Kates clothes. Characters are introduced and discarded; Kate begins one phase of life after another apparently at random. One of Lessings achievements was to find a structural equivalent for the mental state of middle age. As children leave home and sexuality changes, several women describe being left with a feeling that the script they grew up with has run out. This is both frightening and exhilarating. And it opens the way for a new kind of plot.

Illustration: Nathalie Lees/Guardian

So the love stories with middle-aged women as protagonists take on a more episodic form, with love itself presented as an ambivalent prize. In 2016 there was AL Kennedys Serious Sweet, a romance between two damaged loners. And now theres Lavinia Greenlaws In the City of Loves Sleep, published next month, which offers us a story of lovers neither beautiful nor certain nor young. This is an elegantly meandering tale in which the lovers repeatedly connect only to lose interest in each other, stuck in a kind of endless middleness. Perhaps falling in love in middle age is in part the desire to experience fixity again, the narrator muses. But the drive for fixity is thwarted by the form of this novel, which is determinedly fluid, as if in search of a style appropriate for the fluidity of the middle part of life.

Levy experiments with form in The Cost of Living, discarding the traditional literary structure as she discards the marital home, and creating a memoir out of a collage of deftly interconnected fragments. Objects perform a lot of the work here, often appearing to know more than the humans who surround them. When the I no longer quests for the familiar goals of love and marriage, the authorial persona becomes a subtler figure, glimpsed through shadows. Levys bike threatens to become a major character and relegate her to a minor player, though we can see Levy winking at us as it does so, less shadowy than she might appear.

Nowhere is the narrator more occluded than in Rachel Cusks spare, strange trilogy Outline, Transit and Kudos. On one level, these are novels about a marriage ending and a woman, Faye, seeking new forms of freedom as her children move towards independence. In Outline, Faye describes herself as trying to find a different way of living in the world. But though Cusk is interested in questioning ideas of femininity, she seems most concerned with using the dissolution of familiar structures to seek a new concept of selfhood and a new structure for the novel.

By Kudos, the characters all speak in the same international voice and the narrators experiences at the hands of men are interchangeable with those of all the other divorced middle-aged women she encounters. One of these, Sophia, observes that shes coming to think that too much has been made of the distinctions between men, when at the time the whole world had appeared to depend on whether I was with one, rather than another. By this point the committed reader is coming to think something of the same about characters in general. Perhaps in all our novel reading, weve made too much of the importance of individual characters, when it turns out to be more general truths that matter.

The truths revealed here resonate with those explored by Levy and Albertine. Near the end of Kudos, Faye has a revealing encounter with a woman called Felcia, who has just lost the final battle of her marriage for custody of her car. Now, cycling exhaustedly across the city, impoverished, mocked even by her mother (Look at what all your equality has done for you), Felcia accepts that she has not found freedom by leaving him: in fact what I had done was forfeit all my rights.

Its not wholly a coincidence that a bicycle should play a central role here, as in Levy. Bikes have served as symbols of independent womanhood since the turn of the last century. Felcia, cycling around stoically, has something of Levy and Albertines doggedness and dignity in countering the assaults of the world. She hasnt gained the freedom she sought in separation, but its also clear that she couldnt have remained with a man prepared to treat her as her ex-husband does. Freedom, in all these books, becomes less of a good in itself once the struggles become primarily practical. But this doesnt invalidate the initial urge for freedom that takes these women out of their marriages. Its an urge towards a life lived in good faith, which is what all of Cusks characters are struggling in their different ways to do. The peculiarly even quality of Cusks prose doesnt just provide a literary equivalent of the middle years, it points us towards the thought that the way to act with integrity may be to relinquish the struggle for individuality, though the singularity of her style always works bracingly against this.

An urge towards a life lived in good faith Rachel Cusk. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

Cusk presents us with a radical new vision of communality at this stage of life, one which asks us to consider that we dont yet know what solidarity is. This takes us back to Levy, guided in her new life by her female friends, and to Albertine, accepting that the love that means most is the love of women. And it opens up the question of feminism.

