21
" We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.
When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy.
It’s like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable. "
― Mark Nepo , The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have
22
" Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he started muttering to himself," Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed--No, my mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes--hundreds of 'em--cubs; and--" " Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?" asked the Doctor." Why, of course!" said Jip. " And those are only a few of the easy smells--the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in the head. Wait now, and I'll tell you some of the harder scents that are coming on this wind--a few of the dainty ones." Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream." Bricks," he whispered, very low--" old yellow bricks, crumbling with age in a garden-wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove-cote--or perhaps agranary--with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau-drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses' drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms burstingthrough the rotting leaves; and--and--and--" " Any parsnips?" asked Gub-Gub." No," said Jip. " You always think of things to eat. No parsnips whatever. "
23
" Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist--holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew--moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling. "
― Zsuzsi Gartner , Better Living Through Plastic Explosives
31
" Merik swiveled his wrists slowly. At night, the temple was too dark to see the blood dripping from his arms, pooling on the granite flagstones. He felt it falling, though. Just as he felt the new, burned flesh on his hands stretching beneath torn gloves.
Yet even as pain shivered through his body, he couldn’t help but think: Only a fool ignores Noden’s gifts. For if Merik looked at this case of mistaken identity from the just the right angle, it could in fact all be seen as boon.
The assassin in the night. The fire on the Jana. The attack of a Waterwitch in Pin’s Keep. Each event had led Merik here, to Noden’s temple. To a fresco of the god’s left hand.
To the Fury.
Twice now, he’d been mistaken for that monstrous demigod, and twice now, it had worked in Merik’s favor. So why not continue using the fear invoked from that name? Was Merik not doing the Fury’s work by bringing justice to the wronged and punishment to the wicked? It was clear that Nubrevnans needed Merik’s help, and his sister Vivia…Well, she was stil out there. Alive. Wretched.
So was it not Merik’s moral duty to keep her off the throne? And he could do that if he could just prove she had indeed tried to kill him—that it was she who’d purchased that prisoner from Vizer Linday, and she who’d sent the prisoner to kill Merik.
Yes. This was right. This was Noden’s will. It throbbed in Merik’s wounds. It shivered across his scalp and down his raw back.
Take the god’s gift. Become the Fury.
Merik rose, stiff but strong, from the temple floor, and with a new purpose in his movements, he tugged his hood, his sleeves, his gloves into place. Then he turned away from the Fury’s gruesome fresco and set out to bring justice to the wronged.
Punishment to the wicked. "
― Susan Dennard , Windwitch (The Witchlands, #2)
33
" Magnus had animated one of his magnificent Chinese fans, and it flapped ineffectively at him, barely stirring the breeze. It was, if he was completely honest with himself (and he did not want to be), a bit too hot for this new striped blue-and-rose-colored coat, made of taffeta and satin, and the silk faille waistcoat embroidered with a scene of birds and cherubs. The wing collar, and the wig, and the silk breeches, the wonderful new gloves in the most delicate lemon yellow . . . it was all a bit warm.Still. If one could look this fabulous, one had an obligation to. One should wear everything, or one should wear nothing at all. "
34
" Honest to God, I hadn’t meant to start a bar fight.
“So. You’re the famous Jordan Amador.” The demon sitting in front of me looked like someone filled a pig bladder with rotten cottage cheese. He overflowed the bar stool with his gelatinous stomach, just barely contained by a white dress shirt and an oversized leather jacket. Acid-washed jeans clung to his stumpy legs and his boots were at least twice the size of mine. His beady black eyes started at my ankles and dragged upward, past my dark jeans, across my black turtleneck sweater, and over the grey duster around me that was two sizes too big.
He finally met my gaze and snorted before continuing. “I was expecting something different. Certainly not a black girl. What’s with the name, girlie?”
I shrugged. “My mother was a religious woman.”
“Clearly,” the demon said, tucking a fat cigar in one corner of his mouth. He stood up and walked over to the pool table beside him where he and five of his lackeys had gathered. Each of them was over six feet tall and were all muscle where he was all fat.
“I could start to examine the literary significance of your name, or I could ask what the hell you’re doing in my bar,” he said after knocking one of the balls into the left corner pocket.
“Just here to ask a question, that’s all. I don’t want trouble.”
