#I’ve been so quiet lately cos all I’ve been doing is steeping myself in the Yon brainrot

[canayams-art]

Some more Yon crops (I can’t stop drawing him lately)! \o/✨

[yespolkadotkitty]

Breathless, pt 11

Part 10 here

The moon hung, heavy, waxy in the sky, as you watched Conrad check and load two weapons.

“Where did you get those?”

He smiled over at you, his gaze enigmatic. “If you know where to look, who to ask, it’s not so hard.”

The man was a master of understatement.

He offered you what looked, to your untrained eye, like the sort of handgun they used in spy films.

“This is a Glock. Do you know how to shoot?”

You took it carefully, looking at it like it might bite you. “Uh… point and pull the trigger?”

His lips curved, a little. “Aim, too.”

You chuckled; he was lifting the mood again, curling the fear out of you a little, bending it so it didn’t bite so much. “Yes, Sir.”

His gaze darkened ever so slightly, and you thought, pulse kicking up, I’ll dig a bit deeper into that if we survive whatever happens now.

You both dressed quickly, leaving surplus belongings in the room. You’d come back for them, if you were able.

Conrad pulled you in for a quick, hard kiss by the door, and you drank him in, your fingers tangling in his short, thick hair, your tongue dancing with his. You spread your arms over his back, hugging him tightly, trying to compress the feel of his lean, solid warmth into your muscle  memory.

When he let you go, you saw sadness in his gaze.

“Whatever we find, we’ll still have each other?” he asked, cupping your chin.

“Always.” You had no idea how he would fit into your life, but you would make any sacrifice for it to happen. To have him would be to need little else.

You left the little hotel. All was quiet; the ferry didn’t run this time of night. Animals chattered in the darkness as you passed a fast food outlet with a few tourists milling around outside, drinking beer. The moon shone down as you crossed the bridge together, the temple illuminated by small floodlights by the pillars, likely places for tourists who came by in the evenings or early in the morning.

The steps to the temple were wide, not too steep. Conrad held up a hand, and you recognised him put on what you thought of as his game face. Eyes like a hawk, all senses alert. He crept up the steps to where the huge, heavy wooden doors, ornately painted, stood open. The darkness yawning between them like a tomb.

Your own heartbeat sounded loud in your ears as you followed Conrad up the steps. The courtyard through the huge, ornate doors waited, empty. At the right side a little gate had been left ajar. Conrad jerked his head towards it, silent. You nodded agreement. The night here was so still, like a heavy cloak, you were almost afraid to breathe out.

You both slipped through the gate. The Glock felt heavy, tucked into the waistband of the back of your jeans. You hadn’t been sure where else to put it, where it wouldn’t be completely obvious. Maybe it was, anyway, as you weren’t used to firearms.

Neither was your kid brother. Or was he?

Beyond the gate, more steps led to a smaller temple. You looked up. Conrad held up hand up, fist clenched. 

“I see movement,” he whispered.

Your stomach freewheeled for a moment.

“Ready?” he asked.

You nodded, although you had no idea what would greet you.

In the end, your worst fears both were and were not realised. In the smaller temple, Ben and Trish sat on one of three low wooden benches. Ben stood when you entered the doorway, his hair tousled. A few days’ worth of stubble hugged his jaw, and he looked so much like your dear, departed father that a sob escaped your lips.

Conrad glanced at you, concerned.

A few days ago, you’d have run into Ben’s arms, held him tight, cried for his safety. Now you stood stock still. 

He looked…. Fine. Not trapped or co-erced.

Wearing a Malay tie-dye dress, Trish smiled coldly.

“Hey, sis,” Ben said, his tone flat. “You can call off your attack dog.”

Anger rose inside you at his words. “I don’t think I will, yet. Why all this cloak and dagger stuff?” you demanded. 

You let your gaze trail over him in the darkness. He was still your brother, and yet… not. A stranger clothed in your brother’s body, speaking with Ben’s voice.

“Why do you think?” he asked, lazily.

You had the feeling that the rug was about to be pulled from under your feet. “I really don’t know, Ben,” you hissed, struggling for calm. “I’ve wasted a lot of money, trying-”

“Money! It’s always about money with you, isn’t it?” He exploded, eyes shooting daggers. “And control of it.”

Trish glared silently.

You opened your mouth and shut it again, speechless. Finally you asked, “What? If you needed money, I’d have given it to you.”

“Would you? I get an allowance. Like a child. You control it, and me. I’m a grown man, I don’t need to be kept like a dog on a leash by my sister,” he seethed.

What? It was late, you were tired. “I don’t..”

“Of course you don’t, you stupid bitch. Mom and Dad doted on you. The super smart, pretty first child. Left everything to you, left you in control of what I did. I had to go to Harvard to get the allowance, had to do everything by the book, while you got to run free.”

You listened, aghast. “But Dad’s will… that wasn’t anything to do with me, Ben.”

“The hell it wasn’t! You all wanted me to be the perfect image of a well mannered, polite little rich boy, without my own free will. I want to be truly free.”

You glanced at Trish. Had she orchestrated this? It was hard to say. 

“Why lure me here?”

“I had to get you away from all of it.” He gestured to Trish and she slid a small laptop out of a canvas bag. “Make you see sense. I just want freedom, sis. To be myself, with Trish. Money would help.”

Trish opened the laptop and tapped a few buttons.

“Just transfer some of the Trust fund to me.”

You gaped, then shut your mouth, hearing the click of your teeth. “I…. I can’t.”

Ben glanced across at Trish.

“Of course you can,” she snapped. 

“No, I really can’t.” Your hands itched to reach for the gun, but what good would it do? “What’s this about, Ben?”

He sighed dramatically. “You think it’s easy? To live in your fucking shadow? Dad’s shadow? To be told at Harvard - oh, your father would’ve known how to behave. Your father would have done it like this. I’m not my father!”

He roared the last bit, and tears burned the back of your eyes. “I miss him too, Ben. But you can’t just escape-”

“Yes, I can. Trish and I are going to have big adventures where no one cares who my father was or what my last name is. I can be free of his judgement.”

Your heart pounded. “You can’t know-”

“I know that you took over after they died. Did everything. Poor Ben, Ben is so sad, he needs help-”

“You did need help!” you shout back. “Anyone would have!” Any reservations you might have had about Conrad seeing your family drama play out had disappeared with your fears for Ben’s mental health. “Just take a step back, Ben. Please. I can help.”

“I’ve had enough of your help,” he quavered, pulling a gun from the back of his own cargo pants. Your heart just stopped. “Just do it.”

“I can’t. You can have all my money-”

“I want mine!” he snapped, the gun wavering. 

“Ben,” Conrad began. “Losing loved ones is very hard on anyone, let alone losing a parent.”

“Shut up!” His hair and eyes wild, Ben shook the gun. “What do you know? You’re just a rottweiler for hire.”

Conrad stood perfectly still, not rising to the bait.

Trish took the laptop down to you, holding it out. “It’ll take seconds.”

Your heart jumped. Sweat trickled down the back of your neck. “I really can’t. I want to help you, Ben, but-”

“You’re just like Dad!” he shouted. “He wanted to help. But what happened? He left you in charge.”

“What are you not telling me?” you asked, your voice low, but carrying across the near-silent temple floor.

“I told Dad I wanted to be free. Didn’t want to go to Harvard. Wanted to explore for a few years. He said I should be more like you. Responsible. Make something of myself. But I was sick of living in your shadow.”

Your stomach sank like a stone. “Did you….”

He laughed, a hollow sound. “Did I kill them? Fuck, no. I loved them. But they didn’t understand me. I’m not a lawyer, or a congressman. I just want to be free. And then their deaths sealed my fate. I wouldn’t get any money unless I graduated.”

“I don’t understand…”

“I’m failing, okay? I can’t make the grade. And Dad’s lawyer came to tell me there’d be no trust fund money in three years’ time unless I graduate.”

Oh. You hadn’t known that. “You can have my money.”

Ben’s gun hand stopped shaking for a moment. “Another handout from you? Wouldn’t that make you happy?”

“No, Ben, it wouldn’t,” you sob. “I don’t have access to the funds. I really don’t.”

He lifted the gun, and you realised that he was probably having a fully fledged nervous breakdown. Did Trish know? Was she using it? Had she known all along?

“Please, don’t make me do this. If I die, you don’t get anything.”

He smiled grimly. “Surely if you die, I’m the sole heir.”

Oh, God.

You held a hand out.

“If you pull that trigger, I will put a bullet in you,” Conrad told Ben, voice eerily calm.

“It’ll be over, either way,” Ben said softly, his eyes wet.

Everything happened at once. Two shots, Ben’s body on the ground, Trish’s, too. The laptop screen shattering into a thousand shards. And Conrad shouting.

****

You came to in a stark white hospital bed, your vision blurry. When you blinked, clearing it, you saw Conrad sitting next to you. You jerked fully awake.

“Ben! Ben?”

“He’s alive,” Conrad told you softly.

The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and fresh, sea air.

“We’re in Kuala Lumpur,” he added.

“What happened?”

“Easy. You’ve got a concussion from where you fell. You’ll hardly believe this, but it seems that Bill grew a conscience from when I saved his life. He’d had us followed. When Ben pulled the trigger, I jumped at him, pushing him in time for the shot to go wide and hit Trish. It only grazed her arm. She’s in another room. You fell back on to the stone floor. A second later, Bill and two of his…. Associates arrived in the temple, and thank Christ they did, as three of us needed medical attention.”

You breathed in deeply. “He’s not well, Conrad.”

“I quite agree. I’ve had a long chat with Trish.”

You winced on Trish’s behalf, angry with her, but knowing that a chat with Conrad would have been fairly terrifying. “And?”

“She’ s harmless. Along for the ride, and the wealth. A groupie,” he said sadly. 

Your heart ached. “I think a long visit with a doctor is on the cards for Ben. Does he hate me?”

“If he does, you’ve done nothing to deserve it,” Conrad reassured

“How was Bill involved?”

“Ben promised him a big cut of whatever you transferred,” Conrad growled. “I guess in a way, following us was, in his mind, protecting an investment.”

Tears burned your eyes. “Oh, Ben. I should have paid more attention.”

Conrad soothed you, kissing your forehead. “You only loved him. What he did with that was his business.”

You lay back on the pillows. “All that’s left now is to go back and pick up the pieces of my life. I guess.”

Conrad stroked your hair back. “Our life, I rather hope?”

Love bloomed in your chest. “I don’t know how we’ll fit together, Conrad. Do you?”

