of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with. Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.) Nestling quietly on top of the towel in Ford Prefect's satchel, the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic began to wink more quickly. Miles above the surface of the planet the huge yellow somethings began to fan out. At Jodrell Bank, someone decided it was time for a nice relaxing cup of tea. "You got a towel with you?" said Ford Prefect suddenly to Arthur. Arthur, struggling through his third pint, looked round at him. "Why? What, no ... should I have?" He had given up being surprised, there didn't seem to be any point any longer. Ford clicked his tongue in irritation. "Drink up," he urged. At that moment the dull sound of a rumbling crash from outside filtered through the low murmur of the pub, through the sound of the jukebox, through the sound of the man next to Ford hiccupping over the whisky Ford had eventually bought him. Arthur choked on his beer, leapt to his feet. "What's that?" he yelped. "Don't worry," said Ford, "they haven't started yet." "Thank God for that," said Arthur and relaxed. "It's probably just your house being knocked down," said Ford, drowning his last pint. "What?" shouted Arthur. Suddenly Ford's spell was broken. Arthur looked wildly around him and ran to the window. "My God they are! They're knocking my house down. What the hell am I doing in the pub, Ford?" "It hardly makes any difference at this stage," said Ford, "let them have their fun." "Fun?" yelped Arthur. "Fun!" He quickly checked out of the window again that they were talking about the same thing. "Damn their fun!" he hooted and ran out of the pub furiously waving a nearly empty beer glass. He made no friends at all in the pub that lunchtime. "Stop, you vandals! You home wreckers!" bawled Arthur. "You half crazed Visigoths, stop will you!" Ford would have to go after him. Turning quickly to the barman he asked for four packets of peanuts. "There you are sir," said the barman, slapping the packets on the bar, "twenty-eight pence if you'd be so kind." Ford was very kind - he gave the barman another five-pound note and told him to keep the change. The barman looked at it and then looked at Ford. He suddenly shivered: he


hair, and blooded the axe good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into the river. Now I thought of some- thing else. So I went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on the place -- pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes -- and ducks too, you might say, in the season. There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to the river. The meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped pap's whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again. It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sack- ful of rocks to the shore and then drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things. They won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won't bother no more about me. All right; I can stop anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights, and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the place. I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs that went a-slipping along, black and


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

saved me from, anyway?" Firenze slowed to a walk, warned Harry to keep his head bowed in case of low-hanging branches, but did not answer Harry's question. They made their way through the trees in silence for so long that Harry thought Firenze didn't want to talk to him anymore. They were passing through a particularly dense patch of trees, however, when Firenze suddenly stopped. "Harry Potter, do you know what unicorn blood is used for?" "No," said Harry, startled by the odd question. "We've only used the horn and tail hair in Potions." "That is because it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn," said Firenze. "Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips." Harry stared at the back of Firenze's head, which was dappled silver in the moonlight. "But who'd be that desperate?" he wondered aloud. "If you're going to be cursed forever, deaths better, isn't it?" "It is," Firenze agreed, "unless all you need is to stay alive long enough to drink something else -- something that will bring you back to full strength and power -- something that will mean you can never die. Mr. Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?" "The Sorcerer's Stone! Of course -- the Elixir of Life! But I don't understand who -- " "Can you think of nobody who has waited many years to return to power, who has clung to life, awaiting their chance?" It was as though an iron fist had clenched suddenly around Harry's heart. Over the rustling of the trees, he seemed to hear once more what Hagrid had told him on the night they had met: "Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die." "Do you mean," Harry croaked, "that was Vol -- " "Harry! Harry, are you all right?" Hermione was running toward them down the path, Hagrid puffing along behind her. "I'm fine," said Harry, hardly knowing what he was saying. "The unicorn's dead, Hagrid, it's in that clearing back there." "This is where I leave you," Firenze murmured as Hagrid hurried off to examine the unicorn. "You are safe now." Harry slid off his back. "Good luck, Harry Potter," said Firenze. "The planets have been read wrongly before now, even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times." He turned and cantered back into the depths of the forest, leaving Harry shivering behind him. *** Ron had fallen asleep in the dark common room, waiting for them to return. He shouted something about Quidditch fouls when Harry roughly shook him awake. In a matter of seconds, though, he was wide-eyed as Harry began to tell


turning people into animals, into non-

people, is the first step in mistreating them, in destroying them. If even a

celebrated intellectual could dismiss us as animals, what hope for the man

or woman on the street?

I gave the therapist an overview of how this dehumanization had played

out in the first half of my life. But now, with the dehumanizing of Meg,

there was so much more hate, more vitriol—plus racism. I told her what

I’d seen, heard, witnessed, over the last few months. At one point I sat up

on the couch, crooked my neck to see if she was listening. Her mouth was

hanging open. A lifelong resident of Britain, she’d thought she knew.

235

https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t. me/Afghansalarlibrary

She didn’t know.

At the end of the session I asked her professional opinion:

Is what I’m feeling...normal?

She laughed. What’s normal anyway?

But she conceded that one thing was abundantly clear: I found myself in

highly unusual circumstances.

Do you think I have an addictive personality?

More accurately, what I wanted to know was, if I did have an addictive

personality, where would I be right now?

Hard to say. Hypotheticals, you know.

She asked if I’d used drugs.

Yes.

I told her some wild stories.

Well, I am rather surprised you’re not a drug addict.

If there was one thing to which I did seem undeniably addicted,

however, it was the press. Reading it, raging at it, she said, these were

obvious compulsions.

I laughed. True. But they’re such shit.

She laughed. They are.

28.

| Fass THOUGHT CRESSIDA had performed a miracle, opening me up,

releasing suppressed emotions. But she’d only started the miracle, and

now the therapist brought it to completion.

All my life I’d told people


MAGA movement, openness is the enemy. The postwar focus on free trade, open travel, and political integration have created “the forgotten man.” Globalization has left working-class people behind and made Western nations soft. Manufacturing jobs have vanished, stolen away by developing nations. Immigrants have flooded democracies, undoing a white Judeo-Christian culture, and institutions like the European Union have weakened the West. The myth conveniently ignores crucial facts. In the same period, the West saw an explosion in economic prosperity (GDP per capita soared year over year), unprecedented levels of security (armed conflict among democracies declined), and a surge in political freedom (democracies went from a minority of the world to the majority of nations). Regardless, pro-Trump forces want to turn back the clock. They are urging U.S. allies to embrace anti-immigrant policies and economic protectionism, from Britain and France to Hungary and Italy. A select group of foreign leaders are eager to see this happen. They want the United States and its allies to retreat, put up their walls, and look inward. Those observers are not our friends. The world’s autocrats will benefit from an isolationist America. In October 2018, U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi went into the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul and never came out. According to reports, he was killed and dismembered inside by Saudi operatives at the behest of the country’s leader, Mohammed bin Salman, who wanted the dissident silenced. Following the incident, Donald Trump welcomed reporters into the Oval Office for a conversation. He was under pressure to condemn the brutal killing and sever ties with Saudi Arabia. Down the hall, I was meeting with National Security Advisor John Bolton about an unrelated issue, when there was a knock on the door. It was White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. “Ambassador,” she said to Bolton, “I think you should know something.” He ushered her in. Sanders recapped Trump’s forty-five-minute interview, during which he begrudgingly acknowledged that Khashoggi had been killed. Then, she said, the president picked up classified documents on his desk and showed them to the reporters, remarking, “See? Many countries have given us intelligence on this.” There was an audible gasp from Bolton. “Oh, God,” he said under his breath. “Yeah,” Sarah replied, “but he didn’t say it was from a specific country on record, just off. You could see pictures but not read any text from where they were sitting.” “Was that part on record?” Bolton asked. “No,” she said. Bolton asked if there were cameras in the room. “No,” Sarah replied. The national security advisor breathed a sigh of relief. We were all disturbed by the lapse in protocol and poor protection of classified information. Equally as disturbing was that Trump couldn’t quite bring himself to condemn the Saudis. “It’s not a positive, not a positive,” he told the reporters about the killing, but then he proceeded to defend the regime. “They’ve been a very good ally, and they’ve bought massive amounts of various things and investments in this country, which I appreciate.” In a meeting with the president in the Oval Office months


