3
" Yeah, I get it; you're a vampire," she said. " Creepy. And okay, a little hot, I admit." " You don't mean that." " Come on. I still like you, you know, even if you... crave plasma." Michael blinked and looked at her as if he had never seen her before." You what?" " Like. You." Eve enunciated slowly, as if Michael might not know the words. " Idiot. I always have. What, you didn't know?" Eve sounded cool and grown-up about it, but Claire saw the hectic color in her cheeks, under the makeup. " How clueless are you? Does it come with the fangs?" " I guess I... I just thought... Hell. I just didn't think... You're kind of intimidating, you know." " I'm intimidating? Me? I run like a rabbit from trouble, mostly," Eve said." It's all show and makeup. You're the one who's intimidating. I mean, come on. All that talent, and you look... Well, you know how you look." " How do I look?" He sounded fascinated now, and he'd actually moved a little closer to Eve on the couch. She laughed. " Oh come on. You're a total model-babe." " You're kidding." " You don't think you are?" He shook his head. " Then you're kind of an idiot, Glass. Smart, but and idiot." Eve crossed her arms.“So? What exactly do you think about me, except that I’m intimidating?”“I think you’re…you’re…ah, interesting?” Michael was amazingly bad at this, Claire thought, but then he saved it by looking away and continuing. “I think you’re beautiful. And really, really strange.”Eve smiled and looked down, and that looked like a real blush, under the rice powder. “Thanks for that, “ she said, “I never thought you knew I existed, or if you did, that you thought I was anything but Shane’s bratty freak friend.”“Well, to be fair, you are Shane’s bratty freak friend.”“Hey!”“You can be bratty and beautiful,” Michael said. “I think it’s interesting. "
7
" Paris and Helen
He called her: golden dawn
She called him: the wind whistles
He called her: heart of the sky
She called him: message bringer
He called her: mother of pearl
barley woman, rice provider,
millet basket, corn maid,
flax princess, all-maker, weef
She called him: fawn, roebuck,
stag, courage, thunderman,
all-in-green, mountain strider
keeper of forests, my-love-rides
He called her: the tree is
She called him: bird dancing
He called her: who stands,
has stood, will always stand
She called him: arriver
He called her: the heart and the womb
are similar
She called him: arrow in my heart. "
― Judy Grahn , The Work of a Common Woman: The Collected Poetry of Judy Grahn, 1964-1977
10
" It was under English trees that I meditated on that lost labyrinth: I pictured it perfect and inviolate on the secret summit of a mountain; I pictured its outlines blurred by rice paddies, or underwater; I pictured it as infinite—a labyrinth not of octagonal pavillions and paths that turn back upon themselves, but of rivers and provinces and kingdoms....I imagined a labyrinth of labyrinths, a maze of mazes, a twisting, turning, ever-widening labyrinth that contained both past and future and somehow implied the stars. Absorbed in those illusory imaginings, I forgot that I was a pursued man; I felt myself, for an indefinite while, the abstract perceiver of the world. The vague, living countryside, the moon, the remains of the day did their work in me; so did the gently downward road, which forestalled all possibility of weariness. The evening was near, yet infinite. "
― Jorge Luis Borges , The Garden of Forking Paths