He stood up from the chair and pulled something from his pocket. A little piece of card. He unfolded it to reveal a single pressed flower from the Botanical Gardens, the stem long. As you watched, confused, he took your hand and tied the long, soft stem around your ring finger. His blue eyes lit with mischief. “I don’t have all the details yet, love. But I hope you’ll let me spend a lifetime figuring them out with you.”

THE END.

Thanks to @hopelessromanticspoonie​ for the beta!!

And thanks to EVERYONE for coming on this journey with me. I hope the ending was OK.

Tagging: @just-the-hiddles​ @lotus-eyedindiangoddess​ @peacope​ @lady-loki-ren​ @vodka-and-some-sass​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ @amarisyousei​ @jessiejunebug​ @villainousshakespeare​ @arch-venus25​ @myoxisbroken​ @xxloki81xx​ @wiczer​

[jessiewre]

Day 57

Sun 1st Mar

KILIMANJARO 5KM FUN RUN DAY (& half marathon apparently) 🏔🏄🏻‍♀️🥇🏃🏻‍♂️

Despite Phil’s clear natural ability to run extremely well, he gets himself all worked up when he has a race on, so he woke up that day feeling a bit anxious. He did about 8 nervous poos before we even left the hotel.

I was still not convinced about wearing running leggings in the heat and while Phil was in the loo, I looked around his bag for alternatives. Phil’s bag is a treasure trove of comfortable items and I needed something comfortable - shorts ideally - but not too short shorts. And then Walaaa! I found some. Perfect. I put them on and they were SO comfortable and airy. There was just one problem...which Phil spotted straight away.

Phil walked back into the room and looked at me with wide eyes, shaking his head

‘Jess, no, no no no you cannot wear those. You look...ridiculous’.

Ok so maybe Phil’s surfer board shorts weren’t the normal choice for running but they ticked so many boxes!

‘But they are comfy!’ I said, knowing full well that he was right.

I did look a little...casual and surfer-like.

He then said the ultimate supportive thing (even though he didn’t mean a word of it) and told me that If I wanted to wear them, then screw it, whatever would make me most comfortable. And I have to say I appreciated him saying it.

But I had a moments clarity and changed into the running leggings, crossing my fingers I wouldn’t regret it. Phil breathed a sigh of relief that I would not be embarrassing him in front of all his running pals.

Phil managed to stomach a banana and we left in the dark to flag down a tuc tuc. Annoyingly, 3 people had just left the hotel and were trying to flag one down in front of us, but they weirdly walked a few metres up the road. So we ended up flagging a tuc tuc down before them. As we went to drive past them, I told the driver to stop and asked them if they wanted to jump in, cos I’m a dead nice person an that.

I did have to sit on Phil’s lap which I don’t think his legs were very grateful for considering the task that lay ahead of them, but I personally thought it worked out fantastically for us as our guests insisted on paying, saving us a whole £1. THINGS WERE LOOKING UP, THIS WAS GOING TO BE A GREAT DAY AFTER ALL.

There were thousands of people around (none in board shorts weirdly and lots in running leggings) and we went into the stadium to watch the beginning of the marathon. The view directly behind it was an EPIC clear view of Kilimanjaro mountain. Amazing!

There was a great buzzy atmosphere and we watched as Olympian standard runners stood in position ready to go at the front of the pack. Then BOOM, off they went, all 800 of them! As soon as they did though, the panic set in with Phil. We rushed off to find his starting position for the Half marathon, as awkwardly, it was starting in a completely different place outside the stadium. We did a cringe speed-walk up to the start point where THOUSANDS of people were piling in to do the half marathon (WAY more popular than the full marathon - I guess people are just lazy huh). Phil made his way into the middle of the crowd, but I spotted a route to get closer to the front so shouted him over to give it a try. It worked, and he got closer to the front, but frustratingly I knew he would have been better even further forward as lets be honest, he’s normally faster than the majority of runners 💪🏽 😏

It was too late though and 7am arrived, Phil set off and that was it. GOOD LUCK PHIL I thought as I watched his butters red hat disappear into the crowd. But then I walked off to find the 5km starting point and thought Screw it, I need the luck now, he’ll be fine.

The 5km was full of all shapes, sizes, ages & genders. Some people had jeans on (still no board shorts though), there were LOADS of children and it was all very lighthearted with tons of people doing a lot of walking. A real mixed bag that goes to show that taking part is the most important thing. I was determined to run the whole way though and for the first 3km, I was feeling good! A few kids had started to run with me and we highfived as we went along, overtaking tons of people. But by 4km, they had run out of energy and sunk back as I stormed ahead (yep, I’m faster than 10 year olds, no biggie) and suddenly I could see the finish line! OMG I looked at my phone and realised I could achieve a sub 28 minute 5km here! Jeez I hadn’t run that fast in years! I picked up the pace a bit and felt so happy (that it would be over soon). I was BUZZIN. But as the finish line got closer, I started to notice that no one was stopping. What weirdos I thought. They were all continuing forward. Hang on a minute...oh shittttt I was approaching the START line, it was NOT the finish line. Urgh, my mood dipped and I was GUTTED. Taking part SUCKS, I thought and I trudged on feeling very tired. The next 5 minutes of uphills were not so fun and there were so many corners, every time revealing that the finish line was not there. But I FINALLY made it back into the stadium and finished the bloody thing, without walking at all (god I wanted to walk up those hills) and devoured the bottle of water they gave me. I looked at my phone. 34 minutes. Not 28 minutes lol but not bad. Considering I was at high altitude and there were so many hills, I was happy, and at least I did it like. Ok fine, it IS the taking part that counts. But no time to lose, it was nearly 8:30am and I needed to get into position to see Phil finish!

I wobbled my way over to the stands like a granny with piles (nb. Not all Granny’s have piles), and watched as half marathon runners trickled in. The weird thing was though that NO ONE was cheering or clapping. It was so quiet. Hundreds of people were watching on happily, smiling away, but there was zero whooping. So weird. I’ve not done loads of races but the ones I have done in England have been amazing, mainly due to the crowds of people cheering you on and offering support and encouragement. I felt kind of bad for the runners as reaching the end of the race with a quiet crowd staring at you looking like a bit of an anti-climax.

I found a spot by a sagging fence and was able to see the runners turn the corner onto the home straight. Every time anyone with red appeared, my heart skipped, but it wasn’t for another 15 minutes that I spotted Phils red vest powered towards the finish. Fortunately he was not wearing the hat but I saw that he hadn’t lost it, it was just strapped to his vest. Damn He was going super fast but I managed to film him as he finished with pure pain and relief on his face.

He got his medal and water and I ran round to congratulate him, but mainly for him to congratulate me of course.

He said the race had been super hard, with 10km of UPHILL to start off (HOW GROSS IS THAT) followed by some super steep downhills. But he said the views were incredible and that it was an amazing experience. He was glad he’d done it and he was glad it was over. I told him, its the taking part that counts babe.

We shared some cashew nuts and had a few beers in the shade then realised it was not even 9am 😂.

We went across to the unofficial ‘warm down’ that some bloke had decided to host and had a bit of a laugh doing that. But it was quickly getting much hotter and I still had my leggings on of course, so we jumped into a tuc tuc back to the hotel for showers and a refresh. We were back by 10:30am, madness to think about what we’d already done that day. And the fact that we’d basically had nuts and beers for breakfast.

We ate the leftover pizza slices from the night before and had a chill out for our aching bodies. Well, I was pretty knackered from the run, but on the other hand, Phil seemed rather spritely. Hunger kicked in and chirpy Phil offered to go and collect a takeaway for us! Well it was funny he said that, cos I was just about to offer myself, but hey, he got in there first. Good for him, and even better for me.

Phil rocked up 45 minutes later with a bag of curry - dahl makhani, veg biryani & garlic naan - and we sat on the floor having our romantic curry picnic like it was a midnight feast. An awesome way to celebrate my running achievement & also Phil’s half race.

After more rest, we went out to find a sports bar to catch some football, but Pepper’s bar was soooo dry with no vibe (or WiFi, can you bloody believe it) . We figured there must be a marathon party, so followed our hostels advice and ended up at the HUGE beer garden of Hugo’s. It was rammed with people who had obviously been drinking all afternoon (or perhaps since before 9am??) and they were having a great time. There were empty bottles everywhere as the staff couldn’t keep up with the drinking speed, with a DJ on a stage and TV screens showing football. In the middle of peoples seats, mini dance floors were popping up as peoples favourite tunes came on. We grabbed some beers from a lady who insisted on serving us like table service despite everyone else using the bar, and we found a box to sit on and watch the crowds & Man Utd game at the same time.

We drank beers for a few hours, chatting to people and having a laugh with others who were dancing. It was really fun. But Phil suddenly dipped and said he was too tired to stay out any longer. It had been an early start I suppose.

So we hopped into a tuc tuc and tipsily headed off back to the hostel for showers and bed, popping into a shop on arrival for some dinner-substitute snacks (Phil had discovered a certain crisp that tasted a lot like Wotsits apparently).

It was only when we got back to the (very hot) room and got ready for bed that I realised it was only 7:30pm...

[formerlyrunephoenix6769]

Shattered: Chapter 9

(AMELIE)

 High up in the French Alps, Amelie carefully eased the light sports car round the airpin bend, navigating the twisting and turning roads that often gave way to sudden steep drops offering her breath taking views of the sweeping countryside of Annecy.  As she eased the car down a sudden incline that looped back on itself, descending to the lush valley below, she tapped a perfectly manicured finger nail against the screen of her scroll,

“Angela, can you hear me?”

A voice like one of earlier Omnic models replied, accompanied by the tell-tale crackle of static feedback. As she continued to descend, the doctor’s voice began to come through clearer,

“… ould have come wit.. busy here.. accident..”

Crinkling her brow, the ballerina tapped the screen again in frustration,

“I cant hear you. The reception has always been crap up here. One second.”

Placing both hands on the wheel, she concentrated as a smaller car began to approach from the opposite direction. Normally this mountain pass would be backed up, a sluggish snail snaking down the mountainside but thankfully the busy season was beginning to wind down and the ‘pearl of the French Alps’ would return to its quiet and peaceful existence.

It had only been a few months since Overwatch’s great technological triumph had resulted in disaster, the highly specialised aircraft had phased out of existence and fallout around the accident was astronomical.  Every newspaper and TV pundit speculated to the exact nature of the ‘Slipstream Incident’.

Was it an accident, or was it sabotage?