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

there’s something thunderous about her. Objectively slight, Fizzy has the ability to take up space in a way I’ve never mastered. I was always relatively tall growing up, but having been raised by a single mother, I felt conscious not to appear imposing in any way. It was this tendency of mine that drove my father insane on the rare occasions when he would visit. He would lecture me about entering a room with power, about the importance of claiming space. By the time I’d turned fourteen and was well over six feet tall, and taking up space was a foregone conclusion, he turned to other things to criticize: my lack of ambition, my deference to others, my protectiveness of my mother. Later it was my career choice, my shotgun wedding, my job title. But as much as my father exhausts me, I can’t help but think that admiring Fizzy would be one thing we’d have in common. “I’m going to order for us,” she says over her shoulder. “I’m going to put joy in your mouth, Sexy Lumberjack. Trust me.” “Is trust required?” She ignores this, stepping up to order for us, and I look down at my outfit. From Brit to DILF to Sexy Lumberjack. I can’t know for sure if this transition in nickname signals a good wardrobe decision on my part, but I changed three times before picking her up today, prompting Stevie to ask me whether I was going on a date. It’s not a date. I mean, of course it isn’t. But there’s something about being this close to Fizzy that makes me want to impress her in the same way. As she orders, I hear the words lengua, cabeza, buche, and tripa and am aware that I’m going to be eating some things I have never before put in my mouth. With a bulging paper bag in one hand, two drinks in a cardboard tray in the other, and a little nod for me to trust her yet again, we climb back into the car and drive a few minutes to a small road leading us to a coastal wildlife refuge. At a weatherworn metal table overlooking an empty stretch of beach, Fizzy opens the bag and lays out an enormous selection of tacos. “Take your pick.” She points to each, describing what’s in it—from grilled beef and cactus, to pork belly, to tripe, to beef head, to tongue. And as I take my first bite of the pork belly, she watches me with anticipation, waiting for a reaction. Letting out a low, involuntary groan, I feel my eyes drift closed. The sharp tang of fresh cotija and bright lime, with crisp bits of meat and a soft, handmade tortilla—this is easily the best taco I’ve had in my entire life. It takes a minute for my senses to settle and I realize she’s still looking at me. “You like?” she asks, smiling happily. “Bloody lovely.” I wipe my mouth. “Are you just going to watch?” She breaks her stare and blinks down at the


“Ax your pardon, sir,” returned one of the men; “you’re his mouth. “Well, you’re a gay lot to look at, anyway. Not pretty free with some of the rules; maybe you’ll kindly keep much worth to fight, you ain’t. P’r’aps you can understand an eye upon the rest. This crew’s dissatisfied; this crew don’t King George’s English. I’m cap’n here by ‘lection. I’m cap’n vally bullying a marlin-spike; this crew has its rights like other here because I’m the best man by a long sea-mile. You won’t crews, I’ll make so free as that; and by your own rules, I take fight, as gentlemen o’ fortune should; then, by thunder, you’ll it we can talk together. I ax your pardon, sir, acknowledging obey, and you may lay to it! I like that boy, now; I never seen you for to be captaing at this present; but I claim my right, a better boy than that. He’s more a man than any pair of rats and steps outside for a council.” of you in this here house, and what I say is this: let me see And with an elaborate sea-salute, this fellow, a long, ill- him that’ll lay a hand on him—that’s what I say, and you looking, yellow-eyed man of five and thirty, stepped coolly may lay to it.” towards the door and disappeared out of the house. One There was a long pause after this. I stood straight up after another the rest followed his example, each making a against the wall, my heart still going like a sledge- hammer, salute as he passed, each adding some apology. “According to but with a ray of hope now shining in my bosom. Silver leant rules,” said one. “Forecastle council,” said Morgan. And so back against the wall, his arms crossed, his pipe in the corner with one remark or another all marched out and left Silver of his mouth, as calm as though he had been in church; yet and me alone with the torch. his eye kept wandering furtively, and he kept the tail of it on The sea-cook instantly removed his pipe. his unruly followers. They, on their part, drew gradually to- “Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins,” he said in a steady gether towards the far end of the block house, and the low whisper that was no more than audible, “you’re within half a hiss of their whispering sounded in my ear continuously, like plank of death, and what’s a long sight worse, of torture. They’re a stream. One after another, they would look up, and the red going to throw me off. But, you mark, I stand by you through light of the torch would fall for a second on their nervous thick and thin. I didn’t mean to; no, not till you spoke up. I Contents faces; but it was not towards me, it was towards Silver that was about desperate to lose that much blunt, and be hanged they turned their eyes. into the bargain. But I see you was the right sort. I


didn’t specify what kind, just that I might need a little something for protection. He took his time and sent what you saw. When I phoned him and specified we had dubbed the nitrate print, he became upset.” “Then you lied to us,” Montserrat said. “You didn’t say there was any danger—” “I didn’t realize there was any danger,” Abel said earnestly. “I thought it through, I tried to remember the sort of things Wilhelm had taught us. It made perfect sense.” “Why would José tell Alma anything? I thought he was your friend. Does he have something against you?” “I don’t know. José had money problems a few years ago, and I think Alma helped him out. Maybe he thought he owed her something. It could be she found some other way, too.” “What other way?” “Spells, magic.” Abel was nervously palming his jacket. “Do you have a lighter?” “I don’t smoke. Now tell me what she said exactly.” Abel took out a cigarette case and placed it on the food court table. He finally produced a lighter and lit the cigarette with a huff. “She said I needed to return all the items that had belonged to Ewers, or I’d be sorry. She accused me of being a thief. I had a right to that bit of film, you know. I directed the damn thing, and I’m no thief. She probably thinks she can hex me, the bitch.” “Well, did you steal the film from her?” Abel emphatically shook his head and let the ashes of his cigarette fall on the glossy plastic food court table. “Never.” “But you did take that book from Clarimonde Bauer.” “What are you talking about?” Montserrat produced the mangled copy of The House of Infinite Wisdom and placed it on the table. “This book was meant for Clarimonde. You intercepted it or stole it. He hid a letter for her inside the binding. It was never meant for you.” “What letter?” Abel said. “If you found something you better hand it over.” “Tell me how you got hold of that book and that print.” “I don’t have time for your bullshit!” He stood up, tugging at his jacket and giving her an irate look. Three teenagers who were munching on fries at a nearby table chuckled. “The letter is at my apartment and the silver nitrate print is at the Antares vault, so you better watch your language and sit down.” Abel muttered a curse under his breath, but he sat down and took out a monogrammed handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. “The book and the nitrate print were in Wilhelm’s apartment. I wasn’t supposed to take them, but I did. Alma didn’t confiscate the film reels, she destroyed them. This was what I could salvage. If I stole from anyone, I stole from him.” “So you could cast the spell.” “I wasn’t thinking about spells back then. I was angry.” “Because the film collapsed?” “The film was over, Clarimonde had been cheating on me, the whole of it.” Abel gave her a


or crazy teeth or a unibrow. Not that any of those things are bad. Distinctive features make a face unique, and that’s a good thing. But it’s also true that the most generic faces are consistently rated as the best-looking. Like, the more you look like a composite of everyone, the more we all like you. This guy was as close to a composite as I’d seen in a while. Short, neat hair. A proportional forehead, nose bridge, jaw, and chin. Perfectly placed cheekbones. A straight nose with stunningly symmetrical nostrils. And you couldn’t draw better ears. Flawless. Not too flat, but not too protruding. With perfect plump little earlobes. I am a bit of an earlobe snob. Bad earlobes could really be a deal-breaker for me. Not kidding: I’ve complimented people on their earlobes before. Out loud. Which never goes well, by the way. There are tricks to making a face look appealing when you’re drawing a portrait. Humans seem to find certain elements universally appealing, and if you emphasize those, the person looks that much better. This is a scientific thing. It’s been studied. The theory is that certain features and proportions elicit feelings of “aww, that’s adorable” in us, which prompts caregiving behaviors, affection, and an urge to move closer. In theory, we evolved this reaction in response to baby faces, so we’d feel compelled to take care of our young, but when those same features and patterns crop up in other places, on other faces, we like them there, too. We can even find sea cucumbers adorable, from the right angle. Or the man who’s attempting to pay for our wine and dog treats. Because in addition to his generic handsomeness, this guy also had elements in his features—invisible to the untrained eye—that subliminally established cuteness. His lips were smooth, and full, and a warm, friendly pink that signified youth. His skin was clear in a way that evoked good health. And the real clincher was the eyes—slightly bigger than average (always a crowd-pleaser) with a slight melancholic downturn at their corners that gave him an irresistible sweet puppy-dog look. I guarantee this guy got every woman he ever wanted. But that was his business. I had a forgotten-wallet situation to deal with. And a last-minute party to host. “It’s fine,” I said, waving my hands at him and rejecting his offer to pay for my stuff. “I don’t mind,” he said, pulling his wallet out of his jeans. “I don’t need your help,” I said, and it came out a little harsher-sounding than I meant. He looked from me—purseless—to the counter of stuff I had yet to pay for. “I think maybe you do.” But I wasn’t having it. “I can just run home for my purse,” I said. “It’s no problem.” “But you don’t have to.” “But I want to.” What part of I don’t need your help did this guy not understand? “I appreciate the gesture, sir,” I said then. “But I’m fine.” “Why are you calling me sir? We’re, like, the same age.” “Sir


