1
" Nix to Declan:
Begin transcript—
Testing. Hello, hellooo, anybody out there? Check, check, one, two. Soft pee. Puh, puh. Resonance! Sooooooft pee. Alpha bravo disco tango duck.
This is Nïx! I’m the Ever-Knowing One, a goddess incandescent, incomparable, and irresistible. But enough about what you think of me. It’s a beautiful day in New Orleans. The wind is out of the east at a steady five knots and clouds look like rabbits … But enough about what you think of me!
Now, down to business—
Squirrel!
Where was I? [Long pause] Why am I in Regin’s car? Bertil, you crawl right back out of that bong this minute!
Oh, I remember! I am hereby laying down this track for Magister Declan Chase. If you are a mortal of the recorder peon class, know that Dekko and I go waaaaay back, and he’ll go berserk (snicker snicker) if he doesn’t receive this transmittal. …
Chase, riddle me this: what’s beautiful but monstrous, long of tooth but sharp of tooth and soft of mind, and can never ever tell a lie?
That’s right. The Enemy of Old can be very useful to you. So use him already.
P.S. Your middle name’s about to be spelled r-e-g-r-e-t.
And with that, I must bid you adieu. Don’t worry, we’ll catch up very soon. …
[Muffled] Who’s mummy’s wittle echolocator? That’s right—you are!
—End transcript "
― Kresley Cole , Dreams of a Dark Warrior (Immortals After Dark, #10)
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" Our big mistake in modern intellectualism is first and foremost its lack of nuance. We have made science synonymous with atheism - a presupposed conception and yet, another means to non sequiturs - and therefore, to a number of enthusiasts determined to go the further, anti-theism. Hereby let us observe that science has long served best and should be, if none other, the one discipline, if at all possible, free of potential ideology, pro-religious or anti-religious, and/or biased presupposition in order to maintain the true authenticity and the full reliability of its nature. "
― Criss Jami , Healology
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" A book is open in front of me and this is what it has to
say about the symptoms of morphine withdrawal:
'... morbid anxiety, a nervous depressed condition,
irritability, weakening of the memory, occasional
hallucinations and a mild impairment of consciousness
...'
I have not experienced any hallucinations, but I can
only say that the rest of this description is dull, pedestrian
and totally inadequate.
'Depressed condition' indeed!
Having suffered from this appalling malady, I hereby enjoin
all doctors to be more compassionate toward their
patients. What overtakes the addict deprived of morphine
for a mere hour or two is not a 'depressed condition': it is
slow death. Air is insubstantial, gulping it down is useless
... there is not a cell in one's body that does not crave
... but crave what? This is something which defies analysis
and explanation. In short, the individual ceases to exist:
he is eliminated. The body which moves, agonises and
suffers is a corpse. It wants nothing, can think of nothing
but morphine. To die of thirst is a heavenly, blissful death
compared with the craving for morphine. The feeling must
be something like that of a man buried alive, clawing at the
skin on his chest in the effort to catch the last tiny bubbles
of air in his coffin, or of a heretic at the stake, groaning and
writhing as the first tongues of flame lick at his feet.
Death. A dry, slow death. That is what lurks behind
that clinical, academic phrase 'a depressed condition'. "
― Mikhail Bulgakov , Morphine