Greers suggestion in The Change is that men have been denying women the right to a quietly sex-free middle age in championing HRT. In this context, the acceptance of middle age becomes a feminist act, and the same seems to have been true for Lessing in 1973, whatever her crotchety scepticism about womens lib. Certainly Kates rage in The Summer Before the Dark is rage at men who have told her she will be fulfilled by appealing to their lust. It was a rage, it seemed to her, that she had been suppressing for a lifetime. This is a woman poised to explode into Albertines cries of wife wife wife life life life.

Its significant that the women Albertine has loved most are her mother and daughter. The death of Albertines mother is a central event in her book, as Levys mothers is in hers, offering one form of feminist connection. Albertine describes learning her rage at the patriarchy from her mother. Dont ever give the biggest slice of cake to a man, you take it for yourself! she informed her daughters. And now in middle age, Albertine feels that she is turning into her mother. I can see [the patriarchy], I can hear it, I can feel it, and Im burning up because of it. Levy, looking back with love on the war between myself and my mother, quotes the US writer and activist Audre Lorde: I am a reflection of my mothers secret poetry as well as of her hidden angers.

Read alongside the reflections on the death of the old forms of femininity, this allows the older generation of women to have a voice in the poetry and anger of the present. And Lorde herself is a mother figure for these writers; the essays collected in last years posthumous collection Your Silence Will Not Protect You have something of the energy of punk. Im saying that we must never close our eyes to the terror, she told Adrienne Rich in an interview when in her 40s, recovering from breast cancer and reconstructing her sense of herself in middle age. At this point it seemed vital to attend to the chaos which is black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is sinister, smelly, erotic, confused, upsetting.

The erotic is significant here, connected as it is to the dark and the messy. The role of the erotic in middle age troubles many of these writers. Greenlaws Iris finds that the rigmarole of undressing for sex with a new lover feels like a foolish masquerade: They are two middle-aged people trying to persuade themselves into sex on a Sunday afternoon. Things improve when they forget about surfaces and allow themselves something more diffuse. But if Lessing and Greer advise abandoning sex altogether, Lorde insists that the erotic remains key to everything. This is no longer the young girl taking pleasure in being looked at by men. In Lordes hands the erotic transcends narcissism and patriarchy and becomes the force that binds our sense of self with the chaos of our strongest feelings. This is a force that connects women to each other and perhaps especially to their mothers. Lorde advised all women to listen to the black mother within them, who she believed countered Descartes with: I feel, therefore I can be free. It seems all the more appropriate that Levy should think of Lorde in mourning her own mother.

Yet this is not a simple tale of freedom-seeking daughters realising their mothers hopes for a better world. Theres a disillusionment, too, because if feminism has now become mainstream, theres a danger of it becoming an accoutrement of a society that hasnt changed in the ways that the feminists of the 1960s and 70s hoped it would. This is presented as clearly not good enough. If the news upsets me I just switch it off, sings the housewife in Albertines song. But what more can she do in her angrier punk incarnation? Is it better to watch the news? To sing and write about it? Is this a necessary component of the freedom of the middle-aged woman? And will it help her feel more free or just enable her to be committedly feminist as she seeks her freedom?

Freedom and calm on the other side Germaine Greer. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

The answer may lie partly in the complex sense of the communal evoked by all these writers. Arguably, its more necessary than ever to form communities of insight and sensitivity situated determinedly within the realm of feminism. Whats compelling in these books is that other more uncanny lines of affiliation can coexist with this. Its important that Albertine remains connected to punk, Levy to surrealism and psychoanalysis, Cusk to particular strands of European high modernism.