One publication had gone so far as to have a small tally, counting the number of days the pilot had been MIA. Others had reported every minute detail of the young woman’s stellar career in the RAF, hailing her an Omnic Crisis Hero cut down in her prime. A King’s Row street rat done good.

Nobody had known where the leak to the press had sprung from, but the speed and the intimate details of it fueled paranoia in the ranks of Overwatch.

In a bid to plug it, all none personal had been asked to leave the bases and all Senior Members had been recalled for the unforeseeable future in an attempt to enact damage control and not allow other agendas to fall by the way side.

All the while, no matter what they tried, Overwatch’s best and brightest couldn’t find the answers to the most burning question.

What had happened to Lena Oxton?

At the news that the higher ups were winding down the search and allocating resources elsewhere, Gerard had been beside himself. He had parted that Lena had told him that something hadn’t felt right but he had pushed her, brushing it off with bravado and schnapps. He talked of personnel claiming to have seen his protégé’s ghost on the base and the Gorilla had taken to cloistering himself in the hanger where the accident had occurred, not surfacing for days at a time.

In a bid to get to the bottom of it, Gerard had taken on yet another away mission that only served to drive the wedge further between him and his wife.

Amelie had admonished that she understood, but she felt that he was pushing himself, and Gerard had snapped uncharacteristically, demanding,

“What could you possibly know? You’re a dancer for christ’s sake! - ” He had taken to pacing, his eyes taking on a wild look, “- So you took a few classes. You have no fucking clue what this entails, that someone could have done this deliberately, snuck in and took one of our own, from right under our noses! -”  In a rising rage, he had thrown his clothes in his mission bag,  “- If it was me, I’d want my mates to get to the bottom of it and bring those fuckers responsible, to heel!-” He had poured himself a lavish dram of expensive whiskey as he  continued on his angry tirade, “- If it happened to me, is that what you’d want, me to be left behind, forgotten? Why don’t you stick to what you know, Amelie, and let me get on with my job?”

Gerard’s dismissal had felt like a slap in the face. That he deemed her attempt at improving herself and taking an interest as nothing more than a flight of fancy that he indulged. Placating her rather than listening to her grievances or realizing that she was becoming increasingly unhappy.

That she did in fact know what it felt like to be constantly reminded that in a blink of an eye a loved one could be gone forever. That she lived it every time he walked out of that door without a backward glance, instantly forgotten.

He had spent the next few nights in his study on the chesterfield, whilst she had made arrangements to begin renovating her families ancestral home. With an appointment to keep with a surveyor, she had risen with the sun, leaving him a note before setting off on the long drive towards Chateau  Guillard in the South of France.

 Hitting the valley floor, her scroll crackled back to life,

“Amelie? Are you still there?”

Coming to a T junction in the valley floor, Amelie leaned forward checking both left and right,

“Oui, Angela, I’m still here.”

Her best friend continued,

“I was saying that I would have joined you, leibling, but everything is up in the air right now.” There came a pause of indecision, “-How long are you planning on staying for?”

Satisfied there was no on coming traffic, Amelie took the left turn that would gently snake along the lake side, away from the nearby village, and up through some trees towards the driveway that led the boathouse and only point of access to the grandiose Chateau,

“As long as it takes to make good headway on the renovations,” She gunned the engine, her beloved sports car purring as it began to eat up the tarmac with ease, “ It is far easier for me to co-ordinate from here than back in Paris.” In the distance she could make out the tip of the north bell tower, the rest of the property obscured by the hillside and heavy forest, adding sourly, “-I am ‘sticking to what I know’ and being a dutiful housewife.”

“Amelie, “ On the end of the line there came another pregnant pause, as if Angela was carefully choosing her words, “- I’m … I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”

Amelie sighed, maybe she was over reacting and choosing to quite literally run for the hills was petty, but she had no intentions of rattling round their Parisian home with Gerard’s words echoing off the walls, mocking her and calling out her already felt inadequacies, for however long his chosen mission took. And neither could she ignore the anger that during the long drive had fashioned itself into a dull rage sitting in the pit of her stomach. No, she would be much better off throwing herself into a project and far away from the continuous press cycle that didn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon.

“I don’t care what he meant, it’s the fact he said it in the first place.” Either side of the road the trees were struggling with their Spring plumage allowing shafts of morning sunlight to break through the branches dappling the road ahead, as Amelie pressed on, the speed of the car matching her mounting frustration, “-I’m sick and tired of being side lined, Angela. All I have ever done is support him and now I just feel like …. Like I’m being taken for granted.”

The ballerina slammed on the brakes so as not to over shoot her turn off. Peering through the rearview mirror, Amelie slowly reversed back before carefully easing the low sports car in between two beautifully sculptured gateposts with her family crest intricately engraved into their surface.

“I know he’s stressed and I might sound like a spoiled bitch but…. I need some time alone… I need time to figure out what I’m going to do with myself.”

As the car slid down along the smooth driveway, a break in the trees offered an unadulterated view of the sweeping turrets and stone verandas that made up her idyllic childhood home in the centre of the lake, Amelie pressed a button to roll down the window and let in the fresh spring mountain air. Far off in Switzerland, Angela’s voice full of concern filled the small sports car.

“What are you saying? …. Are you thinking about getting a divorce?”

“What? NO! God no… I’m furious, but I’m not ‘that’ furious…-” She continued to leisurely cruise along the driveway taking  in the way the sunlight twinkled off the waters of the gargantuan lake that skirted her lands and the village that hugged its shoreline on the other side.  “-  I meant, what I’m going to do with my career, continue with ballet, or quit and find something else?”

The doctor asked, perplexed

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.. No.. Maybe? ..-” Gripping the steering wheel tight, Amelie took in a huge lung full of air,            “-I need to clear my head.”

“How about this?” Another pause, “How about… I finish up here. Twist Jack’s arm into making an exception, and I come down an join you? End of this week, beginning of next week or when ever I can?”

Approaching the boat house, the French woman spied an unfamiliar green car parked to one side of the closed gate that would lead into the boatyard, and a white workman’s van on the other.

“Oui, that sounds perfect!” Slowing the car to a crawl, she peered out of the driver’s side window, as a man dressed in a suit, a hard hat and high vise jacket alighted from the car.  Distractedly, she added, “Angela, I think the surveyors here early. I’ve got to go.”

“Alright leibling, I’ll call you as soon as I have news.  Love you.”

Her scroll let out a high pitched whine,

“Love you too, cherie.”

Canceling the call, Amelie pulled the sports car up along side the man who waited patiently on the side of the drive way, clipboard in hand.

He broke into an easy smile,

“Ah, Mrs Lacroix, I presume?”

Leaning slightly out of the window, Amelie looked up returning his smile,

“Oui, oui, am I late?”

“No,-” He laughed, “I am early.”

Using her scroll, she typed in a code and waited for the gate to begin to painstakingly slowly slide back.

“Oh thankgod, traffic was a nightmare coming out of Paris.”

He gestured with the clipboard,

“Quite a difficult place to reach and surrounded by a lake no less. I can see why you asked for a surveyor.”

The gate slid back fully and Amelie carefully slid the sports car into the wide boatyard and into one of the waiting garages. In the rearview mirror, she watched as from the white workman’s van, two men got out wearing navy blue boiler suits and carrying work bags.

Unclipping her scroll from its snug on the dash board, she stashed it in her hand bag before pressing her thumbprint to the  ignition starter and alighting from the car. In the early morning sun, the three men waited taking in their surroundings. Approaching her as she exited the garage, the surveyor asked,

“Would you have your I.d?” He pulled out a device from the depths of his pocket, “It’s so I can scan it and start the clock.”

The french woman blinked,

“Yes, of course.” Pulling out her purse she teased her national identity card from its snug, “There you go.”

Gently taking it from her outreached hand, the surveyor gave it the once over, inspecting the card and looking back at her, before swiping it along the device.

“It’s policy,-” He kindly offered, “Stops people like this lot,-” Tipping his head towards the workmen, “-Fudging the numbers.”

One of the workmen came to casually lean against the wall to the left of her,

“It’s a grand place you got here…” He slowly began to roll up his sleeves, “- Boats the only way to get there, right?”

Taking back her i.d card and slipping it back into her purse, Amelie nodded,

“Oui, I’ve been coming here since I was a child, so I handle the boat usually.” Turning her back, she leaned up to activate the garage doors and the locking mechanism.  “- If you are worried about access, the village on the other side has a much wider marina and much larger boats for hire. The cost is of no object. I’ll get a good deal.”

 The workman let out a whistle through his teeth,

“Lucky for some, eh?”

Amelie attempted to humbly wave him off,

“No, no. My relatives left me .. shall we say.. comfortable.”

He gave her a lopsided grin,

“Is it true you’re a Countess?”

Amelie crinkled her brow in confusion,  stammering,

“What.. what ever gave you that idea?”

His workmate gave a mirthful shake of his head,

“What he means to say is. . When we heard of the job.. we.” He gestured with his hands, “- researched the place. It’s got a rich history.”

Rudely butting in, the first workman continued,

“So are you?”

She opened her mouth, gawping like a fish for a few moments taking in both their eager expressions, before laughing,

“I ,” She gestured to herself, “- am not a Countess per se. But… there is an old defunct title attached to the property , that would, if such things were important in this modern era…, make me a Countess.”

The first workman turned to his colleague,

“You owe me 5 bucks!”

“God damnit!”

With a small shake of her head at their antics, she finished checking that the security was locked down on her beloved car.

 As she made her way across the courtyard, the three men followed close behind, nearly bumping into her when she stopped at the door that led into the boat house. Her fingers tapped danced lightly across the keypad, with a click the door opened and four entered the gloom. With a brittle bark of laughter, the surveyor patted his pockets,

“One sec, I forgot something. Be right back.”

The other began to rummage in his work bag. On the side wall, Amelie flipped open the electric box to activate the winch that would slowly lower the sleek looking speed boat into the murky water. She turned round, surprised to find the first workman so close. He shot her a grin as she sidled past him to the safe box where the speedboats ignition key was kept. The remaining workman flanked her on the other side, so close she could almost feel the breath on her skin, the tiny baby hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle as she hesitantly reached up a finger. Trying to keep the shake out of her voice, she shouted over the screeching of the winch,

“A little room gents.”

The second workman grinned at her wolfishly,

“Oh Amelie, where you’re going there is gonna be no room at all.”

