4
" I remember our childhood days
when life was easy
and math problems hard.
Mom would help us with our homework
and dad was not at home
but at work.
After our chores,
we’d go to the old fort museum
with clips in our hair and pure joy in our hearts.
You, sister, wore the bangles
that
you, brother, got as a prize from the Dentist.
“Why the bangles?” the Dentist asked,
surprised,
for boys picked the stickers of cars instead.
“They’re for my sisters,” you said.
Mom would treat us to a bottle of Coke,
a few sips each. Then,
we’d buy the sweet smelling bread
from the same white van
and hand-in-hand,
we’d walk to our small flat
above the restaurant.
I remember our childhood days.
Do you remember them too? "
― Kamand Kojouri
7
" A smile is hidden beneath the mustache, it crinkles the corners of his hooded eyes. “I didn’t. I have other business in town and I told my friend I would attend to the matter of his son, as he could not do so himself.”
“Very kind of you.”
“Yes. I have been looking forward to it for quite some time.”
Daddy’s lemonade is almost gone, he sips it carefully, turning his eyes back to the water. “Looking forward to seeing the lad or to conducting your business?” Daddy is toying with him.
“Both. You see, I had never actually met his son.” The glass rests against Daddy’s lips, unmoving. Mr. Geyer watches him closely. “But now I have, so I can get on with my,” he fixes his own gaze on the water, as though trying to see whatever it is that has transfixed my father, “business. "
― Gwenn Wright , The BlueStocking Girl (The Von Strassenberg Saga, #2)
11
" The game is a thread, microscopic in breadth, a hint of gossamer drawing unsuspecting souls together in simple competition to the exclusion of all else, from a mother and her infant playing peekaboo to two old men hunched over a chessboard and everything in between. The game unifies, joining father and son pitching baseballs at night after a long day at the office, pitches pounding the mitt or skipping past, one time even knocking the coffee cup handle clean off and the boy scampering off to retrieve a wild one as the dad sips and ponders. The game allows brothers to bond even when the age gap is too great for real competition, their mutual effort to fashion a bridge between disparate age and ability forming a bond of trust and respect. And finally, it is the game’s presence and past and its memory that inspires each of us to forgive time and aging and their inevitable accompanying attrition because the gray and hobbled old man before me was once lean and powerful and magnificent and some of what became of him was due to the investment he made in me and after all the batting practice he threw and grounders he hit, his shoulder aches and his knees need replacement. Even though youth masks it so you don't realize it all when you’re a kid, someday it happens to you and suddenly you realize you are him and you are left wishing you could go back and tell him what you now know and perhaps thank him for what he gave up. You imagine him back then receiving nothing in return except the knowledge that you would someday understand but he could not hasten that day or that revelation and he abided it all so graciously knowing that your realization might be too late for him. So you console yourself that in the absence of your gratitude he clung to hope and conviction and the future. Turn the page and you find yourself staring out at the new generation and you wince as his pitches bruise your palm and crack your thumb and realize that today the game is growth and achievement and tomorrow it will be love and memories. The game is a gift. "
― Drew Rogers , Before the Spotlight
13
" Tris!” Four calls out. Will and I exchange a look, half surprise and half apprehension. Four pulls away from the railing and walks
up to me. Ahead of us, Al and Christina stop running, and Christina slides to the ground. I don’t blame them for staring. There are four of us, and Four is only talking to me.
“You look different.” His words, normally crisp, are now sluggish.
“So do you,” I say. And he does—he looks more relaxed, younger. “What are you doing?”
“Flirting with death,” he replies with a laugh. “Drinking near the chasm. Probably not a good idea.”
“No, it isn’t.” I’m not sure I like Four this way. There’s something unsettling about it.
“Didn’t know you had a tattoo,” he says, looking at my collarbone.
He sips the bottle. His breath smells thick and sharp. Like the factionless man’s breath.
“Right. The crows,” he says. He glances over his shoulder at his friends, who are carrying on without him, unlike mine. He adds,
“I’d ask you to hang out with us, but you’re not supposed to see me this way.”
I am tempted to ask him why he wants me to hang out with him, but I suspect the answer has something to do with the bottle in
his hand.
“What way?” I ask. “Drunk?”
“Yeah...well, no.” His voice softens. “Real, I guess.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t.”
“Nice of you.” He puts his lips next to my ear and says, “You look good, Tris.”
His words surprise me, and my heart leaps. I wish it didn’t, because judging by the way his eyes slide over mine, he has no idea
what he’s saying. I laugh. “Do me a favor and stay away from the chasm, okay?”
“Of course.” He winks at me. "
― Veronica Roth , Divergent (Divergent, #1)