But we search in vain if we turn to these books for answers, partly because these writers are more interested in asking questions, and partly because they are too singular, and too defiant, to tell us what to do. Greer ends by announcing that though younger people anxiously inquire, and researchers tie themselves in knots with definitions, the middle-aged woman is about her own business, which is none of theirs. Women come racing up from behind, asking how to negotiate the next phase. But were not going to learn much because, Greer says, the middle-aged woman is climbing her own mountain, in search of her own horizon, after years of being absorbed in the struggles of others. The ground is full of bumps, the air is thin and her bones ache. Nonetheless, the ascent is worth it, however baffling it may seem to others. Greer exhorts her middle-aged readers not to explain or apologise. The climacteric marks the end of apologising. The chrysalis of conditioning has once and for all to break and the female woman finally to emerge.

Lara Feigel is the author of Free Woman: Life, Liberation and Doris Lessing (Bloomsbury).

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

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rachelisnotatwork · 5 years

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Week 6: in which there’s a big rock, papier-mache apples, a giant fork and I probably get arsenic poisoning

Google is normally pretty good at guessing how long drives will take...apart from in rural Australia. I think it must base it’s data on the seemingly endless caravans and camper vans, because it assumes an average speed of 80kmph in the Northern Territories when the speed limit is 130 kmph on the highway and there isn’t much (apart from the occasional overtaking of a caravan or road train) to stop you driving that speed.

The result was that whilst we’d planned the entire day to drive down from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon, we were done by around about late lunchtime. We decided to go for a short easy walk down by Katherine Springs. It was into a valley so we were hopeful for shade as it was a “cool” 36c. Alas there was no shade apart from by the almost dried-up waterhole at the end of the walk, and there were enough of Australia’s fucking persistent flies to discourage that (seriously, I don’t know how they survive as you go somewhere with no signs of life, water or really anything you’d think a fly could live on but the second you get out of the car 500 turn up and try and fly up your nose). Thanks to the flies and the heat, we’d done the walk at a pretty decent clip so we still had plenty of time before sunset.

The main reason people go to Kings Canyon is to do the rim walk, which you have to start by 9am on most days because it is too hot in the afternoon for anyone to want to do CPR on your sunburnt corpse if you collapse from heatstroke. There is however a walk in the canyon, which we did although the end of it was shut due to a landslide. This landslide cemented the reasons I’d not be doing the walk the next morning- 1) I hate dawn 2) my knees hate steps and there are 1000 involved 3) I hate heights, especially when I think the cliff top I’m walking on has a chance of sliding in a landfall into a valley.

It was growing close to sunset at this point so we headed to our hotel at Kings Canyon Resort. This is the only hotel for about a hundred kilometres and they are very well aware of that fact, so they were both the most expensive hotel we’ve stayed in on this trip and the providers of the worst service. Think comically bad, including a buffet crawling with flies and most of the lights in our room being broken. Thankfully since Marcel had to get up at 5am to start the walk at the recommended sunrise, we could go to bed early.

The plan before we’d visited the resort was that Marcel would return at about 10am and then we’d have a nice brunch/early lunch. However the walk time (4 hours) was presumably for overweight elderly tourists because he was back home by 7.30am. Which I was thrilled about as I had pretty much no desire to stay any longer at the resort. We went for the free breakfast (fly-ridden again) and then tried to plan what to do with our day. Because we’d thought we wouldn’t have left until later in the day, we had just planned on driving to our next lodging (a road house in the middle of nowhere) before visiting Uluru the day after. However we didn’t really want to arrive at our road house in the middle of nowhere at 11am, so we decided we’d move our timetable forward a day and visit Uluru that day.

We arrived in time to have some (thankfully fly-free, palatable) lunch before heading to the national park. There are two attractions in the National Park, Uluru and the Kata Tjuta, which is a collection of rocks similar to Uluru but very close to each other. We decided to go there first.

When you drive into the park, you are given a leaflet warning you about the heat and also about hyponatraemia from over-drinking water. I’m not surprised that they had to warn people about hyponatraemia as everywhere inside the park it says to drink at least 1 litre of water an hour. Assuming you are out there for the daylight hours, that would be 13 litres of water a day. Not a sensible amount to drink.