I am going to warn him I might as well get the beastly job over for I have little stomach to talk with the brute at all." So saying he strolled carelessly in the direction of the companionway through which the captain had passed, and a moment later was knocking at his door. "Come in," growled the deep tones of that surly officer. And when Clayton had entered, and closed the door behind him: "Well?" "I have come to report the gist of a conversation I heard to-day, because I feel that, while there may be nothing to it, it is as well that you be forearmed. In short, the men contemplate mutiny and murder." "It's a lie!" roared the captain. "And if you have been interfering again with the discipline of this ship, or meddling in affairs that don't concern you you can take the consequences, and be damned. I don't care whether you are an English lord or not. I'm captain of this here ship, and from now on you keep your meddling nose out of my business." The captain had worked himself up to such a frenzy of rage that he was fairly purple of face, and he shrieked the last words at the top of his voice, emphasizing his remarks by a loud thumping of the table with one huge fist, and shaking the other in Clayton's face. Greystoke never turned a hair, but stood eying the excited man with level gaze. "Captain Billings," he drawled finally, "if you will pardon my candor, I might remark that you are something of an ass." Whereupon he turned and left the captain with the same indifferent ease that was habitual with him, and which was more surely calculated to raise the ire of a man of Billings' class than a torrent of invective. So, whereas the captain might easily have been brought to regret his hasty speech had Clayton attempted to conciliate him, his temper was now irrevocably set in the mold in which Clayton had left it, and the last chance of their working together for their common good was gone. "Well, Alice," said Clayton, as he rejoined his wife, "I might have saved my breath. The fellow proved most ungrateful. Fairly jumped at me like a mad dog. "He and his blasted old ship may hang, for aught I care; and until we are safely off the thing I shall spend my energies in looking after our own welfare. And I rather fancy the first step to that end should be to go to our cabin and look over my revolvers. I am sorry now that we packed the larger guns and the ammunition with the stuff below." They found their quarters in a bad state of disorder. Clothing from their open boxes and bags strewed the little Chapter 2 12 apartment, and even their beds had been torn to pieces. "Evidently someone was more anxious about our belongings than we," said Clayton. "Let's have a look around, Alice, and see what's missing." A thorough search revealed the


while White House staffers were worried about upsetting the airline industry. In Kelly’s words, it was “time to stop admiring the problem” and do something—fast. The secretary and I flew to the Middle East to meet with allies who understood the seriousness of the danger, including the Jordanians and the Saudis. They’d implemented their own heightened counterterrorism protocols in recent years. We sought their help with the spiderweb of lethal threats. Inside the helicopter over the Jordanian desert, the copilot came back on the radio. “Are you ready to head back?” he asked. For the past twenty minutes, my answer had been yes, but the Jordanians were obviously proud to show off the aircraft. Back on the ground, the king gave me a high five, smiling behind aviator sunglasses. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” I offered. “No, thank you!” He laughed. These weren’t Jordanian helicopters. They were American ones, funded by U.S. support to the kingdom. The relationship was hardly one-sided. As I learned in future meetings with King Abdullah, the Jords were willing to take enormous risks for us and had lost lives gathering the kind of information used to protect Americans from groups like ISIS. They had our backs. Former soldiers known for their integrity, Kelly and the king wordlessly understood the somber bond. We left the royal compound as the sun melted into blood-orange sand dunes, and I saw a handshake between the two men that was more valuable than any press conference or economic deal or helicopter. You couldn’t put a price on trust. After a stopover in Saudi Arabia to meet with the country’s leaders, we returned home with a skeleton of a strategy to deal with the danger we were facing. Tom Bossert, the president’s lanky homeland security advisor, met us in Riyadh. He rode back with us on our modified air force 757, normally reserved for the vice president. Tom was known for lengthy philosophical conversations, and we got hours-deep into one, workshopping a counterterrorism plan for the White House. Aside from the pilots, he and I were the only people awake for the overnight flight. I walked Tom through a proposal for how to deal with the threat, based in part on conversations with Middle Eastern allies. I referred to it as the Global Aviation Security Plan, or “GASP.” The melodramatic acronym was fitting because it would be the biggest increase in airport security in years. Airlines and passengers wouldn’t love it, but it would make it far more difficult for terrorists to advance their attack plots. Would the president stand behind it? Tom was typically circumspect in his commentary about Trump. He rarely criticized the president. But at thirty thousand feet, with everyone around us passed out, Tom was candid. “Miles, the details don’t matter to him,” he admitted. “He is the most distracted person in the world. He has no fucking clue what we’re talking about.” The president wouldn’t read anything, Tom said, which is why we needed to take our jobs extra seriously. The next steps were up to us. The homeland


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

manner— “He says, a second time, he won’t examine his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey?” It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald head steaming, his hands reeling among his blotted papers. “Think of it?” roared Turkey; “I think I’ll just step behind his screen, and black his eyes for him!” So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey’s combativeness after dinner. “Sit down, Turkey,” said I, “and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately dismissing Bartleby?” “Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim.” “Ah,” exclaimed I, “you have strangely changed your mind then—you speak very gently of him now.” “All beer,” cried Turkey; “gentleness is effects of beer—Nippers and I dined together to-day. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and black his eyes?” “You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey,” I replied; “pray, put up your fists.” I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt additional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelled against again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office. “Bartleby,” said I, “Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post Office, won’t you? (it was but a three minute walk,) and see if there is any thing for me.” “I would prefer not to.” “You will not?” “I prefer not.” I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blind inveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procure myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?—my hired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that he will be sure to refuse to do? “Bartleby!” No answer. “Bartleby,” in a louder tone. No answer. “Bartleby,” I roared. Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the third summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage. “Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me.” “I prefer not to,” he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared. “Very good, Bartleby,” said I, in a quiet sort of serenely severe self-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some terrible retribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended something of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my dinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the day, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind. Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, that it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, and


so sorry,” Augusta said. “I had no idea. After we left, my parents shielded me from every single thing related to this place.” “Understandably,” I said. “Anyway,” Augusta said, turning back with false brightness to the slack-jawed pair of my father and Lucinda. “I couldn’t help but overhear Sadie saying that you never believe her. But here’s a little pro tip from somebody who knows both of your daughters pretty well. If you have a choice between Parker and Sadie? Pick Sadie—every time.” Twenty-Seven WAS IT A big cathartic moment when my family realized they’d been wrong all along only to burst into tears of regret and beg me for forgiveness? Uh, no. We never even got to see Parker’s reaction because when we looked over, she had taken off—slipped her disgraced and guilty self off into the night before ever having to own up to anything. And then Lucinda promptly got the vapors and asked my dad to take her home. I wound up stuck outside my own art show holding up the near-to-fainting Lucinda as we waited for my dad to bring the car around. There were no apologies. There was no Greek chorus of remorse. But did it feel nice to have my name cleared at last? It did. Too little and way too late—but nice, all the same. Plus, I got my favorite polka-dot wrap dress back. And in fact, Augusta had barely left to go into the show when Mr. and Mrs. Kim showed up with the most enormous, elegant, fuchsia-colored potted orchid I’d ever seen. Mrs. Kim wanted to hand it to me, but my arms were busy holding up my evil stepmother, so she wound up setting it lovingly at my feet. “What’s wrong with Martha Stewart?” Mr. Kim asked. “It’s a long story.” “Shouldn’t you be inside?” Mrs. Kim asked. “That’s an even longer story.” “You’ve worked hard,” Mrs. Kim said. “We are very proud of you,” Mr. Kim said. “You don’t have to go in,” I said to them. “Just coming by is more than enough.” But Mr. Kim shook his head. “We want you to win.” “I have no hope of winning,” I said. “We’ll see about that,” Mr. Kim said, and they went in anyway. My father showed up with the car then, and I thought that would be it: car doors slamming, red taillights in the sudden distance, me left standing on the sidewalk alone. But to my dad’s credit, after he helped Lucinda get settled in the passenger seat, he turned back to me and lingered for a minute—offering a little moment of closure. “Is it true? About you blaming me?” I asked. “Or was Parker lying?” My dad looked down at the sidewalk as he said, “I don’t think she was lying.” “You don’t think she was?” “I did say all that stuff once,” he said. “To Lucinda. Late at night. I was horrified to hear the words coming out of my mouth. I think I hoped that saying them might get rid of them. But I guess


