sheepfilms
Xuebing Du
hello vonnie
Mike Driver
Cosimo Galluzzi
RMH
taylor price
occasionally subtle
noise dept.
No title available
cherry valley forever
todays bird
macklin celebrini has autism
No title available
JVL
Three Goblin Art
Origami Around
YOU ARE THE REASON
tannertan36
$LAYYYTER
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
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seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
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seen from Sweden
seen from T1
@quicklit
But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you--every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whopping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life.
Mark Twain, “How to Tell a Story,” 2015
When Marcie slapped a couple waffles onto a plate, Alice’s eyes went wide like she’d only been eating rocks for weeks. For all Marcie knew, she had. She was gaunt, ribs showing through the rags she had on, hair a mess. A scratch on her left cheek, deep. Marcie didn’t ask where it came from, but as she traced the path on her own face, she thought it could have come from fingers. Or what used to be fingers.
Sunil Patel, “Marcie’s Waffles Are the Best in Town,” 2015
The next morning, when the sun burned away the fog, Qiu’s boat was already far out onto the river, but now the cage Jiang had woven hung from a post at its prow, a single cormorant within. A smear of red slid down the reeds where one stunted wing struggled to spread. One by one, the other cormorants returned to Qiu, coughing their catch into his baskets, calling as they went. The bird in the cage fluttered and kept silence.
Rebecca Birch, “The Cormorant in the Glass-Bottomed Cage,” 2015
He is just as good and sweet and lovable and unpretending as a man can be, but he doesn't know enough to come in when it rains. Now that is absolutely true. He is the supremest ass in the universe; and until half an hour ago nobody knew it but himself and me.
Mark Twain, “Luck,” 1886
My name filled the world, and its praises were on every tongue, and it seemed well with me for a little while. How little a while it was! Then came envy; then detraction; then calumny; then hate; then persecution. Then derision, which is the beginning of the end. And last of all came pity, which is the funeral of fame. Oh, the bitterness and misery of renown! target for mud in its prime, for contempt and compassion in its decay.
Mark Twain, “The Five Boons of Life,” 1902
Think you’re tough? The kind of hyperspace hero who calls a meteor storm 'confetti?' I dare you to say 'no' to my mother.
Sarah Crysl Akhtar, “Star Maven,” 2012
I reached down and pulled back the roll of skin. I had to curl up on the bed to see. Under the skin, hidden away, there was a wide, white line, cut eight inches across, held together with little black stitches. Someone had cut me open there. Someone had cut me open, changed the insides of me, and then closed me up again. Who knew how well they’d done it, either. All I could see were these stitches.
Katherine Crighton, “Your Hand In Mine, We’ll Be All Right,” 2014
Lizzie was sitting in a corner counting her money. 'Thirty-five, Kitty, thirty-five cents.' When Lizzie’s mother was away, washing, she made her kitten her confidant. 'Talk about mamma’ll be surprised when she gets this birthday present, My-i! Third one I’m giving her — when I was five I gave her peanut candy; only she didn’t come home till the peanuts were picked out. Second time I gave her a blue hair ribbon; blue looks nice on my red hair. Now I’m seven — twice seven and I won’t have these freckles and long skirt’ll cover my skinny legs, and,' she continued, getting up and trying to stand dignifiedly, 'my name’ll be Elizabeth...'
Carrie Seever, “Mother’s Birthday Present,” 1915
Some whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago she had communed at an earthly altar.
Alice Dunbar Nelson, “Violets,” 1895
It is a trite observation, and one which, young as you are, I have no doubt you have often heard repeated, that we have fallen upon strange times, and live in days of constant shiftings and changes.
Charles Dickens, “Familiar Epistle from a Parent to a Child Aged Two Years and Two Months,” 1839
As he entered the house to which he had been called he could not but note the ghastly sameness of detail that accompanied these oft-recurring events. The same scurrying; the same groups of tawdry, frightened women bending over banisters — hysterical, some of them; morbidly curious, others; and not a few shedding womanly tears; with a dead girl stretched somewhere, as this one was. And yet it was not the same. Certainly she was dead: there was the hole in the temple where she had sent the bullet through. Yet it was different. Other such faces had been unfamiliar to him, except so far as they bore the common stamp of death. This one was not.
Kate Chopin, “Dr. Chevalier’s Lie,” 1893
Is Macheko from around here? I asked. Oh, he had lived everywhere. He had even lived in Texas, someone said, but something had gone wrong with his green card. Macheko had a secret hideout in his home; the hideout was wall-to-wall books; it could be the home of Edward Said, that was the quality of the books; you could live there for a hundred years. He does so much work! He won't survive if he stays here. Eventually they'll decide to get him. You can help him, I was being told. You're the one who can.
Rivka Galchen, “Dean of the Arts,” 2014
Then I explained, so that he might have rest, and told him how all Europe, and in particular France, had terrible engines of war, both on land and sea; and how the Saracens had not these terrible engines either on sea or land, and so could by no means cross the Mediterranean or escape destruction on shore even though they should come there. I alluded to the European railways that could move armies night and day faster than horses could gallop. And when as well as I could I had explained all, he answered, 'In time all these things pass away and then there will still be the Saracens.'
Lord Dunsany, “The Watch-tower,” 1916
Outside, a jay squabbled at the top of its lungs. Paul took a few minutes to find the right words. 'Sometimes at work I’ll feel everything fall away. Or rather, I’m the one falling. I’m dropping and dropping, and there doesn’t seem to be any bottom, and all that’s around me is God. What is that, if not a call?' His face was soft, and I could see the fear there, and who knows? He might have been right. The stupid jay made it hard to think. 'I’ve never heard a call, but maybe that’s one,' I said. Nobody asked what I’d heard: a bird jabbering outside a window.
Erin McGraw, “Hello From an Old Friend,” 2015
Some of them wore purple cloaks with wide green borders, and the border of green was a narrow strip with some, and some wore cloaks of old and faded red, and some wore violet cloaks, and none wore black. And they begged gracefully, as gods might beg for souls.
Lord Dunsany, “The Beggars,” 1910
Then something happened — something horrible happened that made the women faint and the strongest men who saw it grow sick and dizzy. The motorman’s lips were as gray as his face, and that was ashen gray; and he shook and staggered from the superhuman effort he had put forth to stop his car. Where could the crowds have come from so suddenly, as if by magic? Boys on the run, men and women tearing up on their wheels to see the sickening sight: doctors dashing up in buggies as if directed by Providence.
Kate Chopin, “The Blind Man,” 1897
Amber Riley’s husband had promised that he would come home to her no matter what, so after they reported him dead she began to keep the shotgun next to the front door. The day he returned, ambling, shambling, reeking of decay, the dog barked once in warning and went to hide under the back porch. Amber dried her hands on a dish towel and went to look at her husband through the screen.
Brynn MacNab, “Zombie March,” 2012