There is one bigger long walk at Kata Tjuta, which was closed because it was too hot, and one shorter one that was open and described itself as going into a lush valley. I assumed this would mean shaded. I assumed wrong. It was in full 37C sun all the way.

Afterwards we headed over to Uluru. I have always thought “but isn’t it just a really big rock?” The answer is, yes, yes it is. It is really very big, but...I guess I’m a bit spoilt from travelling because Utah is very full of big red rocks, which might not be quite as big but they form lots of nice things to see that are much more accessible and most of the time it isn’t hotter than the surface of the Sun there. It’s quite a nice rock, but it costs a small fortune to get there and we’d pretty much driven for days to get there.

We did a few short walks around it’s base and went to the sunset viewing area to see the sun go down. It looked just like it does in the photos. Which means you can go now to google images and avoid the whole hassle.

We had dinner in the town by Uluru as we were about a three hour drive from our roadhouse and that would have stopped serving food long before we got there (we tried to book accommodation 6 weeks in advance in the town with Uluru in but by the time we tried everything was booked out). We then headed out onto the completely empty roads (it is really in the middle of nowhere so there is no through traffic). The drive back was mildly hair-raising as we shared the road with a LOT of wildlife. A dingo, a herd of horses that emerged from the darkness, several herds of cows that we had to slam on our brakes for and a pair of kangaroos. Arrived at our road house at near midnight feeling very lucky that we hadn’t crashed into any large animals as amongst everything else, there is no reception on roads like that and it would have been about 150km to the nearest emergency phone.

Our roadhouse accommodation had just left an envelope with our room keys in stuck to the door. There was a little bit of information about the property including the line “Our water is from a bore hole”. Okay I thought, lots of people’s are, doesn’t seem to taste any worse than any of the other water around here (water tastes terrible in most of Australia, I assume because they are so short of it that it is either desalinated or from some underground reservoir). It was only the next morning when we went into their cafe that we saw the notices above the taps about how you couldn’t drink the water or even boil it for tea. So when I die of arsenic poisoning, we will know why.

There wasn’t much to do at the roadhouse beyond pose at the sign marking the centre of Australia and see their “famous” chicken, Chuck Norris, who apparently thinks he is a kangaroo. He just looked and acted like a regular chicken but I guess there isn’t much in the way of entertainment or fame in those parts.

We had been supposed to have two nights at this road house, but instead we drove onto our next destination, Coober Pedy, a day early.

Coober Pedy is a very strange town. Opals were found in that area and the town sprang up around the mining community. The surrounding area could best be described as a boiling wasteland, so everyone lived in mine tunnels and so about half the town is underground. Driving up to our hotel, it just looked like a hillock. A hillock with a door in the side. We headed in and were shown to a rather cosy, albeit dark room, carved out of the rock with a slight whistling from air coming down the ventilation pipe.

The next day we decided to explore the sights of the town. The first stop was the Serbian Orthodox Church. This was carved by very devoted miner on his day’s off. The place was empty except for one elderly man, very determined to insert the vacuum cleaner he was wielding in front of my camera every time I tried to take a picture.

After that we headed to The Big Miner (a large miner) and a dumped spaceship prop from a movie.

Then we headed to go on a self-guided tour of an old mine. They made you wear helmets. I snorted slightly at this as I thought it was health and safety gone overboard. However the tunnels were about 5ft tall and I hit my head about 500 times in 20 minutes. Part of that was due to being repeatedly startled by creepy mannequins.

Attached to the mine was a museum, which was mostly full of random rocks but it did have some clippings from some great 1920s and 1930s newspapers that they’d found left down the mine.

It also featured a poster on the snakes of Australia, including this one that really doesn’t cope well with rejection.

After relaxing in our room for a bit, we headed out to an area called The Breakaways for sunset. These are some hills in the middle of an area called the Moon Plain, which is miles and miles of nothingness which is apparently of a very similar composition to Mars.