victim jumped. “That’s far enough. Your boyfriend should have lost us by now,” Horatio said, pulling to a stop at the end of his maze of traps. The beachfront stretched on all sides, rancid with seaweed and rotten wood. The mist clustered around them like an overbearing pet lapping about their legs. Io thought she spotted silver among the dock beams behind the fishing boat, but when her eyes returned, it was gone. The new wraith must have gotten closer by now. “Give me your wallet,” Horatio ordered. Her fingers, the little traitors, hastened to take it out of her pocket. Breathe. Focus. What are your options? She could fight against his will, steel her body against his commands, but it wouldn’t do much good except to alert him that she knew what he was. His gait was assured, his smirk satisfied; Horatio thought she was easy prey. She could use that. Lull him into a sense of security, then run away as fast as she could. A grace-born’s thrall wasn’t limitless: all she needed were a dozen feet between them and she would be able to slip free of his hook. Play the part, Io schooled herself. “So, what do you know about these women?” “What my buddies at the police know: They look dead. They strangle with their threads. They’re targeting the Silts.” Horatio’s head was bent over her wallet, counting notes. “Is that all?” Io feigned nonchalance, stepping toward the closest fish trap. She gingerly lifted the canvas covering it, as though she were curious of its contents. Empty—she moved to the next one. Her back was to Horatio; she took a chance and glanced up and down the beachfront. No silver in the Quilt. Where had the wraith gone? Gods. Her heart thundered in her throat, in her temples, a drumming beat that threatened to overwhelm her. Her fingers trembled as she reached out for one of her threads, running a finger down its length like caressing a blade. She was not powerless, she reminded herself. She would get out of this, one way or another. A few more feet and she would be out of reach of his grace-born hook, then she would run back to the dock and to Nico and figure out some way to find the new wraith. “I hear you used to run the best wrestling dens in Alante,” she said. “Sure did,” Horatio said. She didn’t dare look back at him but heard paper folding, then a slosh as he tossed her wallet to the mud. “Had the best fighters in any city-nation. I chose them based on skill, you know. They gotta be other-born. That’s how they like it, my upper-class clientele. Wanna know why?” She could feel his hook drawing tight at her chest. Just a couple of steps now, and she would break free. She glanced at him over her shoulder: his eyes were on her, a wolf assessing its prey, teeth glinting like fangs. Play the part. “Why?” Io asked. Horatio went on, “Because other-born fight dirty.” “Oh?”


VIRGINUM. The priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a seal's, far out on the water, round. Usurper. * * * * * * * --You, Cochrane, what city sent for him? --Tarentum, sir. --Very good. Well? --There was a battle, sir. --Very good. Where? The boy's blank face asked the blank window. Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings of excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and time one livid final flame. What's left us then? --I forget the place, sir. 279 B. C. --Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the gorescarred book. --Yes, sir. And he said: ANOTHER VICTORY LIKE THAT AND WE ARE DONE FOR. That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From a hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers, leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear. --You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus? --End of Pyrrhus, sir? --I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said. --Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus? A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong's satchel. He curled them between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered to the tissue of his lips. A sweetened boy's breath. Welloff people, proud that their eldest son was in the navy. Vico road, Dalkey. --Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier. All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round at his classmates, silly glee in profile. In a moment they will laugh more loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay. --Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book, what is a pier. --A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the water. A kind of a bridge. Kingstown pier, sir. Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench whispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. All. With envy he watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the struggle. --Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge. The words troubled their gaze. --How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river. For Haines's chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A jester at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a clement master's praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly for the smooth caress. For them too history was a tale like any other too often heard, their land


as stiff as the mischief really and truly Mrs Bloom only I felt rotten simply with the old rubbishy dress that I lost the leads out of the tails with no cut in it but theyre coming into fashion again I bought it simply to please him I knew it was no good by the finish pity I changed my mind of going to Todd and Bums as I said and not Lees it was just like the shop itself rummage sale a lot of trash I hate those rich shops get on your nerves nothing kills me altogether only he thinks he knows a great lot about a womans dress and cooking mathering everything he can scour off the shelves into it if I went by his advices every blessed hat I put on does that suit me yes take that thats alright the one like a weddingcake standing up miles off my head he said suited me or the dishcover one coming down on my backside on pins and needles about the shopgirl in that place in Grafton street I had the misfortune to bring him into and she as insolent as ever she could be with her smirk saying Im afraid were giving you too much trouble what shes there for but I stared it out of her yes he was awfully stiff and no wonder but he changed the second time he looked Poldy pigheaded as usual like the soup but I could see him looking very hard at my chest when he stood up to open the door for me it was nice of him to show me out in any case Im extremely sorry Mrs Bloom believe me without making it too marked the first time after him being insulted and me being supposed to be his wife I just half smiled I know my chest was out that way at the door when he said Im extremely sorry and Im sure you were yes I think he made them a bit firmer sucking them like that so long he made me thirsty titties he calls them I had to laugh yes this one anyhow stiff the nipple gets for the least thing Ill get him to keep that up and Ill take those eggs beaten up with marsala fatten them out for him what are all those veins and things curious the way its made 2 the same in case of twins theyre supposed to represent beauty placed up there like those statues in the museum one of them pretending to hide it with her hand are they so beautiful of course compared with what a man looks like with his two bags full and his other thing hanging down out of him or sticking up at you like a hatrack no wonder they hide it with a cabbageleaf that disgusting Cameron highlander behind the meat market or that other wretch with the red head behind the tree where the statue of the fish used to be when I was passing pretending he was pissing


.” I trail off. “What? That it’s her?” Geoff pauses. He’s also had this suspicion, I can tell. It’s crazy, but I wouldn’t put it past Athena to fake her own death, to put the manuscript right where she knew I would find it. The funeral could have been staged. Her mom could be in on it. Maybe she’s watching from the wings right now, laughing into her trench coat. But Geoff shakes his head. “No. No, she was an odd one, but she wasn’t, like, a crazy person. She’s—she was a writer. Not a performance artist.” He meets my gaze. “And didn’t you—?” Didn’t I see her die? Yes, I did. I saw the panic in her eyes, saw her thrashing and convulsing, trying to free her throat, saw her at last go still and blue in front of me. She couldn’t have faked that. The best actress in the world couldn’t have faked that. “Then who’s doing this to me?” I demand. “What do they want?” “Does it matter?” Geoff shrugs. “Just ignore them. You’ve brushed it off every time before, haven’t you? Where’s your thick skin? Why start getting bothered now?” “Because . . .” I swallow. “It hurts. I just—it hurts.” “Ah.” He leans forward. “So are you going to tell me the truth now?” I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I can’t do it. I’ve held the line for this long; I can’t break it, even if, in some wretched way, it might set me free. “I get it,” says Geoff. “You say it once, you can never take it back.” He knows. I can tell from his face that he knows. I don’t bother trying to convince him otherwise, or to explain the complexities involved—that I did put in the work, that The Last Front is just as much my accomplishment as it is Athena’s, that it could not possibly exist in its current form without me. It doesn’t matter. Geoff’s made up his mind, and that’s fine—there’s nothing more he can do to me than what the internet already has. I blink angrily down at the table, trying to collect my thoughts. I can’t convince him that I’m innocent, but I need to make him understand. “I just don’t get why everyone’s so obsessed with Athena’s legacy,” I say at last. “They all talk about her like she was this saint.” Geoff cocks his head, then settles into his chair, hands clasped in his lap like he’s prepared to stay awhile. “So we’re doing this.” “I’ve seen her writing process,” I blurt out. I don’t know why I’m saying this, especially to Geoff, of all people. I just can’t keep it on my chest any longer, can’t keep swallowing my resentment. “She was a thief. She took people’s pain and made it her own to describe however she liked. She stole as much as I did—she stole from me. Back in college, she—” I choke. My nose stings, and I clamp my mouth shut. I’ve never told this story to anyone else before.


some regularity, undercutting vital democratic institutions daily, and debasing the national dialogue tweet-by-tweet. We can expect this and much, much more if he is reelected.” [Have] the State Dept. officials testifying made you proud? “I am proud of all the individuals who have come forward to tell the truth about corrupt behavior in the White House, whether they have chosen to protect their identities as whistle-blowers or to testify before Congress.” Is it possible to undo all the damage Trump has done to our national security? “If there is a second term, I have doubts about a strong affirmative answer.” * * * The Q&A session went on for between thirty and forty-five minutes. I typed the responses with Keith and Matt looking over my shoulder. Finally, I saw it. Someone had asked the question I was waiting for. Why do you have so little integrity to come out publicly and speak? I typed out a short, carefully worded response. I had thought about it the whole way over. Time to draw a line in the sand. “Trump will hear from me, in my own name, before the 2020 election.” * * * I hesitated above the RETURN key. Was I really ready for that? Click. After the session ended, Keith and Matt asked the obvious question. How was I going to unmask myself and exactly when in 2020? I told them I didn’t know, but that’s what I planned to do. My editor, Sean, was sad to miss our clandestine gathering. He sent a fancy bottle of champagne for us to celebrate. Keith offered to uncork it and also brought along some whiskey and tumbler glasses, hoping we might kick back and chat for a bit. I eyed the bottle eagerly but declined. I needed to go. I took my duffel to the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later in a winter cap, athletic clothes, and a puffer vest. The business attire was stuffed in the bag. After a hasty farewell, I was back outside. The streets were still empty. Leaves drifted down the blacktop like tumbleweeds in the cold wind. Back in the car, I warmed up and read the news on my phone. CBS was already carrying the story that Anonymous would step forward against Donald Trump in the coming months. What they didn’t report—what they didn’t know—was that Anonymous was full of dread. * * * The start of 2020 cemented the reality that voters were the last, best defense against Trump. The Senate failed to convict him in an impeachment vote, and just as he had been in the aftermath of the Mueller Report (which he falsely claimed “exonerated” him on interfering with the Russia investigation), the president seemed emboldened. One evening I caught up with my former DHS colleague Hannah. We hadn’t seen each other since I quit. We were supposed to be joined by our significant others, but both of them had bailed on us to stay home in the warmth, avoiding the wintry mix outside. The two of us met up at a


