7
" Drelmere and sons, fine outfitters for the discerning magician!” he was shouting, his voice barely carrying over the hubbub. “Robes! Pointy hats! Beard grooming supplies! Yes, you sir, how can OH GOD HURRAAARRGLAB.”
I waited patiently for him to finish decorating the pavement with his stomach contents. “Sorry,” he said, bent double and gulping. Impressively, he immediately continued his sales pitch from that position. “Looking for a new robe?”
“Yes, this one’s starting to whiff a bit.”
“Yes, I . . . gathered that, sir.” He took a few deep, groaning breaths into a star-patterned hanky and seemed to gather himself.
“What sort of price range were you OH GOD YOUR EYES HURRAAARRGLAB.”
I tapped my now bile-sodden foot. “Shall I come back later? "
― Yahtzee Croshaw
8
" A large piece of lead floated out of Bobby head, followed by dark chunks of what could only be pieces of Bobby's brain.The torrent started up again. It flowed steady rather than pulsed with his heart. I knew from that, and from the amount of blood, that it was that mofo vein bleeding. And probably more than a small tear if the amount of blood was telling. I thought there had to be a hole the size of Montana in that thing." Jesus Mother Mary" I said, then " Stitch!" The scrub tech slapped a needle holder into my palm, a curved needle and silk stitch clamped into the end of it. I might have closed my eyes—I've been told I do that sometimes in surgery when I'm trying to visualize something—though if so I don't remember doing it. I took that needle and aimed it into the pool of blood." Suck here Joe, right here." When I thought I could see something, something gray and not black red, I plunged the pointy end of the needle through whatever the visible tissue was and looped it out again. I cinched it down and tied it quick, then repeated the maneuver again after adjusting slightly for lighting, sweating, my own bounding heartbeat, and the regret I wasn't wearing my own diaper.We're losing, I thought. "
9
" Miss Dearheart gave him a very brief look, and shook her head. There was movement under the table, a small fleshy kind of noise and the drunk suddenly bent forward, colour draining from his face. Probably only he and Moist heard Miss Dearheart purr: ‘What is sticking in your foot is a Mitzy “Pretty Lucretia” four-inch heel, the most dangerous footwear in the world. Considered as pounds per square inch, it’s like being trodden on by a very pointy elephant. Now, I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking, “Could she press it all the way through to the floor?” And, you know, I’m not sure about that myself. The sole of your boot might give me a bit of trouble, but nothing else will. But that’s not the worrying part. The worrying part is that I was forced practically at knifepoint to take ballet lessons as a child, which means I can kick like a mule; you are sitting in front of me; and I have another shoe . Good, I can see you have worked that out. I’m going to withdraw the heel now.’
There was a small ‘pop’ from under the table. With great care the man stood up, turned and, without a backward glance, lurched unsteadily away.
‘Can I bother you?’ said Moist. Miss Dearheart nodded, and he sat down, with his legs crossed. ‘He was only a drunk,’ he ventured.
‘Yes, men say that sort of thing,’ said Miss Dearheart. "
― Terry Pratchett , Going Postal (Discworld, #33; Moist von Lipwig, #1)
11
" He pulled out a couple of mugs while she warmed up the cocoa. He chuckled and she turned to see what was funny and nearly had a heart attack.
He was holding one hot pink and white mug while reading it, the other sitting on the counter: Men should be like my curtains, easy to pull and well hung.
Her lips parted, she had to have turned cherry red, and she turned away quickly before she burned the cocoa. Now what? Explain that a friend had given them to her when her last boyfriend and she had parted company? Or just ignore the fact that they were drinking out of those cups while she was having hot cocoa with him and pretend she wasn’t embarrassed to the tip of her toes?
He brought the mugs over. “Anything else?”
“There’s a can of whipped cream in the fridge, if you want some.”
“Real cream,” he said, eyeing the can. “Looks good.” He gave it to her, and he lifted the mugs.
She shook up the can and pointed it at the right mug, pushed the nozzle, and the cream dripped and fizzled. Not to be thwarted, she shook it again, hoping that it wasn’t defective. And then the whipped cream swirled around with perfect ridges in a twirl on top with a cute little pointy peak. Perfect.
Then she turned to the other mug, shook the can again, and pushed the nozzle. It was working great until halfway through her little mountain of whipped cream twirling to perfection, when the nozzle malfunctioned again and spewed whipped cream everywhere.
In horror, she stopped what she was doing and stared at the white cream splattered all over Allan’s chest and a few that had dotted his boxer briefs. Her mouth agape, she glanced up at him.
His eyes sparkled with mirth and he laughed.
“Oh, oh, let me get something to wipe it up,” she said, belatedly, and set the can of whipped cream on the counter.
She grabbed some paper towels and wetted them, then rushed back to wipe the mess up. He was still holding onto both hot pink mugs of cocoa. She had every intention of taking one of the mugs and letting him clean himself, but he just moved his arms apart as if to say she made the mess, she could wash it up.