The Breakaways were still boiling despite it nearly being sunset and despite there being no tourists, or really any signs of life, as soon as we got out the car we found….lots of flies willing to try and fly into our eyeballs. Thankfully once you climbed any of the hills it got really windy, which confounded them for a few brief minutes.

We couldn’t stay there until actual sunset as there are pretty much only two restaurants in town and one of them seemed by its menu to be committed to casual racism so we had to make it back before the other place, a pizza joint, shut.

The next day we left Coober Pedy and drove down to Adelaide. This was our longest drive of the trip- 9 hours, because there was pretty much nothing worth stopping at. It was also the biggest contrast. We went from 37c desert to huge fields of hay being harvested and by the time we arrived in Adelaide it was only 10c! I had to dust out my thermals from where they’d been hanging out in the bottom of my suitcase. We’d had quite enough of the car by that stage so walked to a surprisingly good neighbourhood Japanese restaurant (Yakitori Takumi, if you ever find yourself in North Adelaide) and then on our way back home, not only did we find a giant fork to pose with, we also found a late night chocolate dessert bar!

Adelaide is a very green city, so we decided to make it an outdoorsy sort of day. We had brunch (oh the joys of being back in a big city) and then walked to the Botanical Garden. There was a huge queue there to see a corpse flower that was flowering, which we decided to skip (despite the inbuilt British love of queueing) but we did head into the Museum of Economic Botany, mostly because we were curious what that meant. It turned out to be “plants that you can in someway exploit”. Anyway, it was pretty interesting and contained a huge collection of incredibly realistic papier-mache apples. I don’t quite remember how that fit in with the theme, but they were impressive.

Afterwards we decided we’d see if we could circumnavigate the centre by walking through all of the cities network of parks. It was a lovely sunny day and the parks there are beautiful...and also riddled with weddings and wedding parties getting photographed on a hot spring day. At one point we wandered into a Japanese garden to find a queue of bridal parties waiting to pose for photos.

We got pretty tired and stopped for ice cream at a place called 48 flavours (does just what is says on the tin) and I was intrigued enough to get a pear, walnut, fig and roquefort ice cream. Marcel was horrified. I rather enjoyed it though and it gave me enough energy to stagger home. Probably would not have worn my flip flops that morning if I’d known we were going to walk 16kms…

Sunday it was time to say goodbye to Adelaide (after brunch of course) and drive down to our next stop, Warrnambool. We’d thought we’d get there a while before dark because google had always predicted our journeys to take much longer than we actually took. We had however forgotten about the existence of other cars. We were now in the part of Australia with other cars, settlements to pass through with low speed limits etc. It was…annoying. I did find a giant rhino to pose with though.

We had wanted to walk at a small park where an extinct volcano had left a lake, because it was apparently one of the spots where you could see emus, kangaroos and koalas in one place. I’d seen a koala earlier in the day, ambling along the side of the road, whilst driving, however Marcel had been busy pouring over the map at the time and missed it. He was thus desperate to see one. We arrived shortly before sundown. It was cold. 12c. There was no one else in the park (win) and right in front of the (unmanned) visitors centre there were emus and kangaroos grazing. However walking around the lake we saw approximately 0 koalas.

Plus on the way back to the car park our route was blocked by a very large male kangaroo. The problem with male kangaroos is that when they challenge each other to a fight, they stand up straight, so our bipedalism is taken as an invitation to a boxing match. We had to take a huge detour to our car as we had little interest in being disembowelled by an angry kangaroo.

By the time we arrived in Warrnambool it was 8c and I was suffering from temperature shock from having gone from nearly 40c to misty breath and cold toes in a week. Luckily our airbnb had a huge bath so after grabbing some Thai take out, I spend the evening wallowing in that, topping up the hot water and wondering how we could be in the same country we’ve been sweating in for the last 6 weeks.