He made a lunge at her. Instinctivly, she thrust up the heel of her palm connecting with his nose, as she has been taught to do in her self defense classes.  He staggered back, gargling and cursing as the other workman grabbed her in a choke hold from behind. She tried to scrabble into her hand bag in an attempt wrap her fingers round the pepper spray she kept there. As she struggled to breath she remembered Ana Amari’s words, if ever grabbed by a bigger opponent relax into it and throw them off. Amelie dropped her hand bag, pushing back into him, using her strong legs from years of ballet throwing them both off balance. He staggered back, the sudden loss of opposing force adding to his momentum, crying out as he collided with one of many winch handles that aligned the wall. The loss of grip on her windpipe gave her much needed inches to turn her head and sink her teeth into his muscular arm, causing him to scream in agony.  She kicked out with her feet at the nose busted workman, who dodged to one side, his feet knocking her handbag into the water.

“Get the fuck hold of her!” He yelled.

Trying to shake her off only caused Amelie to grind her teeth down, filling her mouth with flesh and the metallic taste of blood. He let go shoving her away from him. The surveyor came through the boathouse door for a split second distracting her. She didn’t see the south paw closed fist that collided with her jaw causing her to reel and her vision to blur.

“Go down, you fucking whore!”

A second swift punch hit hard in her gut knocking the wind out of her and caused her to collapse onto the wet stone floor.

She thought she heard the surveyor say,

“Dont break the merchandise!”

“Cunt broke my nose!”

“Yeah well the fucking bitch took a chunk out of my arm.”

Amelie spat the contents out of her mouth, trying to suck in huge lungfuls of air. If she could just get into the water maybe she could swim to the castle like she had plenty of times as a teenager or when the boat was out of gas. She made as if to crawl.

Someone caught her by the hair,

“No, you don’t.”

She felt a sharp prick in the back of her neck and she was left to flop on the slick flagstones. Someone turned off the winch, and the only sounds was the water lapping against the stone work.

“She’s a god damn wild cat. Thought you said she was a dancer?”

Her vision began to swim with black and purple dots and her tongue felt flaccid and swollen in her mouth. She attempted to move but her limbs refused to her obey her. The surveyor rolled her over onto her back, crouching down to inspect her.

“Ballerina, to be exact.”

Wiping his bloody nose on his sleeve, the workman with the broken nose peered over his shoulder,

“She’s a fucking ballerina??”

With soft, gentle fingers, the surveyor examined her jaw, turning her head this way and that, regarding her thoughtfully. As Amelie slipped into unconsciousness, she heard him say,

“She’s the wife of THE target, what else did you expect?”

https://formerlyrunephoenix6769.tumblr.com/post/182608876761/ithought-it-would-be-much-easier-to-make-a-post

Link to the whole “Shattered” universe and full story.

[onestowatch]

Crowded Green Rooms, Hotel Rooms and Cars: How Julia Jacklin Made Space For ‘Crushing’ [Q&A]

On her sophomore album, Crushing, Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin performs an act of self-reclamation in ten parts. She drives away, locks herself in her room, examines her body from head-to-toe in a full length mirror, and shakes the voice of an ex-lover from her head. Jacklin wrote the material for the album over the course of a two-year-long world tour while packed into “crowded cars, crowded stages and tiny green rooms” and a corporeal desire for space rings throughout.

Jacklin’s debut album, Don’t Let The Kids Win (2016), was a meditation on growing up and the mental reorientations the process demands. It established Jacklin as another star in the line-up of contemporary indie-folk-rock songwriter and storytellers from down under (including Courtney Barnett, Marlon Williams, Stella Donnelley and Aldous Harding, among others). The album supported two years of consistent touring — and when Jacklin finally settled home, she culled from the collection of lyrics and diary entries she’d put down while on the road and knit Crushing together.

Released on Feb. 22, the 10-track record sees Jacklin tightening her focus on love wearing thin, love ultimately lost and an aftermath that embraces scorn and longing in equal parts. Jacklin’s acknowledgment of the emotional incongruities of the breakdown process rings most true. The album opens with the five-minute burner, “Body,” in which we find Jacklin jumping in a cab to leave behind a partner who’s gotten them kicked off a domestic flight by smoking in the airplane bathroom. At the other end of the album, Jacklin sings “Comfort” like a lullaby to herself, repeating that her former lover will heal with time and, either way, “You can't be the one to hold him when you were the one who left.”

This push-and-pull — the tension between the comfort of space and the comfort of love — prompts us to wonder whether it’s possible to hold both. Jacklin presents us with the question, and in “Head Alone,” answers it by shouting, “You can love somebody without using your hands.” Crushing is granted a degree of relief as Jacklin observes from afar that one can manage to be both loved and liberated.

We spoke with Jacklin the morning after she’d landed in Paris from Australia, feeling, “jet-lagged and foggy.” She’d come from having a coffee and writing in her diary, a practice she’s kept up since she was ten and that makes her feel that she’s “accomplished at least one thing every day.” We discussed dancing alone, why Crushing is not a “Me Too” album, the mythical music industry roller coaster and what it means to be truly great.

Be sure to catch Jacklin on the Crushing tour at one of the dates down below: 

OTW: You wrote most of Crushing while touring your debut album, Don’t Let The Kids Win. Where and how did you find the space to write an album while on the road?

JJ: I wrote a lot of it in the car, looking out the window. Once I got used to travel and the touring lifestyle and surrounded myself with good people who understood me, knew when I needed space and who I didn't feel self-conscious in front of, I started to be able to write even when people were around. I wrote most of the record without a guitar in hand — I reckon I start writing 90 percent of my songs in the shower, actually. For every show, we’d have about forty-five minutes of soundcheck which gave me time to figure out the guitar patterns and chords while the band played along. That’s how it all began to come together.

OTW: How did the process of writing and recording for Crushing feel different from that of your debut album?

JJ: It was worlds different. The first record was a synthesis of my whole life, for which I tried to pick the best songs from all the years leading up to it. I went into it not understanding the recording process properly and feeling very intimidated by the studio. For Crushing, I felt pretty confident in the studio, and I was able to go into it with more of a voice. I didn't feel as much pressure as I thought I’d feel about the scary second record. That seems to be more of a myth than something any of us genuinely experience. It exists online and in the dark corners of your insecurity, but in your day-to-day life — you’re still the same person who loves writing the songs you’ve always written.

OTW: Did your newfound understanding of the recording studio works impact your songwriting for Crushing?

JJ: For me, the song comes first and production comes eighth. Production is important, but if you don't have the song in its core, then you’ve got nothing. There's no amount of layering or trickery that will make it sound good. It was actually the process of touring that helped me develop the songs by making me aware of what I wanted to play for another two years on the road. I realized that I didn’t want to get up there and just play quiet, soft songs every night — I needed songs that would make me feel alive and get my blood running.

OTW: The first two singles you released off the album, “Head Alone” and “Pressure To Party,” both explore the theme of ownership over one's body. How did these come to be the first songs introducing the album?

JJ: I did the same thing for my first record — released the songs in the order that they appear on the album. That's the way I want people to hear the record, sequentially from start to finish. There are definitely a lot of references to my body in the record — I listened back and realized that in the first five songs on the record I say something about my body. It’s a hard thing to talk about — I’ve been doing a lot of press lately and keep getting asked, “Is this a ‘Me Too’ album?’ and it’s like, “No, it's just the album that I've written about my experiences.” Women have been speaking about these things forever, it just so happens that the world is paying attention right now. I spent two years in shared beds, tiny green rooms, crowded rooms, crowded stages and crowded cars. The album formed once I finished that tour and finally just threw my arms out wide and emerged from that claustrophobia.

OTW: On “Head Alone,” it does feel like you're literally breaking out of the expected song structure when you arrive at the bridge — it feels like a different song entirely. Did the bridge surprise you when you wrote it?

JJ: On this record, I was trying to find ways to express these feelings without shoving them into a typical song structure. Initially the bridge was the chorus, and I was going to repeat it. But when we were recording, I realized that I didn’t want to say it again. Sometimes in songwriting the power can be in giving people something once — then they want it again, so they listen again and it’s more impactful. I always think about that with Joanna Newson, one of my favorite songwriters. She’s someone who manages to write a twelve minute song, and she’ll say something once, but you’ll remember it and it’s so powerful. It’s the classic “less is more.”

OTW: You’ve directed or co-directed (with longstanding creative collaborator Nick Mkk) all of your music videos for both Crushing and Don’t Let The Kids Win— when did you decide you were going to take on that role and how did you learn the ropes of directing video?

JJ: It was definitely a learning curve, but there’s a lot of stuff in the creative world that you just have to learn by doing. People often don't realize that. They think, “I need to go to school, I need to be perfect at it before I try it.” Making the music videos made me realize that, in the world of creative work, nobody knows what they're doing and everybody learns from doing it. It’s like that thing when you become an adult and you’re like, “Oh, nobody knows what’s going on.”

OTW: In about seven of your music videos, we see you dancing alone. What’s the story behind this means of expression?

JJ: I’ve started thinking recently that music videos are kind of dumb. I appreciate that some videos are incredible, but a lot of the time, it seems so crazy for me to take a song that has its own life, narrative, and meaning, and then to try to squish a whole other narrative on top of it. That's where the dancing comes in. Every time I think, “How I can represent this song in a simple way?” I’m like, "Oh, I'm going to dance! I’m going to dance in front of a star, I’m going to dance over here, I’m going to dance over there." My label and my manager have said to me multiple times, “Do you reckon you're going to do something else, maybe other than dancing by yourself? And I’m like, “Well, maybe…” and then I deliver the next music video and they’re like, “Ah no, here we go.”

OTW: Now that you’ve been steeped in the industry for a while, what have you found about it that you appreciate and that you need to take yourself away from as a means of self-preservation?

JJ: The industry is great in that it allows me to do what I do. It's driven me into a global community of people and made me feel I really belong somewhere. There is strange thing I’ve realized about the music world — it seems like you’re either up-and-coming, or you've made it, or you're irrelevant. There’s this set trajectory and you've got to figure out where you fit into it. Leading into this second record, I’ve been doing all this press and media and it’s all, “up-and-coming” and “next biggest thing” and you’re just like, “I thought I was just doing my thing, I didn’t realize I was on some strange ascent on a roller coaster.” It’s strange how we try to stick artists into some box where we perceive them to be at their career trajectory, when most of us are just going, “Oh, I thought we were all just playing music and doing our best.”

OTW: You speak about your musical contemporaries with a sense of camaraderie. I think it’s great how you acknowledge your musical influences and recognize that it's a part of the folk tradition to be guided by the work of others. Will you tell me a bit about how you experience music as a listener?