Again, he snorted, but this time smoke shot from his nostrils, which made him look like an albino dragon. “My ass you don’t. This place is for fallen angels only, sweetheart. And we know your reputation.”
I held up my hands in supplication. “Honest Abe. Just one question and I’m out of your hair forever.”
My gaze lifted to the bald spot at the top of his head surrounded by peroxide blonde locks. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
He glared at me. I smiled, batting my eyelashes. He tapped his fingers against the pool cue and then shrugged one shoulder.
“Fine. What’s your question?”
“Know anybody by the name of Matthias Gruber?”
He didn’t even blink. “No.”
“Ah. I see. Sorry to have wasted your time.”
I turned around, walking back through the bar. I kept a quick, confident stride as I went, ignoring the whispers of the fallen angels in my wake. A couple called out to me, asking if I’d let them have a taste, but I didn’t spare them a glance. Instead, I headed to the ladies’ room. Thankfully, it was empty, so I whipped out my phone and dialed the first number in my Recent Call list.
“Hey. He’s here. Yeah, I’m sure it’s him. They’re lousy liars when they’re drunk. Uh-huh. Okay, see you in five.”
I hung up and let out a slow breath. Only a couple things left to do.
I gathered my shoulder-length black hair into a high ponytail. I looped the loose curls around into a messy bun and made sure they wouldn’t tumble free if I shook my head too hard. I took the leather gloves in the pocket of my duster out and pulled them on. Then, I walked out of the bathroom and back to the front entrance.
The coat-check girl gave me a second unfriendly look as I returned with my ticket stub to retrieve my things—three vials of holy water, a black rosary with the beads made of onyx and the cross made of wood, a Smith & Wesson .9mm Glock complete with a full magazine of blessed bullets and a silencer, and a worn out page of the Bible.
I held out my hands for the items and she dropped them on the counter with an unapologetic, “Oops.”
“Thanks,” I said with a roll of my eyes. I put the Glock back in the hip holster at my side and tucked the rest of the items in the pockets of my duster.
The brunette demon crossed her arms under her hilariously oversized fake breasts and sent me a vicious sneer. “The door is that way, Seer. Don’t let it hit you on the way out.”
I smiled back. “God bless you.”
She let out an ugly hiss between her pearly white teeth. I blew her a kiss and walked out the door. The parking lot was packed outside now that it was half-past midnight. Demons thrived in darkness, so I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I’d been counting on it. "
― Kyoko M. , The Holy Dark (The Black Parade, #3)
35
" Idris had been green and gold and russet in the autumn, when Clary had first been there. It had a stark grandeur in the winter: the mountains rose in the distance, capped white with snow, and the trees along the side of the road that led back to Alicante from the lake were stripped bare, their leafless branches making lace-like patterns against the bright sky.
Sometimes Jace would slow the horse to point out the manor houses of the richer Shadowhunter families, hidden from the road when the trees were full but revealed now. She felt his shoulders tense as they passed one that nearly melded with the forest around it: it had clearly been burned and rebuilt. Some of the stones still bore the black marks of smoke and fire. “The Blackthorn manor,” he said. “Which means that around this bend in the road is …” He paused as Wayfarer summited a small hill, and reined him in so they could look down to where the road split in two. One direction led back toward Alicante — Clary could see the demon towers in the distance — while the other curled down toward a large building of mellow golden stone, surrounded by a low wall. “ … the Herondale manor,” Jace finished.
The wind picked up; icy, it ruffled Jace’s hair. Clary had her hood up, but he was bare-headed and bare-handed, having said he hated wearing gloves when horseback riding. He liked to feel the reins in his hands. “Did you want to go and look at it?” she asked.
His breath came out in a white cloud. “I’m not sure. "
― Cassandra Clare , City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)
36
" How can you stand touching her?” my sister blurted, staring at our clasped hands. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
I seized on the change of topic. “These gloves are specialized rubber. They block the current.”
Gretchen’s gaze traveled over Vlad, disbelief still stamped on her features. “Yeah, but how do you two do anything else, unless he has a special, currentrepelling
glove for his—”
“Gretchen!” my father cut her off.
My cheeks felt hot. Don’t say a word, I thought to Vlad, seeing his chest tremble with suppressed laughter.
“He has a natural immunity,” I gritted out. "
― Jeaniene Frost , Once Burned (Night Prince, #1)