Ways I’ve thought I might die in Australia this week: the standard heatstroke, hyponatraemia, some sort of epic GI disease secondary to a buffet of flies, death by crashing into a cow in the dark, poisoned by borehole water, from the collapse of an ancient opal mine, beaten by angry brides for ruining the background of their photoshoot, disembowelled by an angry kangaroo, hypothermia.

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ladycapuletwrites · 6 years

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Safety First

Fat is apparently staying at The Purple Buddha, and I make my way there from the bus station. I take a cab, and get stuck in traffic for hours on the way, and swerve my way through peak hour. Medellin is not what I expected. I mean, I’m not sure what I expected, really.

Once, one of the most dangerous places in the world, now, a bustling metropolis that stretches across in all directions. I’m headed in the direction of the Poblado area in a cluster of tourist spots that are relatively safe.

I am dropped in the middle of a gorgeous, upscale neighbourhood. There appear to be café’s, bars and nightclubs, nestled into lush greenery. Buildings have incredible artwork graffiti and scaling flora. Medellin is called “The Land of the Endless Spring”, and I can tell why. It’s beautiful.

I set myself up in a hostel and wait for Fat and his friend to arrive. He texts me at some point saying he’s going to be late, so I wander down to where Rico, Kahn, Lizzy and his brother Sam are staying. They are all packed into a tiny rooftop at their hostel, Stripes. I buy some coke from the local dealer, Drake. We drink a few glasses of shitty rose and the guys make some dinner in the communal kitchen.

I meet Fat later in the night, but he’s blown out from the trip over and his friend won’t get off the phone with his new girlfriend. They’re in that sweet, unrelenting honeymoon phase where they can’t stop thinking about or talking to each other. Fat’s continual jibes and digs at him have no effect, he is whipped.

We end up having an early night as we are up early the next day to go to Guatape. It has some weird Penis shaped rock that people like to climb, and we want to check out the home of Pablo Escobar; the one that got blown up. I’m always just down for the ride with these things. Rarely do I rock up to a city knowing what I want to do. O follow people, not experience, but somehow the two are intertwined.

We head out the next morning on a bus that drops us off first at El Penon de Guatape. It turns out that it��s an inselberg, rising abruptly from the ground like a giant great dick, and someone has had the great idea to put extremely steep staircases up the side of it, so that you can get to the top. I’m not complaining about the fact that you can get to the top, the view was spectacular when we got up there, but the walk up the steps was insanely difficult. We counted each step as we went, fast approaching death as we reached the top and drank some strange beer margarita things.

When we got back to the town, which was filled with obscenely colourful houses that made for excellent photos, I espied an old man on the street, looking down into the valley of cobbled and colour. I snapped a photo. An old man, in an archway, with his hat propped next to his stoop. I wondered what he was thinking. I imagined that he was completely present, caught in a moment of wonder. Probably needing a good poo.

We took a boat out to see the remains of Pablo Escobar’s estate. It was one of his many houses, and he vacationed there. We sail through the beautiful landscape of dotted islands and holiday mansions, and I can see the appeal of the location. The house itself is called La Manuela Hacienda, named after his daughter. When it was blown up by a rival gang in 1993, it revealed a shit load of drugs and cash that were hidden inside, which were promptly seized by authorities.

When we get there, policemen are all over the property, making sure it’s secured from an outpost near the dock. We wander into the derelict mansion; the swimming pool now a swamp, tiny glimpses into the man’s taste by the exotic types of trees co existing together on the property from all over the world. Apparently there were hippos too. A man on the tour shows us the balcony over the swimming pool, and tells us that Pablo liked to mutilate prostitutes and throw the pieces of their bodies into the pool. The tour guide, who speaks little to no English, says that Narcos is a piece of shit television show and that he wishes no one would watch it because it glorifies a man who was a total monster.

It the basement of the multi levelled mansion, there are rooms with meat hooks and strange raised bits of cement, where he kept drugs and cash and also where people were tortured. The whole place still feels to me like a place of pain. Of that strange cackle of evil you feel on the wind when you’re in a place that cruelty has taken place.