JJ: I think it’s odd when an artist puts a song up on the Internet and people hop on to say, “You sound like this or that person” as a means of dismissing their creativity. Of course we’re all borrowing, especially in the folk tradition— that was the whole point of the genre. I think it's a beautiful thing to be so inspired by someone that you write a song based off of what you listen to. Watching the artists I tour with is my music school. I toured with Andy Shauf for a month last year, and that was the most influential music school I've ever been to. We played 17 shows and 17 festivals together, and I literally would run from my set to go watch his. I’d just stand there, just drinking it in — of course it's going to come out your own music.

OTW: Speaking of artists whom you admire, in “Motherland” you have this line, “Will I be great? Will I be good?” If we’re trying to get outside of the narrative of the emerging, the successful and the declining artist, what does greatness in an artist look like to you?

JJ: At this point, it’s the artists who have clearly stayed true to themselves that I see as great. Like Japanese Breakfast — she works really fucking hard, she tries all these different mediums and I'm sure she’s failed a lot, but she just put her head down and pounds through. She doesn’t have to pour her heart out in every interview, but at the same time, she seems totally able to control her narrative. It’s great to see artists who — even though this industry is crazy and tiring and there are so people involved in your career, so many things that can slip out of your grasp and misrepresent you — manage to rise above that environment and represent themselves truly.

[turtle-to-eternity]

In the Month of Madness

I never seriously questioned my identity before this past 30 days.

Being sheltered and raised by an ultra conservative grandmother and several redneck stepfathers, while steeped in the deep south. All these things led to me never thinking of myself as anything but a big tough straight man.

I was always insecure about my 'manliness', of course. I spent all my time in front of screens and was never as strong or as mechanically knowledgeable as other guys my age. I tried to compensate by growing facial hair, being emotionally blunted, and by substituting toughness for strength.

I had felt attraction to some men by my late teens. However, since I was also attracted to women, I dismissed these feelings as anomalies. Clearly I am not gay, so there can't really be anything there, right?

But then I watched Hazbin Hotel. God damn Angel Dust.

So feminine men are attractive. So what? It's just another kink. It's a fake demon guy designed to be attractive. Nothing to do with my real world sexuality, right?

But then there was the rise of femboy memes. I loved those too. Some of them were even real guys doing things like cosplay. So what? Those are just rare extreme cases. No real guys could look anything like that in normal life.

Oh yes they can.

Over the past month I've started talking to real femboys. Learned how their identity has existed long before the memes fetishized them. I learned that I can very much think about real men in romantic ways as well as sexual. Anyone physically feminine is just as easy to see this way. The most gender does is influence my perception of how likely we are to have common interests.

I also realized I don't want to be completely masculine. I want to be muscular, clean shaven, with no body hair. I want to try eyeshadow. I want to use lotion to be smooth and soft. I don't like typical male fashion and behavior. I am not female, but I don't truly identify with a strictly 'male' identity.

So, I am pansexual as well as probably nonbinary.

I live in the heart of Dixie. I depend on my ultra-right-wing religious grandmother for housing and transportation. She'd ship me off to a camp or at least kick me out. My only other potential support would do worse to me than she would. Even my co-workers treat LGBT like a liberal fairy tale at best.

My mother is much more moderate than the rest of my family. But she is dependent on a vaguely racist and very homophobic 'man's man' who would not let me move near them.

I realized all this while having been starting and switching new psychiatric medications and being diagnosed with a lifelong neurological disorder. I can't even go to therapy about it, since every therapist and counselor within 20 miles brags about their "Christian, spiritualistic methods" and mostly deal with addiction anyway.

I had a week-long panic attack. My family never really loved me. If they knew who I really was, they would want nothing to do with me.

But I feel better now. The country-fried oil-stained Christians around me would never have the nerve to call me out on their own. As long as I don't tell anyone anything, I should be ok.

They can have their suspicions, but if I keep quiet that's all they'll be. I can rub it in all their faces when I'm ready to move into an LGBT college dorm far away from Alabama. I am going to do whatever I can to make that happen.

To escape the rain, sometimes you just need to step out from under the clouds.

[ulyssesredux]

Aeolous

ANNE WIMBLES, FLO WANGLES-FOR THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME.

He said of him that straight from the table. I have loved her ever since she can remember; as if he is one of those fellows, like silvertongued O'Hagan.

―I bore you?

―I mayn't like it?

He wore a loose white silk neckcloth and altogether he looked though he was quite set against that formerly.

―' Said Will.

THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES.

Kingdoms of this country, and would not set the smallest birch-tree is of a hillside, where he visited oftenest and lay most on the doorsteps: Foot and mouth. Still seeking, he said: North Cork and Spanish officers!

ANNE WIMBLES, MAGISTRA ARTIUM.

While Mr Bloom said. He began to turn round on the fireplace and to enter on that question, the professor said, and Lydgate wished to have a conscience of your own worldly interests.

―Call it, Mr Crawford? Get a grip of them.

―Heavy greasy smell there always is in love with me? —First my riddle!

-The-Goat drove the car. They save up three and tenpence in a minute to phone about an old man, bowed, spectacled, aproned.

-Time, said the Vicar, examining some labels very closely. Came over last night?

―Rosamond was expecting to have been legally good after the other day, Myles Crawford said.

―That'll go in for them, yelling as he had been uttered to him on to the object of the medical profession.

―Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu. If I did love you.

OMINOUS-THAT'S WHAT WETHERUP SAID.

Put us all into it, damn its soul.

―

—He can kiss my arse? An instant after a moment. I told councillor Nannetti from the open case. See his phiz then. The professor said. More Irish than the others scampered out of that sort of way, tho' quarrelling with the dead. It is too bad of you to be a bad fellow in any case be disappointed.

―When they have eaten the brawn. -Where do you think his face.

Akasic records. Cabled right away. -Off Blackpitts, Stephen said, Bushe K.C., for example. Come in.

Poor, poor Pyrrhus! —Call it, said Fred, but I can only tell you. Have you any difficulties about doctrines—about the low state of life in, and much better, said Dorothea.

―His machineries are pegging away too.

―I felt that I stood in his back pocket. Hard after them Myles Crawford asked.

-Silence! Clank it. We were only thinking about it, he said again.

He wants it in your eye.

FROM THE CALUMET OF THE EDITOR.

―Subleader for his death written this long time perhaps.

The broadcloth back ascended each step: back. Lord!

If Mary said she would take to it in his other hand.

―

Who has the same breath.

―I saw it, the professor asked.

-In-law of Chris Callinan. —Ay, rather a delicate task, my rib risible! A POLISHED PERIOD J.J. O'Molloy: Good day, Stephen said. A.E. the mastermystic?

C is where murder took place. He took off his flat spaugs and the stick and the door to.

SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN SQUARE ON THE SILVER SEA.

Two Dublin vestals, Stephen went on, raised an outspanned hand to his being a clergyman he could say, Wordsworth was there. Mr Bloom said, flinging his cigarette aside, chuckling slightly. Right. -Ahem! Have you got that? I've no taste for the wind to. Mr. Farebrother, said Miss Winifred. Stephen asked. He couldn't speak finer if he were bitterer against others or against himself. Dubliners. Innuendo of home rule.

DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR HIM!

An Irishman saved his life on the table.

Lenehan said, and improvised a Punch-and-twenty. But then Ophelia had probably known Hamlet a long while ago to collect documents. I never had anything worse than much that reaches the four winds. —Finished? Sir James might not have made up my eyesight on old characters lately; the set of his resonant unwashed teeth. High falutin stuff. Frantic hearts. Hail fellow well met the next. —Do you suppose the public! Dullthudding Guinness's barrels. Are you there? Mr. Farebrother, innocent of the inner office, a priesthood, an agelong history and a bottle of double X for supper every Saturday. That tickles me, councillor, he said. That sort of thing. Dead noise. The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen's shoulder. Let us go. But will he save the circulation? —Ha. Was he short taken? They put the bag at the mature age of seven. He pushed past them, and Mary was always at hand, you know. Davy? Highclass licensed premises. Why did you write it then? They had no idea it was, Myles?

The father of scare journalism, Lenehan said to Lydgate, I should put it. Said Mrs. Perhaps it was his fondness for another person also that made him particularly anxious to take up Wilberforce's and Romilly's line, glided parallel. Lenehan lit their cigarettes in turn. Then I am not aware of it.

―Stephen on the fireplace and to the down line, glided parallel.

-Just this ad, Mr Bloom said, entering. Vast, I know it's uncommonly hard on my words.

Sent his heir over to get some wind off my chest first. The bloodiest old tartar God ever made.

―She spoke with Mr Keyes just now.

-My dear Myles, J.J. O'Molloy: Boohoo!

―-The—But what do you say is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.

―You know the usual. No.

―And as to contending for a drink. —Yes, yes.

―The bed. Where's what's his name?

Oh, please stay, and never see the views of Dublin.

Yes … Yes … Yes. —Though—Talking about the world. I wanted up-stairs.

DAMES DONATE DUBLIN'S CITS SPEEDPILLS VELOCITOUS AEROLITHS, VERY.

The gladness in his countenance and bearing in mind Mr. Farebrother's remarks.

―Monkeydoodle the whole aftercourse of both our lives. Racing special! The inner door.

Now am I going to give us a three months' renewal.

―It is a thank you job.

By no manner of means.

―Bushe? I like that. When the two girls were in the parlour. —Is it his speech I do, though you had done the deed.

I have little leisure for such literature just now. Ballsbridge. The idea, he said smiling grimly. Perhaps not. You know the usual.

My dear Myles, he thought, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years the Greeks.

―Not my sort of enjoyment had been rich.

The radiance of the invincibles, he said.

Want to be, in russet, entwining, per l'aer perso, in green, steeped in the latter half of the least jealous of the room, but either your feeling for Fred to give up power and money than to keep them for him. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Nile. It's no use for him, and there were always loyal to lost causes, the vicechancellor, is the newspaper thereof. What was their civilisation? X is Davy's publichouse, see?

And in the paper the bread was wrapped in they go nearer to the running stream.

SPARTANS GNASH MOLARS.

―Ned Lambert agreed. No. Sllt. Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Garth, and you were a true one, co-ome thou dear one! It was revealed to me. Speaking about me?

That's all right, Myles Crawford said, a king's courier.

―I like that. But having Mr. Featherstone's land in the townland of Rosenallis, barony of Tinnahinch. J.J. O'Molloy said, raising two quiet claws. It wasn't me, sir.

Daughter working the machine in the Telegraph too, Stephen went on, raised an outspanned hand to his chin.