need anyone. James and Mum were the social ones, and we were the introverts. What if all this time I’d been wrong? Chapter Twenty-four When a message comes in from Mum the next day, my anxiety spikes. I try to read the first line to glean whether I should open it or not. It looks harmless. However— Mum LONDON Maddie how are you today? You and your brother need to gather some funds quickly because it’s the children who bury their father. Once the body is released you will have only two weeks to put him to his final rest. You can get a bank loan if you don’t have the money. Thx. Maddie What does this tradition say about the wife? Mum LONDON Surely I have a part to play in the financial and planning and if I had the money I would have done everything for my children but the children taking responsibility is tradition. As I stare at her message, all those symptoms return: a hit of dizziness, shortness of breath, a tight chest, the illusion that my bedroom is shrinking. However, it’s not fear I feel this time, but anger. Maddie Considering the children are not financially stable, it isn’t a very good tradition and it won’t be one I force onto my children. You’re very quick to suggest I get a loan, considering me going to university with loans was also your idea. When I’m a mother, my job won’t be to sit around and watch my children grow in debt. Mum LONDON Of course I don’t want to see you in debt but you are young with a degree you will get through debt better than me. This is a very challenging time for us all and we have to unite. Please show your mother some kindness because I need it now more than ever. I turn my phone off. On my laptop, I search for whether we qualify for any funeral expense help. We don’t. * * * James calls me to the house the next day. I stand in the corner of the kitchen as they argue. “Call him ‘your father’ one more time,” he says to Mum. “He was your husband before our father and you’re the only one living in his house right now, so you’d best gather some funds too.” “How?” Mum asks. “I don’t have any money here! It’s all tied up in Ghana!” “You could get a bank loan,” I suddenly say. She looks at me. “Maame, what bank will give me money? I’m not living here half the time.” “Whose fault is that?” James asks. “You run an entire business—how are you always broke? It shouldn’t be only on us when you’ve been chilling in Ghana and we’ve been here with Dad.” I round on James and feel that flicker of anger yet again. Shu once said that brothers have a level of audacity sisters couldn’t possibly reach—or get away with—even if they tried. James has done very little to prove her wrong. He hasn’t taken his jacket


displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not* contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form). [2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small Print!" statement. [3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the gross profits you derive calculated using themethod you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to let us know your plans and to work out the details. WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? Chapter 1 Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine readable form. The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. Money should be paid to the: "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: hart@pobox.com [Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] [Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or software or any other related product without express permission.] *END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.07/27/01*END* Created by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska Tarzan of the Apes By Edgar Rice Burroughs CONTENTS I Out to Sea II The Savage Home III Life and Death IV The Apes V The White Ape VI Jungle Battles VII The Light of Knowledge VIII The Tree-top Hunter IX Man and Man X The Fear-Phantom XI "King of the Apes" XII Man's Reason XIII His Own Kind XIV At the Mercy of the Jungle XV The Forest God XVI "Most Remarkable" XVII Burials XVIII The Jungle Toll XIX The Call of the Primitive XX Heredity XXI The Village of Torture XXII The Search Party XXIII Brother Men XXIV Lost Treasure XXV The Outpost of the World XXVI The Height of Civilization XXVII The Giant Again XXVIII Conclusion Chapter 1 Out to Sea I had this story from one who had no business to tell it


out 'Swine! Swine! Swine!' and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies. And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilization. It was even possible, at moments, to switch one's hatred this way or that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one's head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized WHY it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity. The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep's bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep. Then the


eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland could boast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sad and silent, where wild- fowl had been, but where then there was no life nor sign of life-- only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches. And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trails of men who had gone before. Once, they came upon a path blazed through the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemed very near. But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remained mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it remained mystery. Another time they chanced upon the time-graven wreckage of a hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted blankets John Thornton found a long-barrelled flint-lock. He knew it for a Hudson Bay Company gun of the young days in the Northwest, when such a gun was worth its height in beaver skins packed flat, And that was all--no hint as to the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gun among the blankets. Spring came on once more, and at the end of all their wandering they found, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing-pan. They sought no farther. Each day they worked earned them thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and they worked every day. The gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge. Like giants they toiled, days flashing on the heels of days like dreams as they heaped the treasure up. There was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling in of meat now and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hours musing by the fire. The vision of the short-legged hairy man came to him more frequently, now that there was little work to be done; and often, blinking by the fire, Buck wandered with him in that other world which he remembered. The salient thing of this other world seemed fear. When he watched the hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his knees and hands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, with many starts and awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfully into the darkness and fling more wood upon the fire. Did they walk by the beach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell- fish and ate them as he gathered, it was with eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance. Through the forest they crept noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's heels; and they were alert


it right off, I say, and have it over." "Do you mean apologize to Mrs. Lynde?" "Yes-apologize-that's the very word," said Matthew eagerly. "Just smooth it over so to speak. That's what I was trying to get at." "I suppose I could do it to oblige you," said Anne thoughtfully. "It would be true enough to say I am sorry, because I AM sorry now. I wasn't a bit sorry last night. I was mad clear through, and I stayed mad all night. I know I did because I woke up three times and I was just furious every time. But this morning it was over. I wasn't in a temper anymore-and it left a dreadful sort of goneness, too. I felt so ashamed of myself. But I just couldn't think of going and telling Mrs. Lynde so. It would be so humiliating. I made up my mind I'd stay shut up here forever rather than do that. But still-I'd do anything for you-if you really want me to-" "Well now, of course I do. It's terrible lonesome downstairs without you. Just go and smooth things overthat's a good girl." "Very well," said Anne resignedly. "I'll tell Marilla as soon as she comes in I've repented." "That's right-that's right, Anne. But don't tell Marilla I said anything about it. She might think I was putting my oar in and I promised not to do that." "Wild horses won't drag the secret from me," promised Anne solemnly. "How would wild horses drag a secret from a person anyhow?" But Matthew was gone, scared at his own success. He fled hastily to the remotest corner of the horse pasture lest Marilla should suspect what he had been up to. Marilla herself, upon her return to the house, was agreeably surprised to hear a plaintive voice calling, "Marilla" over the banisters. "Well?" she said, going into the hall. "I'm sorry I lost my temper and said rude things, and I'm willing to go and tell Mrs. Lynde so." "Very well." Marilla's crispness gave no sign of her relief. She had been wondering what under the canopy she should do if Anne did not give in. "I'll take you down after milking." Accordingly, after milking, behold Marilla and Anne walking down the lane, the former erect and triumphant, the latter drooping and dejected. But halfway down Anne's dejection vanished as if by enchantment. She lifted her head and stepped lightly along, her eyes fixed on the sunset sky and an air of subdued exhilaration about her Marilla beheld the change disapprovingly. This was no meek penitent such as it behooved her to take into the presence of the offended Mrs. Lynde. "What are you thinking of, Anne?" she asked sharply. "I'm imagining out what i must say to Mrs. Lynde," answered Anne dreamily. This was satisfactory-or should have been so. But Marilla could not rid herself of the notion that something in her scheme of punishment was going askew. Anne had no business to look so rapt and radiant. Rapt and radiant Anne continued until they