When we get back to the town, we attempt to get stoned but the wind is too heavy for my pipe to work, and it starts to rain. We run back to the bus stop where a trove of tourists are already waiting, and purchase our tickets. We have to take separate buses because there isn’t three seats, so I end up getting on a bus on my own.

I fall asleep for a bit on the bus and wake up to someone shouting that this is my stop. I murmur “poblado?” and a lady nods so I get off the bus and walk a few steps forward. As the bus arcs around the corner I realise I am on the slant of a huge hill, and I have no idea where I am. I ask in my best Spanish to a passerby if I’m near Poblado and they solemnly shake their head. Fuck.

It’s already dark at this point, so I begin to walk down the side of the highway, hoping for some sign as to where I am. I walk for about half an hour before I get paranoid that maybe I’m in walking in the wrong direction. Ten minutes away there’s an apartment building, I ask them if they know where my hostel is and they have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s pitch black and pouring with rain and a skinny guy has been trailing me for a little while so I stay inside the concierge until I feel a bit safer and then keep walking down the hill. It takes forever, but finally I’m at a strange junction at the bottom pf the freeway. Nearby, there is an overpass, and I head towards it until I realise that there are a lot of unsavoury people staring at me from underneath, and I run towards the junction again. Right as one starts to yell at me I manage to hail a taxi and jump inside.

I explain that I need to get to where my hostel is, and he tells me I am very far away from that destination. A light in my peripheral vision sparks up and I realise that one of the group under the overpass has started a fire in a trash can with some sort of oil rag. My heart starts beating faster. The driver turns to me and says “It’s okay, I will take you home”, and I’m not sure whether to trust him or not. He locks the door on the cab and I wonder if I’ve made a bad choice. Looking back at the dumpster fire and the skinny men dancing around in the rain, I guess it doesn’t really matter now.

After about ten minutes of manouvering the car around in the rain and traffic, the taxi driver opens up. It turns out he doesn’t speak terrible English after all, and wants to practise with me. He tells me about his wife and kid as he takes me back toward my district. It is a long way back home, but I feel my body relax and am happy to pay him whatever he wants at the end of our journey.

At the hostel, Fat and his friend Joe and I get high on the coke I bought. I leave them to get the others to come out from Stripes Hostel, and head there amongst the many whispers on the street. “Cocaina, Cocaina” is the constant barrage of voices on the street, men leering at you from underneath their baseball caps. “Marijuana, cocaina”, and the general uncomfortable feeling of always being stared at. I get to Stripes and the guys are all drinking on the rooftop again.

Somehow, I am the highest person on Earth by the time everyone wants to go to bed. I’ve stayed at Stripes, and continually banged powder up my nose, and now I’m running around Rico’s dorm room getting kicked out of everyone’s bed. Drake, the dealer comes in and takes me to the front door. “You can’t stay here tonight sweetie, maybe tomorrow” he says, and I am turfed out onto the front patio. My hostel is only a ten minute walk, but I am so high that it takes me three hours to get home, an endless maze that I can’t figure out, it’s is broad daylight and I’m sweating profusely and wandering around. I am at the mercy of my rising panic, I start to cry because iit feels like I will never make it home and I’m too paranoid to ask for directions because I’ve forgotten how to speak Spanish.

When I do finally get home, I sit in the shower and cry. You would think that after a bunch of taxi drivers trapped me in a tuk tuk, robbed me and shoved cocaine inside me that I would have learned how to take a little more care of myself. I feel empty of every emotion except shame. In the past 24 hours I’ve put myself in extreme danger twice, in fucking Colombia, and though I’ve escaped unscathed, I wonder if I’m ever going to grow the fuck up. The shower water is getting cold, and I can hear my roommates becoming impatient.

I pack my backpack and check out. I take the ten minute journey to Stripes hotel, where Drake meets me at the counter.

“Can I please check in?”

He laughs and says “Of course sweetie, you are always welcome here.”

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