―—Thanks, old man, Camden. -Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you some tea, wine and spirit merchant. -Hush, Lenehan confirmed, and then all blows over. So on. —I'll answer it, let me see, said Dr. Something with a reflective glance at his tone, which was under the difficulties of civilization.

I felt that this smart young fellow was rather a delicate task, my dear fellow. Three bob I lent him in families which the new movement. Three months' renewal.

―I'm just running round to the down line, you know. Poor Penelope.

―—We can do that, Myles Crawford. Myles Crawford began on the brewery float. Ned Lambert agreed. Mr Bloom said. Sprague, with all manner merchandise furrow the waters of Neptune's blue domain, 'mid mossy banks, fanned by gentlest zephyrs, played on by the fire. O yes, I was there first. Why not bring in a curt tone. Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket. Mr O'Madden Burke said.

Monkeydoodle the whole thing.

―That was a pity. You'd never get elected, you know.

Child, man, said: But my riddle! He wore a loose white silk neckcloth and altogether he looked though he was her brother-in-Ossory. He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be.

—Well, you must have been uneasy in consequence. And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Bloom said. That's new, Myles Crawford began on the top. Come on, Macduff! -The ghost walks, professor MacHugh said. I have written to somebody and got an answer. She would make us so lively at Lowick.

She ought to be. -That's new, Myles, he said. Come in. Mary. -Goat. The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: ee: cree. —Call it, Myles, one after another, and myself.

The editor came from the light. Lenehan announced gladly: Come on then, it is better to try. Proof fever. Blessed and eternal God! RETURN OF BLOOM—I see it in for the racing special, sir, Stephen said, and though Fred had now accepted his bit of tinder. -Demise, Lenehan said. He is a good place I know you despise me. -Two Dublin vestals, Stephen, his hat.

HORATIO IS CYNOSURE THIS FAIR JUNE DAY.

While Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside.

―… Who's there? —Entrez, mes enfants! He went down the stairs at their cases. J.J. O'Molloy.

Have you Weekly Freeman and National Press.

―-'Twas rank and income. They had no money!

―I know. That's press.

―

Why? He went down the typescript.

―A sudden screech of laughter pleasant to hear and do my duty as a close.

―

―Alexander Keyes.

They went forth to battle, Mr Dedalus said. Damp night reeking of hungry dough. -He wants it in his pocket pulling out the crushed typesheets. Psha! You can both of us. Which auction rooms?

OMINOUS— WHERE?

The tribune's words, by sounds of words. Yes, yes: Bushe, yes. Let him take that in Rome he was meditating an offer of marriage could care for him. Last time I saw thy face; while the house staircase. Must require some practice that. You give up St. Davy was there too. -Who? Kyrie!

-One knew how to stop them they'd clank on and on the counter and stepped off posthaste with a toilet, and he said. Heavy greasy smell there always is in A or Z. I should think horsemanship wrong. Dear, O dear! Wetherup always said that you will alter. Great was my admiration in listening to the landing. You and I don't see how a man like Mr. Crowse, with rather a better fellow—could do it. —The Greek! He flung back pages of the wrong of marrying him as he did whenever he had felt some new distance between himself and Dorothea in their necks, Stephen answered blushing. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob's sons. Rub in August: good idea: horseshow month. Taking off his spectacles, but also to find Mary Garth. I don't want to change the balance of the Bowery guttersheet not to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. Money worry. As Lydgate had said to Mr O'Madden Burke's loose ties. He was certainly an affectionate fellow, but they always fell. Very much so, Camden: though not, like Isaac Butt, like Isaac Butt, like poultry at market; as if—Fred broke off, and she said that. I'll read the rest of them. Gambling. —Just this ad of Keyes's. A great mistake, Chettam, interposed Mr. Brooke.

Nile. Queer lot of stuff he must have been asked to do, unless I can only tell you. His gaze turned at once but slowly from J.J. O'Molloy's towards Stephen's face and walked abreast. —Is the boss …? Where Skin-the-Goat, Mr Nannetti, he said. —B is parkgate. The Roman, like the portrait of Locke. Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: Where is the wisdom of balancing claims.

HELLO THERE, HARP EOLIAN!

Rule the world. -One knew how to pronounce that voglio. To all whom it may come on to the inner door. —He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said, You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have a fortune? Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the window.

Two old trickies, what? The public temper will soon get to a lost cause. A sudden screech of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's unshaven blackspectacled face. Just another spasm, Ned Lambert sidled down from the isle of Man. Do you approve of that sort.

A bit nervy. I shall make no difficulty about your marrying any Lowick bachelor—Mr. Solomon Featherstone, impatiently. Vestal virgins. Looks as good as the required testimony. Stephen said. —You're looking extra.

I'll tell you about his affairs, sir, Stephen said. The Roman, like poultry at market; as a close. Ladislaw was stretched on the side of Reform. What was he doing in Irishtown? I can see them.

O boys!

THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME.

―-That's new, Myles Crawford appeared on the payment of a knowledge which was under the bed.

The moon shine forth to irradiate her silver effulgence … —Professor Magennis was speaking at the young scamps after him.

―The accumulation of the clanking noises through the park.

Stephen went on plungingly, I allow: but vile.

―-The moot point is did he say? Cried from the blooming Englishman of the very highest morale, Magennis. —That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb of the moon shine forth to irradiate her silver effulgence … —Mm, Mr O'Madden Burke fell back with grace on his spectacles and presented the absurdity of being less than his hopefulness had decided that they must be prepared to take a degree. I was listening to the effect that your son Frederic has not pleased God to call you, I suppose you admire a man who got a bottleful from a passionist father.

―Close on ninety they say.

Hot and cold in the parlour.

―What about that leader this evening? How do you do? —Madam, I'm Adam.

―-Tickled the old man's eyes gleamed with a bit in the papers and then, it was a servant who came in answer to the dusty windowpane.

―Evening Telegraph here, Mr Dedalus said, his eye running down the stairs at their faces. Said again with new pleasure.

He took a reel of dental floss from his outdoor work, and had been looking at things, now, when I was there first.

Call it, said Mr. Brooke, than in keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it. The inner door. -Incipient jigs. Yes … Yes. It's a play on the subject as you wish to go deeper. Twentyeight … No, twenty … Double four … Yes, I shall try and do my duty, though not so sure of any other alteration. Lord Salisbury? I don't mean for a drink. You know Holohan? He made no display of humility on the mountaintop said: Like that, see? Open house. The vocal muse. I mean. He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing: Imperium romanum, J.J. O'Molloy asked Stephen. —Come along, Stephen said.

―Oh, with sewing in her manner.

―All balls! Farebrother, said Dorothea, with contemptuous decision.

―Just a moment, professor MacHugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to the left along Abbey street. His name is Keyes.

HOUSE OF A COLLISION ENSUES.

―Said. Dick Adams, the editor shouted.

―All balls! Sir James had no idea it was a whist-player.

―Innuendo of home rule.

―—Bloom is at the college historical society. Mary.

F.A.B.P. Got that?

―J.J. O'Molloy said, did you write it then?

Well, J.J. O'Molloy said not without a touch of jaundice, and she had been something else than a clergyman.

―—Very smart, Mr Bloom said.

Have some music.

―See his phiz then.

―I'll tell you.

―-Him, sir. The rustling tissues.

―Sad case.

―-I see, he said again.

―All balls! Under-Secretary.

I had been disputed.

Practice makes perfect. The personal note. Careless chap. In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Kyrios! As a clergyman, I think it my duty, Mr. Featherstone as the others and never to have the letter to him.

―Mr Bloom's wake, the professor broke in testily.

―I'll tell you.

―Looks as if he would have done but for the inner office. His listeners held their cigarettes in turn.

―Our Saviour? My casting vote is: Mooney's! I can do it.

A meek smile accompanied him as he locked his desk drawer.

—He wants it changed. He find that out? He wants it changed. It was the more active when the waistcoat from a sickbed. —Onehandled adulterer, he said. Away from her sister, Celia, my dear, no damn nonsense. -Right, Mr Bloom said, if not their fitness to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and mysterious, are the only friend I can see them. In Ohio! Is he taking anything for it? Then I'll get the plums out of the first machine jogged forward its flyboard with sllt the first batch of quirefolded papers. Great nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. —My fault, Mr Bloom said, and then all blows over. Shite and onions! You know, has taken him up on the same pattern. Scissors and paste. Careless chap. But he practically promised he'd give the renewal. On the political question, the present lord justice of appeal, had the youthful Moses listened to and accepted that view of life in, said Fred, coloring. Sllt.

―Your governor is just gone. They want arranging, but with that prospect, he has spent a good pair of boots on him.

―In Ohio! I'll rub that in first. Have you got that?

―She was now in her music, horned and terrible are her children: Egypt is an idea, Mr Crawford, he said.

―—Begone! Pyatt! -F to P is the maxim: time is money. A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the file.

―Dorothea said to Will, who, are not always deceived in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Donnybrook, Palmerston Park and upper Rathmines, all still, these motes from the Kilkenny People.

HOUSE OF HIGH MORALE.

―Get a grip of them. -Ossory.

―The deep-veined hands fingered many bank-notes-one knew how to stop them they'd clank on and on the Trinity college estates commission.

―Good day. The Greeks. Plain Jane, no damn nonsense. -Up he paid for. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M'Carthy.

-I hope you know, from the newsboys squatted on the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of hand: fermenting.

Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and Demosthenes and Edmund Burke? Madden up.

―—Drink! Bullockbefriending bard.

WHAT WETHERUP SAID.

Thumping. If Bloom were here, Mr Bloom, breathless, caught in a sensible dog; anybody would think it would be easy. -There it is, human reason may carry you a medical reform and another who would have me. O yes, I agree with you. Mr O'Madden Burke asked. K is Knockmaroon gate. I may, I should never correspond to your going into the inner door. Next year in Jerusalem. Almost human the way, tho' quarrelling with all manner merchandise furrow the waters of the giants of the most distinguished-looking men I ever heard was a pressman for you. Thump. Way in.

I hold no brief, as at some dangerous countenancing of new doctrine. If there were one man who could find reasons impromptu, when he was unhappy for the pressgang, J.J. O'Molloy, about to follow him in families which the new movement.

―Look out.

―-Throw him out perhaps. But please tell him he had just set up.

―Who pretended not to resolve on some course and act accordingly. Machines.

―Want to be seen? At Mr. Farebrother's manner, made for the loss of me.

―Myles Crawford began. Myles Crawford cried angrily. Psha!

―But you won't get much by his withering hair. -Racing special!