because there's --------------------------------------------------------- -198- other ways of getting even on her, that ain't so mean; but what of it? Old Dobbins will ask who it was tore his book. Nobody'll answer. Then he'll do just the way he always does -- ask first one and then t'other, and when he comes to the right girl he'll know it, without any telling. Girls' faces always tell on them. They ain't got any backbone. She'll get licked. Well, it's a kind of a tight place for Becky Thatcher, because there ain't any way out of it." Tom conned the thing a moment longer, and then added: "All right, though; she'd like to see me in just such a fix -- let her sweat it out!" Tom joined the mob of skylarking scholars outside. In a few moments the master arrived and school "took in." Tom did not feel a strong interest in his studies. Every time he stole a glance at the girls' side of the room Becky's face troubled him. Considering all things, he did not want to pity her, and yet it was all he could do to help it. He could get up no exultation that was really worthy the name. Presently the spelling-book discovery was made, and Tom's mind was entirely full of his own matters for a while after that. Becky roused up from her lethargy of distress and showed good interest in the proceedings. She did not expect that Tom could get out of his trouble by denying that he spilt the ink on the book himself; and she was right. The denial only seemed to make the thing worse for Tom. Becky supposed she would be glad of that, and she tried to believe she was glad --------------------------------------------------------- -199- of it, but she found she was not certain. When the worst came to the worst, she had an impulse to get up and tell on Alfred Temple, but she made an effort and forced herself to keep still -- because, said she to herself, "he'll tell about me tearing the picture sure. I wouldn't say a word, not to save his life!" Tom took his whipping and went back to his seat not at all broken-hearted, for he thought it was possible that he had unknowingly upset the ink on the spelling-book himself, in some skylarking bout -- he had denied it for form's sake and because it was custom, and had stuck to the denial from principle. A whole hour drifted by, the master sat nodding in his throne, the air was drowsy with the hum of study. By and by, Mr. Dobbins straightened himself up, yawned, then unlocked his desk, and reached for his book, but seemed undecided whether to take it out or leave it. Most of the pupils glanced up languidly, but there were two among them that watched his movements with intent eyes. Mr. Dobbins fingered his book absently for a while, then took it out and settled himself in his chair to read! Tom shot a glance at Becky. He had


clear successor—was passed up by a junior colleague. He was devastated. “Kicked in the head,” he said when he called Maud from London to tell her. He was his usual quiet on his weekends home, but crankier, even with Louise and Ella. He drank too much at night, which made him nicer but in a messy, slurring way that reminded Maud of her father. As the orchard blossomed and the tulips emerged, he turned his resentment on Maud. If he hadn’t received the promotion, he said, it was the fault of the commute and the complications of a split existence. He said that Maud should never have taken the Monk’s House job and put him in this position. “You’re rewriting history,” she said. “You agreed to this.” “Stop talking about bloody history.” “Stop blaming me for your failure.” The two of them were in the potting shed, where they now went to fight to be out of earshot of the girls. Maud had thrown the word “failure” at Peter like a rock, and she saw the impact on his face. They didn’t speak for the rest of the weekend. The following Thursday evening, after she picked him up from the train station, he asked her to pull over. She’d never seen him cry, not even when his father died. It was disconcerting to watch his face crumble. “I’m sorry I’ve been an ass,” he said. “I feel lost. There’s one thing I’m good at, and I don’t even know if I am anymore.” He couldn’t take it, he said. He couldn’t go back to that office. He was humiliated. He had to quit. “And I need you to believe in me.” “I do,” Maud said, feeling ashamed. She had loved this man once. She had to figure out a way to love him again. She expected Peter to find another job in London, but by the end of the summer he had an offer from an international bank that wanted him to head their risk management division in San Francisco. “It’s perfect,” he said. “We’ll be near your family, and it’s a million times better than what I had. Thank you for encouraging me.” Maud was stunned. She didn’t want to leave Monk’s House or England. Peter reassured her that the move could be temporary. “Even a few years would reset my career,” he said. He was so thrilled over the offer, and so relieved, that she felt there was no choice but to go. Three months later, Maud was living in Marin as their furniture floated across the Atlantic. She started immediately to look for work. The next spring, she was still looking. Eventually she found a short-term job at a winery in Napa Valley and drove there and back one day a week. She volunteered at the conservatory in Golden Gate Park. But she couldn’t find a significant project. Most people in the U.S. didn’t even know what “garden historian” meant. She kept having to explain and define herself until she stopped using the term and simply said “gardener.” One


clearing. Porter’s got his hand pushed down on his hip. “Just because you’re too scared to go over there and check don’t mean it doesn’t need to be done.” “You do it, then,” Javier says. “You know the whole place like the back of your hand. Doesn’t it make more sense for you to go check?” Porter throws his hands up, then spots me walking toward them. “Oh, good,” he says, clapping his hands together. “Boss is here. Let her tell you whose job it is to check the perimeter fencing because news flash, sugafoot, it ain’t me.” I approach Javier. “That would be your job. Is there a problem?” Javier smiles, and his right eyebrow arches up. He’s tall, dark hair and eyes, a scattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose. He looks like an athlete, but I’ve seen him trip over damn near every exposed root or uneven pathway out here. I don’t think he’s coordinated enough to walk in a straight line, much less play sports. “Aw, come on, Charity,” he whines. “Porter is so much better at this. He knows every inch of this place, and besides, something might happen to me, and then we’d never get a chance to really know each other, you know?” He flashes me another smile. He’s so obvious, it’s actually a little funny. “I’m a vegetarian,” I say to him. He looks at me, confused. “Huh?” “She don’t like meat,” Porter says. “Strictly strawberries, like my man Harry Styles said.” Javier’s brows push together. Me and Porter are both part of the alphabet mafia, so we get it, but poor Javier is clueless. “I’m gay,” I say. “Very, very gay. Save all that flirting and goofy grinning for somebody who wants it and who also isn’t your direct supervisor.” Porter tilts his head to the side. “I, however, am strictly dickly and not your supervisor, so please feel free to try and seduce me. It probably still won’t work because you’re out here tryna hand your job duties off to somebody else, but I think you should give it a try anyway.” Javier looks like he might actually take Porter up on his offer, but I cut him off. “Javier, you gotta get on the perimeter check. It’s important.” It still feels a little weird handing out tasks and staying on top of people’s assigned jobs. My previous two seasons, I always took on extra tasks—coordinated the game and set up reservations. I even worked to perfect our fake-blood recipes. At the start of this season, Mr. Lamont told me he was so impressed with my work ethic the previous summers that he was handing me the reins when it came to the day-to-day operations. He said I was responsible, self-sufficient, and trustworthy. That’s mostly true. I’m all those things, but mostly because I don’t have any other choices. Being the child of an irresponsible parent who doesn’t really care what you’re doing as long as it doesn’t mess up her plans will do that to you. Javier crosses his arms


but Mum said no. “My degree from Ghana helped me not one bit here and Maddie is an A-plus student. That cannot go to waste. She will do better than us if here, and so you, their father, must stay.” Thus her yo-yo traveling began. My brother James pretty much left when Mum did. She was the iron fist of the household and Dad didn’t know what to do with us when she was gone, so he did very little. James also didn’t know what to do with himself, so he spent most evenings and weekends at various friends’ houses. I barely saw him. He went to a different school from me and then straight to somebody else’s house; he had decided early on that his friends were his family. Mum hated that; she’d shout on the landline, punctuated by the automated voice reminding us how much we had left on our blue calling card. “Stay home, James! Stop eating at other people’s houses when your father has put food in the fridge. Their parents will think you have no mother!” James, at fifteen, would shout back, “I don’t!” I’d lie to friends and tell them Mum was only gone for a month or two, three tops, because I knew they wouldn’t get it. They’d ask, “What about you?” But I was fine. I was raised to be independent, to wash my own clothes, to shop for food and cook my own meals, to do my homework on time, to iron my uniform and assemble my school lunch. I didn’t need to be looked after. I was proud to be so trusted—I didn’t know any better. Then they’d ask, “What about your dad?” And he was fine too because my parents aren’t the same as yours and their marriage isn’t conventional. They do things their own way. I thought back then that it worked. I ignored James when he said it didn’t. * * * Dad’s sitting in his armchair by the window facing the TV. He always looks thinner in the mornings, his loose cheeks a little heavier (the medication ate a lot of his fat in the early stages), but doesn’t everything look different in the morning compared to how it did the night before? He’s still handsome in my eyes; we keep his hair, hardly any of which is gray, cut short, and his face looks brighter after its morning wash. If I had more time, I’d sit with him for a bit. I like our living room in the mornings. The floors can get quite cold as they’re light wood (easier for spotting and cleaning up any mess), but I’ve timed the heaters to come on when Dad’s helped out of bed. The walls are painted a peach-orange and we’ve got mismatched shawls and blankets covering the cracks in our tan faux-leather furniture. Whenever Mum returns from Ghana, she gets the sofa coverings to match the armchair’s coverings, but I forget to wash and dry the sets at the same time. “I’m leaving now, Dad,” I say, loud


