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21 " Hundreds of ladybugs had taken shelter from the winter in the crevices of the decayed windows. From there, they broke into the apartment in commando squads. My joy at that first sighting of the ladybug spreading its lower winglets on the rim of the jam glass, flashing three spots of fortune, soon turned into something tragic and Greek, a bloodied slaughter. Like in Ajax, I had to pluck ladybugs from my toothbrush every evening and in the morning shake out my shirt that, overnight, was infested with too much luck, and at lunch, I'd fish kamikazee-ladybugs out of my soup bowl, their Etna's crater in the middle of the round kitchen table. When I shut my eyes and held the hose to my ear and heard the little crackle of tiny bodies sucked into the eye of the tornado, I couldn't remain neutral. Putting away the vacuum, I consoled myself with sentences of friends who, after a beer or three, like to repeat to me the axiom that sooner or later, living in the city, each person discovers himself to be the murder of his own happiness. They were genuine Berlin ladybugs, they'd occupied the windows illegally like my friends in apartments from which they were later evicted. "
― , Berlin
22 " Her eyes popped open in time to see flames shoot up behind the first-floor windows of Angie's Books. Angie! Where was Angie? Where were her children? The bookstore owner lived in the apartment above her shop with sixteen-year-old Beth and twelve-year-old Bradley.The Moosetookalook Fire Department was located right next door, housed in part of the town's redbrick municipal building. The overhead door had already been raised. As Liss watched, unable to move, unable to look away, the truck pulled out, maneuvering so that it could get closer to the burning building. "
― Kaitlyn Dunnett , Kilt at the Highland Games (Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries #10)
23 " [Showing the apartment to Tiziano ]MARLEEN WALKER: “Let me alert you that animals are banned in this building.”TIZIANO CONTI: “Am I breaking the law right now? "
24 " The town , wrapped in red and green, greeted him, welcome him home as he drove down familiar streets. Driving his old truck filled Hunter with pleasure. He didn't have to look for IEDs on the side of the road. He grinned all the way to the apartment, enjoying the ride, the peace of the nigh, the old brick buildings on Main Street, the holiday finery, the palpable presence of town spirit. He parked his truck in front of the apartment building that Ethan owned as a side business, and suddenly couldn't wait another second. He hurried up the front stairs, down the inside styaircase, then just about ran down the hallway to his basement-level unit. He had his key in his hand, but the doorknob turned easily as he put his hand on it. Cindy had left the door open for him. He grinned like a fool as he walked in. The loose floorboard in the middle of the living room creaked a familiar welcome as he passed his army duffel bag on the floor where he'd dumped it earlier. Cindy's little pink purse sat on his brown leather couch like a cupcake on a tray. " Cindy?" He strode toward the bedroom in the back, his smile spreading as he anticipated a private party. If she was waiting for him naked in bed, the proposal would have to wait a litt. " Honey?" But she wasn't waiting for him naked. She was waiting for him dead. "
25 " ... Melissa. Where are you planning to go?" His voice was nasally, shit, he knew I had no idea where to go. " Well if you didn't change the apartment I was staying in I would. I was going to stay in a hotel" " How will you do that without your purse, sweetcheeks?" he sounded so damn cocky. I wanted to hit him, somehow through the phone." Look, wait there, ill come down. We should talk anyway" " I have nothing to say" I grumbled " I have plenty" and he hung up. "
26 " The dream world of sleep and the dream world of music are not far apart. I often catch glimpses of one as I pass through a door to the other, like encountering a neighbor in the hallway going into the apartment next to one’s own. In the recording studio, I would often lie down to nap and wake up with harmony parts fully formed in my mind, ready to be recorded. I think of music as dreaming in sound. "
― , Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir
27 " Fuck,” Syn growled. He was still thinking of solutions when he heard something scrape against his doorknob. Something metal was tampering with the lock. If he were anywhere else in the apartment he wouldn’t have heard it, but he was right next to the door, so he could hear someone trying to get in. He instinctually moved to stand in front of Furi, pulling his Sig from its holster and unlocking the safety. He felt Furi tensing behind him.He could hear the tool manipulating the lock mechanism. Is this bastard really fuckin’ brave enough to break into my home in broad goddamn daylight? Syn was in awe at the size of this guy’s balls. The closet door was arm's length away. He yanked it open and grabbed the blanket off the top shelf, pulling his loaded twelve-gauge shotgun down just as the door eased open. All Syn could see was the tip of a black boot. Furi griped his shoulder. “Hey. Listen to this!” Syn yelled out. He put the stock of the gun firmly against his shoulder and pulled the pump back in two extremely swift moves. The sound was extremely loud and intimidating in the quiet room, by far the scariest sound an intruder could hear.