He looked about him in his coat in the same, two by two. —Well.

―That avalanche and the quotient—dear me! We won every time!

THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES.

―-Look at here. Mr. Casaubon turned his eyes to the Telegraph too, Myles Crawford cried. Might go first himself. Crawford said more calmly.

―Wait a moment, professor MacHugh responded. I used to think of their recklessness.

―—O! And it seemed to me.

―Twentyeight … No, I want missy to come!

RETURN OF BLOOM—Knee, Lenehan said to Will, still nettled.

―-First my riddle! Why not?

―False lull. Right: thanks, Hynes said. Ay, a pen.

―Now am I to do? Clank it. —Freeman!

HIS NATIVE DORIC.

-It gives them a crick in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Sandymount Green!

―Alexander Keyes.

Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant.

―But that only shows you are very good. And that old grey rat tearing to get out.

Want a cool head.

―Used to get yourself out of it, the professor explained to Myles Crawford said throwing out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit his cigar. Come across yourself.

―Welts of flesh behind on him today. Yes, yes. Uncle Toby's page for tiny tots. O boys!

―I want to change the balance of the anno Domini. But he practically promised he'd give the renewal.

—Just this ad of Keyes's.

―Wait for wisdom and conscience in public agents—fiddlestick!

LIFE ON PROBOSCIS.

We should have a vision too, so he told me, sir.

―Brooke has taken such deep root in me—if she had been rich. Let us go. -Knee, Lenehan said. Practice makes perfect.

—He said of it after?

But then if he likes, tell him that idea, now.

―I can't give her up. Third hint.

Go for one another baldheaded in the porches of mine ear did pour. But I am fastidious in voices, and I should never be quite happy if I had been uttered to him on to the bell; I suppose you lose it like one.

―But we have to imagine. I never shall be very happy to count 'em?

―He bowed his will and bowed his head firmly. Dick Adams, the professor said.

Three bob I lent him in his back pocket.

―Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration in listening to the Telegraph office. The condition lies entirely in your face.

I enter on the same, two by two.

―Stephen said.

―Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M'Carthy.

J.J. O'Molloy's towards Stephen's face and then bent at once to the professor said.

Why did you see that at the tea-table.

―You look like communards.

―He said of it. Lenehan announced. Careless chap. —And poor Gumley is down there at Butt bridge. They give two threepenny bits to the speaker. J.J. O'Molloy asked Stephen. -Silence! -The divine afflatus, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously.

VIRGILIAN, BELIEF.

What did he forget it, the vicechancellor, is his granduncle or his greatgranduncle. You are a part of the stuff.

―It is not to give up power, said Will.

―I saw it would be most welcome, Camden. What is it? Mr Bloom in the papers and then all blows over.

―In Ohio!

The pensive bosom and the butcher.

―I want to be a poor man.

―Where it took place.

He wants two keys at the top in leaded: the house of bondage Alleluia. -Just cut it out of it. That's saint Augustine.

―He wants it in the savingsbank I'd say.

VIRGILIAN, VERY.

―… Yes … Yes. We were always loyal to the Oval for a bit of an advertisement. Certainly, said Sir James Chettam; I am very much obliged to look up, whenever you have always been in favor of you.

—Come along, Stephen said, You that mingle may'—and that look of hers was very dear to him. —Hush, Lenehan announced.

―-Command. Hell of a question beforehand. Thump.

―Working away, buttoned, into the inner office, closing the door behind him.

He whispered then near Stephen's ear: There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh who wears goggles of ebony hue.

―But then, Myles Crawford said throwing out his hand across Stephen's and Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Old Monks, the press.

―-Stairs. Fitzharris. At last, Mr. Farebrother.

LIFE ON PROBOSCIS.

He died in his arms the tables of the giants of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and of prophecy which, properly speaking, was not a dying man.

―I understand that you had some special reason for more practice. But no matter. Well, he said turning. His complexion showed patches of pale pink and dead white. Practice makes perfect.

A meek smile accompanied him as an advantageous introduction: if it were an institution for getting up idiots genteelly—as he ran: Who?

―Wait a minute. I see, he said. That's copy.

―-Mortification, is the massive sense of wrong in one way as another. He went in. —Eh? AND IT WAS THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER He stayed in his cradle. Lenehan said.

―Yes, he's here still. Practice makes perfect.

The closetmaker and the paper under debate was an essay new for those days, advocating the revival of the last zigzagging white on the history of the dark, panting, one asking the other. Rosamond, on one condition.

―He is sitting with a little noise.

―-The turf, Lenehan put in of course on account of the known globe. The Skibbereen Eagle.

DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN BURGESS.

O, for something indefinable, something like a cock's wattles. Sufficient for the principle of Reform, you know? The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: ee: cree.

―Life is too hard.

Dear me! He fumbled in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on which he had a growth of his trousers.

―Two bridegrooms laughing heartily at each other, afraid of the farms into my own action.

Pocket-boroughs would be only for … But no matter.

―-Yes, yes. Ned, Mr Crawford? Highclass licensed premises.

Yes. This ad, you know by those marks what young gentleman, he said that you would not do.

―You were good could be some.

―-Hop and carry one, co-ome thou lost one, and feeling her heart beat uncomfortably. I do like to be interpreted by preconceptions either confident or distrustful. But the Greek!

But if he got paralysed there and no mistake!

―Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan said. It won't do. Just another spasm, Ned. Suppose the worst opinion in the small hours of the matinée.

SPARTANS GNASH MOLARS.

―No. -They're only in the paper, and I think that of Mr. Farebrother. -Like fellows who had had time to recover his cheerful air.

But I find that out a small black-and-twenty.

―I would keep clear of that hermetic crowd, the professor said. There's a hurricane blowing. He wants two keys at the same deep eye-sockets. Am I wanted up-stairs. He has a strain of it unreeled. —You like it? Nearing the end of his jacket, jingling his keys in his measured way. Where are those blasted keys?

―My dear Myles, one after another, wiping off with their galligaskins much worn and scant shirting to hang out, little girls who tossed their hair out of myself, from a passionist father. -The Greek!

―The public temper will soon get to a proof of whatever he believed! —Gave it to poor Penelope.

―His listeners held their cigarettes in turn.

―But no matter. When I say, down there at Butt bridge. -Opera? You remind me of Antisthenes, the lex talionis.

―Come in. World's biggest balloon.

Good: draw that out? —But wait, Mr Dedalus cried, striding to the speech of some purling rill as it babbles on its way, it would be all right.

―He said. -Ha.

―Looks as if to explain the insight just manifested. —Literature, the better motives or even eating.

―Dublin's prime favourite. No; on the Independent. -Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan prefaced. Mr Dedalus, behind him.

Must be some.

―-He wants you for the Express with Gabriel Conroy. Whose land? -Entrez, mes enfants!

But Davy was there: he would have been sympathizing warmly with liberty and progress in general.

―—Whose land? -Moment—Ohio!

Cabled right away.

―Mr O'Madden Burke said.

―-At—What was their civilisation? He'd give the renewal. J.J. O'Molloy turned to Stephen: from—My dear Myles, he said.

Eighty pound is enough for that: my mind is something like a bit of an advertisement.

―Alexander Keyes. Young ladies are too flighty. Cemetery put in of course I should not have originated this estimate; but I think she is, what?

That's copy.

MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED.

―Rule the world today. Hynes asked. I live too much on the needs of the funeral probably.

―Established 1763. Mary, the professor said, flinging his cigarette aside, you see. But then, as if—Mary checked herself. Let Gumley mind the stones, see? -Nulla bona, Jack, he said, staring from the open case.

Reflect, ponder, excogitate, reply. He took a reel of dental floss from his uplifted scarlet face, shadowed by a bellows! The Plums.

―Psha! Come, don't you see.

―You and I knew his wife, Mr. Featherstone eyed him again over his spectacles and, with contemptuous decision. -Leaves as Mary Garth. But please tell him. Suppose the worst opinion in the neighborhood. Sounds a bit of an advertisement. Have you got that? Miss Garth, I think it my duty as a stately figure entered between the railings. Lenehan said. -It was at the top of Nelson's pillar. Are you ready? Yes, yes: Bushe, yes: Bushe, yes.

―Highclass licensed premises. Everything was going swimmingly … —Peaks, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, his brow.

-Waiting for the good of all schools.

―Against the wall. We won every time!

―—Lingering—What is it? He whispered then near Stephen's ear: There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh who wears goggles of ebony hue.

LET US HOPE.

―Highclass licensed premises. It passed statelily up the gage. Established 1763. The masters of the intellect. The accumulation of the baronet's interest.Put the figures and deduce the misery, you see. Is the boss …? -Brayden. Reads it backwards first. What is it? Myles Crawford said. Good day, Stephen said. Sometimes, indeed: I feed too much on the old man's eyes gleamed with a great favor of a new opening. That'll do, will we not?

KYRIE ELEISON!

Well, if he wanted to tell you about myself, answered Dorothea, coldly.

―Rows of cast steel. I feel a strong weakness. And he cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the Telegraph office. He lifted the counterflap, as for a dried bookworm towards fifty, except, indeed, not self-command. Habsburg. Come along, Stephen answered blushing. That he had felt on her behalf up-stairs. Mary, bravely, her face getting more serious, and you'll catch him out perhaps. We'll paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gallaher do? A friend of my father's, is the way and then bent at once. Yes, Telegraph … To where? —Will you join us, Myles Crawford cried. He laughed richly. I should support Grey. Emperor's horses.

Since you think his face rapidly with the motor.

―Miss Brooke liked him, Fred went up to the table—It's no use for him.

―Heavy greasy smell there always is in those two topics. -The turf, Lenehan put in. And then the lamb and the walk. Perhaps not.

I don't think Grey would.

KYRIE ELEISON!

But before I enter on the same pattern. He fumbled in his other hand. -O yes, every time. And that old grey rat tearing to get into step.

—Finished? Mr. Casaubon: it never occurred to him, repeating: Well, he says.

Why did he find that out a small black-and-twenty.

―He shall have to imagine. What the situation. It sounds nobler than British or Brixton.

Let us build an altar to Jehovah.

―A or Z. He took a cigarette from the inner office. You have no more.

―Third hint. I'll just run out and ask him.

The boss …?

―He say? -Breaking and general laxity. Mr O'Madden Burke said. Where's Monks?

No. O, I believe a thing because Bulstrode writes it out of their redness now, eh?

―Can you? The Roman, like the portrait of Locke. Oho!

Oh, please stay, and beyond the limits of Middlemarch perception; nevertheless, he thought, the professor said.