and to ask for the help of the lodge-keeper. He was much excited, without either his gun or his hat, and his right hand and sleeve were observed to be stained with fresh blood. On following him they found the dead body stretched out upon the grass beside the pool. The head had been beaten in by repeated blows of some heavy and blunt weapon. The injuries were such as might very well have been inflicted by the butt-end of his son's gun, which was found lying on the grass within a few paces of the body. Under these circumstances the young man was instantly arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful murder' having been returned at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on Wednesday brought before the magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next Assizes. Those are the main facts of the case as they came out before the coroner and the police-court." "I could hardly imagine a more damning case," I remarked. "If ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so here." "Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different. It must be confessed, however, that the case looks exceedingly grave against the young man, and it is very possible that he is indeed the culprit. There are several people in the neighborhood, however, and among them Miss Turner, the daughter of the neighboring landowner, who believe in his innocence, and who have retained Lestrade, whom you may recollect in connection with 'A Study in Scarlet', to work out the case in his interest. Lestrade, being rather puzzled, has referred the case to me, and hence it is that two middle-aged gentlemen are flying westward at fifty miles an hour instead of quietly digesting their breakfasts at home." "I am afraid," said I, "that the facts are so obvious that you will find little credit to be gained out of this case." "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact," he answered, laughing. "Besides, we may chance to hit upon some other obvious facts which may have been by no means obvious to Mr. Lestrade. You know me too well to think that I am boasting when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his theory by means which he is quite incapable of employing, or even of understanding. To take the first example to hand, I very clearly perceive that in your bedroom the window is upon the right-hand side, and yet I question whether Mr. Lestrade would have noted even so self-evident a thing as that." "How on earth--" "My dear fellow, I know you well. I know the military neatness which characterizes you. You shave every morning, and in this season you shave by the sunlight; but since your shaving is less and less complete as we get farther back on the


by any of those strange and wicked eccentricities to which he had been continually impelled while passing through the streets. He entered the accustomed room, and looked around him on its books, its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried comfort of the walls, with the same perception of strangeness that had haunted him throughout his walk from the forest dell into the town and thitherward. Here he had studied and written; here gone through fast and vigil, and come forth half alive; here striven to pray; here borne a hundred thousand agonies! There was the Bible, in its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the Prophets speaking to him, and God's voice through all. There on the table, with the inky pen beside it, was an unfinished sermon, with a sentence broken in the midst, where his thoughts had ceased to gush out upon the page two days before. He knew that it was himself, the thin and white- cheeked minister, who had done and suffered these things, and written thus far Thesaurus gush: (n, v) flood, flow, spurt, jet, abnormal, debauched, deviant, stupefied: (adj) stunned, amazed, discharge, stream, rush, surge; (n) reprobate, unnatural. ANTONYMS: astonished, bewildered, astounded, burst, effusion; (v) course. (adj) normal, moral, unchanged. dumbfounded, stupid, confused, hastening: (n) quickening, speed, sermon: (n) discourse, oration, speech, flabbergasted, dumfounded, groggy. hurrying, speeding up, faster, fast, address, homily, preachment, ANTONYMS: (adj) precise, stepping up. harangue, preaching, exhortation, unimpressed. inky: (adj) black, ebon, sable, predication; (n, v) lecture. unprovoked: (adj) wanton, motiveless, atramentous, jetty, dusky, gloomy, stateliness: (n) loftiness, magnificence, unwarranted, gratuitous, sluttish, murky, pitchy, atramental, dignity, nobility, splendor, grandeur, groundless, light, loose, meaningless, atramentous spots. greatness, grandness, starched needless, reckless. ANTONYMS: (adj) perverted: (adj) perverse, immoral, stateliness, impressiveness, decorum. provoked, reasonable, necessary, distorted, kinky, corrupt, twisted, ANTONYM: (n) simplicity. justifiable. Nathaniel Hawthorne 215 into the Election Sermon! But he seemed to stand apart, and eye this former self with scornful pitying, but half-envious curiosity. That self was gone. Another man had returned out of the forest--a wiser one--with a knowledge of hidden mysteries which the simplicity of the former never could have reached. A bitter kind of knowledge that! While occupied with these reflections, a knock came at the door of the study, and the minister said, "Come in!"--not wholly devoid of an idea that he might behold an evil spirit. And so he did! It was old Roger Chillingworth that entered. The minister stood white and speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew Scriptures, and the other spread upon his breast.% "Welcome home, reverend sir," said the physician "And how found you that godly man, the Apostle Eliot? But methinks, dear sir, you look pale, as if the travel through the wilderness had been too sore for you. Will not my aid be requisite to put you in heart and strength to preach your Election Sermon?" "Nay, I think not so," rejoined the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. "My journey, and the sight of the holy Apostle yonder, and the free air which I have breathed have done me good, after so long


through TikTok and saving all the best sounds. It’s December, and I’m planning a theme: Christmas Conspiracies. Santa Claus sightings, capitalist manipulations of the workforce during the holidays, and anything else slightly bonkers and compelling and festive I can think of. I already feel my stress levels sinking. Who needs candy cane–scented candles when there’s social media chaos? A knock sounds at my bedroom door. “Hey,” Giselle says. “How’s it going?” “Fine.” I flash my sister a smile and switch over to my Notes app, typing out a potential idea about hot chocolate, lactose intolerance, and Santa’s nefarious intentions. “What about you? How was work?” She’s a crew member at McDonald’s because, apparently, shift work suits her “creative cycle” better than a nine to five. “Ugh. They’re still refusing to put me in the kitchen. But you have such a pretty smile, Giselle!” she mimics, flopping onto my bed like a dying swan. Her never-ending arms knock my snuggly crocheted mushroom off his favorite pillow. “Oi,” I say, reaching over to restore him to his rightful throne. “Watch it.” “Don’t shout at me, Celine. I’m nursing wounds of the soul. If one more football hooligan comes waltzing out of the Forest stadium to take out his pent-up aggression on me…” Her elegant features screw into an expression that can only be described as murderous. Combined with the smooth curve of her newly shaved head, she looks like a vengeful spirit crossed with Alek Wek. “Well, they’ll learn.” She sighs and changes the subject. “So, I read your leaflet.” This means nothing because I collect all kinds of leaflets. How are you supposed to learn about the different opportunities in the world if you don’t comb over the appropriate literature? “Mmm-hmm?” I murmur, turning the sound down on my phone and scrolling through a few more videos. “Did you know Dad’s firm is partly sponsoring this Katharine Breakspeare thing?” I drop the phone. It smacks me in the nose. “Shit.” “Smooth,” she says. “What? No. I…er…” My face hurts, which apparently inhibits my ability to lie. I rub my nose and give up. “How did you even find it?” “Find what?” she asks. “Oh, you mean the leaflet you hid behind your bedside table? I just came into your room and thought, ‘Giselle, if you were a shady little shit, where would you put your illicit materials?’ And then I poked around.” “So you went through my stuff.” “I went through your dust and lies, yes,” Giselle says brightly. Then she sits up, settling against my cushions as if she’s planning to be here for a long time. My eyes flick toward the door, and she gives me a knowing look. “Mum’s gone for a drink with Maria, remember?” Well, thank God for that. I try not to seem too relieved, though; it will only imply guilt. “Why do you want to see Dad?” Giselle asks, each word cautiously placed like steps through a land mine. A little dirt devil of uncertainty whirls in my gut. “I don’t.” She is clearly unconvinced. “I


I never use it myself. But, sir, as I was saying, if he would but prefer—” “Turkey,” interrupted I, “you will please withdraw.” “Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should.” As he opened the folding-door to retire, Nippers at his desk caught a glimpse of me, and asked whether I would prefer to have a certain paper copied on blue paper or white. He did not in the least roguishly accent the word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily rolled form his tongue. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man, who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the heads of myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break the dismission at once. The next day I noticed that Bartleby did nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery. Upon asking him why he did not write, he said that he had decided upon doing no more writing. “Why, how now? what next?” exclaimed I, “do no more writing?” “No more.” “And what is the reason?” “Do you not see the reason for yourself,” he indifferently replied. I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived that his eyes looked dull and glazed. Instantly it occurred to me, that his unexampled diligence in copying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with me might have temporarily impaired his vision. I was touched. I said something in condolence with him. I hinted that of course he did wisely in abstaining from writing for a while; and urged him to embrace that opportunity of taking wholesome exercise in the open air. This, however, he did not do. A few days after this, my other clerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to dispatch certain letters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else earthly to do, Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and carry these letters to the post-office. But he blankly declined. So, much to my inconvenience, I went myself. Still added days went by. Whether Bartleby’s eyes improved or not, I could not say. To all appearance, I thought they did. But when I asked him if they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he would do no copying. At last, in reply to my urgings, he informed me that he had permanently given up copying. “What!” exclaimed I; “suppose your eyes should get entirely well—better than ever before—would you not copy then?” “I have given up copying,” he answered, and slid aside. He remained as ever, a fixture in my chamber. Nay—if that were possible—he became still more of a fixture than before. What was to be done? He would do nothing in the office: why should he stay there? In plain fact, he had now become a millstone to me, not only useless as a necklace, but afflictive to bear. Yet I was sorry for him. I speak less than truth when I say that, on his own account, he occasioned me uneasiness.