She thought she was going to die. Yes, he was totally hot. And yes, she’d fantasized about making love to him—since they were both unattached, and she truly liked him. But in her wildest dreams she would never have imagined making him cocoa in the middle of the night in her duplex while he stood in sexy silk briefs, not baggy, but nice and form fitting, and then she proceeded to splatter him with whipped cream. All over his tanned chest and those black briefs. "
― Terry Spear , SEAL Wolf In Too Deep (Heart of the Wolf, #18)
12
" I’ve heard that when you’re in a life-or-death situation, like a car accident or a gunfight, all your senses shoot up to almost superhuman level, everything slows down, and you’re hyper-aware of what’s happening around you.
As the shuttle careens toward the earth, the exact opposite is true for me.
Everything silences, even the screams and shouts from the people on the other side of the metal door, the crashes that I pray aren’t bodies, the hissing of rockets, Elder’s cursing, my pounding heartbeat.
I feel nothing—not the seat belt biting into my flesh, not my clenching jaw, nothing. My whole body is numb.
Scent and taste disappear.
The only thing about my body that works is my eyes,and they are filled with the image before them. The ground seems to leap up at us as we hurtle toward it. Through the blurry image of the world below us, I see the outline of land—a continent. And at once, my heart lurches with the desire to know this world, to make it our home. My eyes drink up the image of the planet—and my stomach sinks with the knowledge that this is a coastline I’ve never seen before. I could spin a globe of Earth around and still be able to recognize the way Spain and Portugal reach into the Atlantic, the curve of the Gulf of Mexico, the pointy end of India. But this continent—it dips and curves in ways I don’t recognize, swirls into an unknown sea, creating peninsulas in shapes I do not know, scattering out islands in a pattern I cannot connect.
And it’s not until I see this that I realize: this world may one day become our home,but it will never be the home I left behind. "
― Beth Revis , Shades of Earth (Across the Universe, #3)
14
" First of all, I'll tell you who I'm not. I'm not your enemy, so you can put the sharp pointy objects away,' he responded in a light conversational tone, obviously not deterred by my abrasiveness, which only pissed me off more to know he didn't find me to be a threat at all.
'Well, first of all, I'll be the judge of that,' I cut him off before he could continue. 'And second of all, I'm not interested in who you're not,' I added.
'So you're saying you're interested in who I am?' He gave me a moment to process what he said before a smile broke on his face.
My cheeks flamed. 'Hardly. Just interested in whether or not I'll be seeing you around again,' I was seething and beginning to shake with indignation.
'So you want to see me again? "
― Alicia Deters , Fading Darkness (The Bloodmarked Series, #1)
19
" He was almost at his door when Vik’s earsplitting shriek resounded down the corridor. Tom was glad for the excuse to sprint back toward him. “Vik?”
He reached Vik’s doorway as Vik was backing out of it. “Tom,” he breathed, “it’s an abomination.”
Confused, Tom stepped past him into the bunk. Then he gawked, too.
Instead of a standard trainee bunk of two small beds with drawers underneath them and totally bare walls, Vik’s bunk was virtually covered with images of their friend Wyatt Enslow. There were posters all over the wall with Wyatt’s solemn, oval face on them. She wore her customary scowl, her dark eyes tracking their every move through the bunk. There was a giant marble statue of a sad-looking Vik with a boot on top of its head. The Vik statue clutched two very, very tiny hands together in a gesture of supplication, its eyes trained upward on the unseen stomper, an inscription at its base, WHY, OH WHY, DID I CROSS WYATT ENSLOW?
Tom began to laugh.
“She didn’t do it to the bunk,” Vik insisted. “She must’ve done something to our processors.”
That much was obvious. If Wyatt was good at anything, it was pulling off tricks with the neural processors, which could pretty much be manipulated to show them anything. This was some sort of illusion she was making them see, and Tom heartily approved.
He stepped closer to the walls to admire some of the photos pinned there, freeze-frames of some of Vik’s more embarrassing moments at the Spire: that time Vik got a computer virus that convinced him he was a sheep, and he’d crawled around on his hands and knees chewing on plants in the arboretum. Another was Vik gaping in dismay as Wyatt won the war games.
“My hands do not look like that.” Vik jabbed a finger at the statue and its abnormally tiny hands. Wyatt had relentlessly mocked Vik for having small, delicate hands ever since Tom had informed her it was the proper way to counter one of Vik’s nicknames for her, “Man Hands.” Vik had mostly abandoned that nickname for “Evil Wench,” and Tom suspected it was due to the delicate-hands gibe.
Just then, Vik’s new roommate bustled into the bunk.
He was a tall, slim guy with curly black hair and a pointy look to his face. Tom had seen him around, and he called up his profile from memory:
NAME: Giuseppe Nichols
RANK: USIF, Grade IV Middle, Alexander Division
ORIGIN: New York, NY
ACHIEVEMENTS: Runner-up, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition
IP: 2053:db7:lj71::291:ll3:6e8
SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-4
Giuseppe must’ve been able to see the bunk template, too, because he stuttered to a stop, staring up at the statue. “Did you really program a giant statue of yourself into your bunk template? That’s so narcissistic.”
Tom smothered his laughter. “Wow. He already has your number, man.”
Vik shot him a look of death as Tom backed out of the bunk. "
― S.J. Kincaid