“Don’t shoot, Dirty Harry.” The irritating chuckle that followed was unmistakable.“Son of a bitch,” Syn grumbled. “Day, have you lost your fuckin’ mind?”His Lieutenants came all the way through the door, Day laughing at the pissed look on Syn's face and Furi leaning on the wall behind him recovering from a panic attack. “Syn. What the hell is going on man? Are you really gonna put a buckshot in someone you think is breakin’ into your little-ass apartment? Because, you do know that that’s excessive force, right?” God asked, looking at him expectantly.“I was just scaring them off. No one comes in after hearing that sound, trust me.” Syn removed the shell and placed the gun back in the closet, covering it with the blanket. He turned to look at Furi. He looked a little pale but he was okay.Syn spun back around, “Day. Knock on my damn door like a normal visitor and wait for me to say come in!”Day pfftd, plopping down on the couch. “You don’t invite the wind. The wind just–”“Stop saying that stupid wind bullshit. Because if your door is shut and you weather guard that bitch then the wind stays the fuck out until ... You. Open. The. Door.” Syn’s dark eyes bored into Day’s hazel ones.God’s laugh was raspy, while Day looked bewildered. “But we’re family.”“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Syn grumbled, he had to get going; he had no time to explain to Day about how to behave in civilized society. He turned serious eyes back on Furi. “I gotta go, but I really think–”Furi pulled Syn to him before he could finish the sentence, kissed him hard on the mouth before turning, heading to the bedroom. “Just concentrate on your job and don’t take any officers away from their assignments to follow me. There could be someone out there who really needs their help.”Syn didn’t get to say anything else because Furi had closed the bedroom door. End of discussion. "
― A.E. Via
28 " I squared my shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that I was standing in the apartment of the sea witch, wearing a fairy-tale prom gown, waiting for the attack of the mermaids. "
― Seanan McGuire , One Salt Sea (October Daye, #5)
29 " In those days, long before, a view over the rooftops of Paris was an unaffordable luxury. The apartment he had shared with a mousy young writer from Laon had a view of the Jardin de Luxembourg – if he stuck his head out of the window as far as it would go and twisted it to the left, a smudge of green foliage appeared in the corner of one eye. That had been his best apartment to date. They had decorated it in the ‘Bohemian’ style of the 1830s : a few volumes of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo, a Phrygian cap, an Algerian hookah, a skull on a broomstick handle (from the brother of a friend, Charles Toubin, who was an intern at one of the big hospitals) and, of course, a window box of geraniums, which was not only pretty but also illegal. (Death by falling window box was always high up the official list of fatalities.) For a proper view of Paris, they visited Henry’s painter friends who lived in a warren of attic rooms near the Barriere d’Enfer and called themselves the Water-Drinkers. When the weather was fine and the smell of their own squalor became unbearable, they clambered onto the roof and sat on the gutters and ridges, sketching chimneyscapes, and sending up more smoke from their pipes than the fireplaces below.Three of the Water-Drinkers had since died of various illnesses known collectively as ‘lack of money’. When the last of the three was buried, in the spring of 1844, Henry and the others had found themselves at the graveside without a sou to give a gravedigger. ‘Never mind’, said he, “you can pay me the next time, ‘ and then, to his collegue : ‘It’s all right – these gentlemen are a regular customers. "
30 " There was a lot of the 'Hamilton' experience that was like a locomotive. It was a hurricane, so the apartment often looked like a hurricane. There were clothes and shoes all over. We were getting more things in than we had room for. We had to figure out how to make space for all the blessings and goodness coming toward us. "
31 " I decided to move out of the apartment I was sharing with my best friend before graduation and move back home. My parents had recently separated, and I wanted to move back home with my mom and my siblings. "
32 " My apartment reflects my views as an architect. It is minimal, austere. The architecture doesn't impose itself upon you. The apartment is a stage for other things to take place. "
33 " My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost. It's in the apartment somewhere. "
34 " My grandmother and I would go see movies, and we'd come back to the apartment - we had a one-room apartment in Hollywood - and I would kind of lock myself in this little dressing room area with a cracked mirror on the door and act out what I had just seen. "
35 " My mom, through my dad, rented the apartment next door to his... he had the lease on both places. But then, she would dress up and act like his maid... a practical maid. No fantasies. "