reasonable admiration-- but without solicitation, or plea, or privilege, she must be wanting to assist and befriend her.--Before Emma had forfeited her confidence, and about the third time of their meeting, she heard all Mrs. Elton's knight-errantry on the subject.-- "Jane Fairfax is absolutely charming, Miss Woodhouse.--I quite rave about Jane Fairfax.--A sweet, interesting creature. So mild and ladylike--and with such talents!--I assure you I think she has very extraordinary talents. I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely well. I know enough of music to speak decidedly on that point. Oh! she is absolutely charming! You will laugh at my warmth--but, upon my word, I talk of nothing but Jane Fairfax.-- And her situation is so calculated to affect one!--Miss Woodhouse, we must exert ourselves and endeavour to do something for her. We must bring her forward. Such talent as hers must not be suffered to remain unknown.--I dare say you have heard those charming lines of the poet, `Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, `And waste its fragrance on the desert air.' We must not allow them to be verified in sweet Jane Fairfax." "I cannot think there is any danger of it," was Emma's calm answer-- "and when you are better acquainted with Miss Fairfax's situation and understand what her home has been, with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell, I have no idea that you will suppose her talents can be unknown." "Oh! but dear Miss Woodhouse, she is now in such retirement, such obscurity, so thrown away.--Whatever advantages she may have enjoyed with the Campbells are so palpably at an end! And I think she feels it. I am sure she does. She is very timid and silent. One can see that she feels the want of encouragement. I like her the better for it. I must confess it is a recommendation to me. I am a great advocate for timidity--and I am sure one does not often meet with it.--But in those who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing. Oh! I assure you, Jane Fairfax is a very delightful character, and interests me more than I can express." "You appear to feel a great deal--but I am not aware how you or any of Miss Fairfax's acquaintance here, any of those who have known her longer than yourself, can shew her any other attention than"-- "My dear Miss Woodhouse, a vast deal may be done by those who dare to act. You and I need not be afraid. If we set the example, many will follow it as far as they can; though all have not our situations. We have carriages to fetch and convey her home, and we live in a style which could not make the addition of Jane Fairfax, at any time, the least inconvenient.--I should be extremely displeased if Wright were to send us up such a dinner, as could make me regret having asked more than Jane Fairfax to partake of it. I have no idea of that sort of thing. It is not likely that


classification was given to terrorist suspects the U.S. military targeted for lethal strikes. White House staff also talked about naming migrant smuggling networks as “foreign terrorist organizations,” the legal designation that is applied to ISIS and al Qaeda. You would be right to pause here and ask, Is any of this really possible? The fact is, the Trump administration already laid the groundwork. Proposals involving armed drones, troop deployments, “unlawful enemy combatant” designations, and the use of the prison at Guantánamo Bay were not arbitrary. The White House wanted to turn the nation’s lethal security forces against immigration violators. Militia groups will be a worry, too. President Trump was eager to permit roaming bands of armed citizens to help him enforce immigration law. While he never approved an official policy allowing it to happen, a future leader could conceivably use presidential powers to enable private militias to drive away incoming migrants. Elected MAGA leaders in border states have proposed similar initiatives. And it’s frightening to think what vigilantes might be able to get away with, while the government conveniently looks the other way. To American citizens I say: the government of the Next Trump could treat you as friend or foe, based on your political leanings. Trump imparted a lesson to his MAGA apprentices. He learned it in the business world. “When you threaten to sue somebody, they don’t do anything,” Trump told a group of staff gathered in the Oval Office one afternoon. “They say ‘Pshhhh!’ ” He waved his hand in the air theatrically. “And they keep doing what they want. But when you sue them, they go ‘Ooooh!’ and they settle. It’s as easy as that.” Twice I heard him share the tip. The message was self-explanatory. Words don’t work; if you want someone to do something, you need influence over them. The Trump philosophy of leverage has infused the entirety of the Republican Party. MAGA leaders regularly propose using the levers of government to coerce or punish political enemies on the left, and they are keen to institute a system of selective protection in the United States. Imagine a burglar enters your home. You call 911. The police answer and tell you that before dispatching the nearest squad car, they have to check your voter registration. Republicans get priority. Democrats have to wait. Now picture this on a national scale. Under the Next Trump, DHS might automatically respond to emergencies in red states but hold out on blue states unless they capitulate to White House demands. This was how Trump wanted to handle the disbursement of disaster aid to everywhere from Puerto Rico to California. The possibilities for corruption are limitless. DHS spends billions of dollars every year in federal grants to states for cyber defense, protecting soft targets, breaking up drug networks, and more. DHS has wide discretion to adjust how the money is allocated. During my tenure, we resisted political pressure to manipulate the formulas to favor certain regions over others, but a new MAGA team won’t be so reticent. Elected leaders should conduct an end-to-end


wife, Mgbafo. I married her with my money and my yams. I do not owe my in-laws anything. I owe them no yams. I owe them no coco-yams. One morning three of them came to my house, beat me up and took my wife and children away. This happened in the rainy season. I have waited in vain for my wife to return. At last I went to my in-laws and said to them, 'You have taken back your sister. I did not send her away. You yourselves took her. The law of the clan is that you should return her bride-price.' But my wife's brothers said they had nothing to tell me. So I have brought the matter to the fathers of the clan. My case is finished. I salute you." "Your words are good," said the leader of the ecjwucjwu. "Let us hear Odukwe. His words may also be good." Odukwe was short and thickset. He stepped forward, saluted the spirits and began his story. "My in-law has told you that we went to his house, beat him up and took our sister and her children away. All that is true. He told you that he came to take back her bride-price and we refused to give it him. That also is true. My in-law, Uzowulu, is a beast. My sister lived with him for nine years. During those years no single day passed in the sky without his beating the woman. We have tried to settle their quarrels time without number and on each occasion Uzowulu was guilty-- "It is a lie!" Uzowulu shouted. "Two years ago," continued Odukwe, "when she was pregnant, he beat her until she miscarried." "It is a lie. She miscarried after she had gone to sleep with her lover." "Uzowulu's body, I salute you," said Evil Forest, silencing him. "What kind of lover sleeps with a pregnant woman?" There was a loud murmur of approbation from the crowd. Odukwe continued: "Last year when my sister was recovering from an illness, he beat her again so that if the neighbours had not gone in to save her she would have been killed. We heard of it, and did as you have been told. The law of Umuofia is that if a woman runs away from her husband her bride-price is returned. But in this case she ran away to save her life. Her two children belong to Uzowulu. We do not dispute it, but they are too young to leave their mother. If, in the other hand, Uzowulu should recover from his madness and come in the proper way to beg his wife to return she will do so on the understanding that if he ever beats her again we shall cut off his genitals for him." The crowd roared with laughter. Evil Forest rose to his feet and order was immediately restored. A steady cloud of smoke rose from his head. He sat down again and called two witnesses. They were both Uzowulu's neighbours, and they agreed about the beating. Evil Forest then stood


spoken the word ‘deets’ aloud in my life and wasn’t quite sure I had carried it off. ‘You don’t have my number.’ ‘Yes, that was a roundabout invitation for you to offer it, Martha. Work with me here!’ An awkward silence followed, which she seemed to relish a little too much. ‘Are you … going to give it to me?’ ‘I might.’ She smiled. Was this flirting? It certainly felt like flirting, but it was hard to tell when most of her body language was on the defensive. ‘Here,’ she said, putting her hand out for my phone, quickly typing her number in. ‘Now, I have to go.’ With that, she shut the window and pulled the blind back down. It was like something out of a romcom my mother would watch. My thumb hovered over the ‘send’ button until I recalled a hack my sister often employed. Count down from five to one and then just do it. I lightly touched the screen, my phone made a whooshing sound and my message was now time-stamped. Meet me at Pen Corner I thought it sounded enigmatic … until I got Martha’s reply: Who is this? It’s Henry. The guy who isn’t a weirdo. Oh, that Henry. Where is Pen Corner? Just get to the junction of College Green & Trinity Street. You’ll see The only establishment that could rival a bookshop or a library, in my opinion, was a good stationery shop. The Pen Corner, however, was something of a hallowed ground when it came to the humble writing instrument. In full prominence on the corner of the street, the Edwardian building had a tower with a clock at the top which told me I was unfashionably early. The black and gold lettering of the shop sign, along with the mosaic-style glass panels above the windows, held all the promise of a hushed library. I had intended to wait for Martha outside, but my willpower lasted all of two minutes. I spotted a Mont Blanc pen in the window that begged closer inspection. Once inside, I felt my shoulders relax and my nose picked up that distinctive scent of paper, leather and ink. Glass cases discreetly displayed rows of Parker and Cross pens along with calligraphy nibs, like expensive jewels. Behind the counter were leather satchels that brought to mind Hemingway’s lost novel. Would it have been kept inside a leather satchel just like this? That’s what every MA Lit student assumed as they strolled around campus with an exact replica slung over their shoulder. Two or three other customers milled around and as I turned to see if I could find my pen, I saw her, standing in the doorway, unsure of herself. ‘Martha, you made it.’ Well, no one could say I ever missed an opportunity to point out the obvious. She just smiled in response and slowly let the door close behind her. ‘What are we doing here?’ ‘An existentialist. I knew it.’ She looked at me askance. ‘Just a little humour, no need to be alarmed.’ God, why