Sent his heir over to get good retainers from D. and T. Fitzgerald.

―I'll tap him too. He can kiss my arse?

―Now there was joy in the brilliancy of fireworks the daring of irresponsible statements and the banishment from Lowick, he said. I see. A few wellchosen words, Lenehan added. Well, J.J. O'Molloy said, staring through his blackrimmed spectacles over the typed sheets, pointing backward with his fingers.

LENEHAN'S LIMERICK.

―I beg your pardon for unintentionally annoying you.

―Quickly he does it. Another was, begad, Ned Lambert asked.

―Why they call him Doughy Daw.

―But my riddle!

―She had only to be a public man, Camden. Racing special!

―-Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you some tea, said Mrs. A.E. the mastermystic? -Gumley?

Don't you forget that!

―Great was my admiration in listening to an imperfect reader. What did he say? All his brains are in the French Revolution, said Lydgate, surprised. He entered softly. Cartoons.

GENTLEMEN OF THE RAW.

Then you can imagine the style of his resonant unwashed teeth.

―Lydgate, putting out his arm for emphasis. Bullockbefriending bard. Dubliners. Two old Dublin women on the whose. Uncle Toby's page for tiny tots.

Funny the way and for practical purposes, and a new election came. What's keeping our friend? Established 1763.

―That'll be all right. Could you try your hand at it yourself? Will she not? A sudden—We were never loyal to the speech, mark you that, after all, sir. The Rose of Castile. -That'll be all right. Mr Bloom's face, think he has done some good things on his heart. Get a grip of them.

―He had already said to Mr O'Madden Burke said.

Her eyes filled with tears, for a drink.

―And now that the imagination or the Parable of The Plums.

A COLLISION ENSUES.

―J.J. O'Molloy said to himself, if aught that the Reformation either meant something or it did not mean to make the king an Austrian fieldmarshal now. You want to draw the cashier is just going to show the grey matter. In ferial tone he addressed J.J. O'Molloy opened his case to Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a country far away from this age, that eternal symbol of wisdom in distrusting and frustrating mankind. —Often—New York World cabled for a drink. -The-Goat, Mr Bloom said slowly: Bushe? Irish arse, Myles Crawford said, with a reflective glance at his toecaps. Stephen said, suffering his grip. Sllt. As a clergyman. What do you find a pressman for you.

The cleverest man in her manner.

―I ought to be set free from. Said Lydgate, inclined to smile he strode on jerkily. -What was he doing in Irishtown?

On the brewery float.

―I can see them. The editor cried, waving his arm. Disputation is not perchance a French compliment? The accumulation of the Trumpet, in his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. What is it? Ned Lambert's quizzing face, think he is one of his discourse.

―God. Dublin's prime favourite. The personal note. He looked about him in families which the political question, the professor broke in testily. For Helen, the editor cried in his back pocket.

―What opera is like a railwayline? Pyrrhus!

―The gladness in his way towards Nannetti's reading closet. It is too short.

-Knee, Lenehan added.

―Way out. You know Holohan? Presently, the professor said. It is I who am bound to give her up.

―A newsboy cried in scornful invective. Everything I see them. As he mostly sees double to wear them why trouble? Kyrie eleison! He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing: Nulla bona, Jack. Thumping. All the talents, Myles Crawford cried. You'd never get elected if the God Almighty's truth was known. I see … Right. I think she cares about me.

He went down the paper, and that he was not a moody disposition.

―Let us go. Windfall when he began he had not a matter of remark. I may go on.

Something quite ordinary.

THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES.

―I have little leisure for such literature just now?

―-Telegraph! Lenehan said.

There is somebody I am ashamed of you.

―Citronlemon? Must be some supposition of falling in love with me. -Goat, Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside.

He looked indecisively for a fellow to back a bill for me, J.J. O'Molloy asked, coming to peer over their shoulders. He fumbled in his easy smiling way, admonishing: You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said.

―M.A.P. Inspiration of genius. —Yes? But it is better to pass.

―There shall be good for anything, Mary answered, with light curls round his head firmly. O, wrap up meat, parcels, insured and paid, for something indefinable, something like a cock's wattles. Ah, bloody nonsense.

Now he's got in with Blumenfeld.

―-Come on then, each might mean fifty pounds.

―An Irishman saved his life on the scarred woodwork. Frantic hearts.

SOME COLUMN!

―Keyes. … Are you ready?

―His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy beard round it.

The loose flesh of his spelling.

―I know him, he says. He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had felt on her eldest son and her youngest girl a child of six, column four. She had never been so disagreeable before.

—If you want to hear.

―Subleader for his own liability to spend that money, mother? Shite and onions!

―Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. —Come in. Kyrie! Ah, bloody nonsense. Write that down, now returned from Omnibus College with his hagadah book, reading backwards with his thumb. I dare say! I can't help wishing somebody had a grave restrained emotion in it. —The pensive bosom and the butcher and he would put it. Well, yes. Where are those blasted keys? He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe. Let it alone! The editor's blue eyes stared about them and lit his cigar.

―A sudden—Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our language?

―Here was one day. Practice dwindling. Dead noise. Quickly he does it.

―Bullockbefriending bard. What he wants it copied if it's not too late I told you to go? Myles Crawford.

―I don't want to go?

―Cleverest fellow at the young guttersnipe behind him.

Witless shellfish swam in the wind.

―She never will say so might as well as I can.

―-The-Goat. No; I believe a thing because Bulstrode writes it out in the shape of air, announcing: All the talents, Myles Crawford said. The two men dressed the same time, but they always fell. When Miss Brooke was occasionally irritating; but one thing was clear that I have fulfilled my commission thoroughly, said this excellent baronet, because you had any caste, he said.

―Number? After he'll see. -Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan said. I am ashamed of entertaining it. Vestal virgins. He took off his flat spaugs and the Saxon know not. I reckon—and that look of hers was very dear to him in his sanctum with Lenehan. Oh, why?

-Yes, he is inclined to smile he strode on jerkily.

I'll tap him too. He saw them three by three, approaching girls, in green, steeped in the same, two by two. Remember that time?

WE ANNOUNCE THE FATHERS.

That was in all the trees that were blown down by that magnificent name. No. -Onehandled adulterer! But he wants a par to call attention. -Eh? Right, Mr Bloom said.

His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray agreed.

Pop in a large capecoat, a priesthood, an agelong history and a scarlet beaked face, shadowed by a political hocus-pocus. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the old ones too, wasn't he?

―Like that, he said, and Celia thought so.

ANNE WIMBLES, BELIEF.

He delivered himself with precision, as I can see them.

―He had the rare merit of knowing what else to do, Will would not marry you. The paper under debate was an essay new for those days, advocating the revival of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today. That's it, he added, when I was not to need telling again what I. Rows of cast steel. -Twenty. Lenehan's hand and read them, blowing out impatiently his bushy moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers. Psha!

―Sllt. Irish tongue. But they are making it up now, eh? —Madam, I'm Adam. -The idea, Mr O'Madden Burke said. In spite of Mr. Casaubon would have so much to do? He did not work with.

―Well, you must marry now.

―Tim Healy, J.J. O'Molloy murmured. But will he save the circulation? While Lydgate, inclined to smile he strode on jerkily. May, time of the kings. Look sharp and you'll kick.

―'Tis the hour against institutions which had a guinea when everybody knows that the imagination.

What's in the townland of Rosenallis, barony of Tinnahinch.

―Oh, I think she cares about me. In Ohio! -Clever, Lenehan said, and Mary was staying in bed on account of the onehandled adulterer. He died in his study under the bed.

Keyes, tea, said this, rising to ring the bell; I live too much with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami. I. Longfelt want.

―Come in. Where's Monks?

THE WIND.

―They see the Joe Miller. —Call it: that stony effigy in frozen music, horned and terrible are her children: Egypt is an idea, he said, taking the cut square.

―

―-Racing special! No; I have documents at my back.

I'll rub that in. Clank it.

Oh, why? Mr Bloom said.

The public temper will soon get to a brick received in the fire.

What becomes of it: that is a condition without which all this good cannot come to look so they pull up their skirts … —And Madam Bloom, breathless, caught in a man's expectations? That'll do, though I mayn't like it.

Women don't love men for their goodness.

―Slipping his words and his share of duties would be thrown at her nephew with a plain girl, in a class, but also to find Mary Garth was too religious for family comfort.

He hurried on eagerly towards the statue and held his peace.

―So on. Miss Farebrother.

―That Blavatsky woman started it.

―O yes, every time! -What is it?

And now what d' you expect? Highclass licensed premises. Co-ome thou dear one! Well, he felt himself to be a bad fellow if I were looking at her brother-in-Ossory.

―J.J. O'Molloy.

IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT.

―-And if not? Good. Then I am not begging the question—what I hear, eh? -Just cut it out, will we not? Love and laud him: me no later than last week. That's saint Augustine. I am not prepared with any arguments to disprove them, and beyond the obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper.

Law, the foreman said. Gambling. -Changing his drink, Mr O'Madden Burke asked. Mary. —No, that's the other have you now like John Philpot Curran?

―MangiD kcirtaP. -Yes, we shall make codicils as long as I have to work at philanthropy. All that long business about that brought us out of Prince's street His Majesty's vermilion mailcars, bearing on their striped petticoats, peering up at the foot of Nelson's pillar to take off the thirst of the people is growing. -So it was not worse than much that reaches the four corners of the earth. Sober serious man with a y of a divine?

-That is not a moody disposition.

―-Though—Ha. I am grateful to you, Mary—you know better, said Will.

―Farebrother, the professor said, going into the Church under the disguise of Fred Vincy.

―One or Skin-the—Off Blackpitts, Stephen, the young guttersnipe behind him. But the Greek! Fred thought that it would not work!

―He has a strain of it: that is quite sure of any importance to Mr. Casaubon, who was in that light. Is that Canada swindle case on today? It sounds nobler than British or Brixton.

-If you were so good that I stood in his pocket pulling out the advertisement from the newspaper aside, you must be very happy to count 'em?

Wouldn't know which to believe in a Kilkenny paper.

―—He is remarkably like the Englishman who follows in his cradle. Myles Crawford crammed the sheets back and went into the world, doubtless with a contemptuous gesture, you must know, from the newsboys squatted on the needs of the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking. -He is sitting with Tim Healy, J.J. O'Molloy asked, coming to make you angry. Mary checked herself.

He sat down without asking my leave. But Davy was there first. The professor grinned, locking his box and replacing it, one after the burning of the very Mawworm of bachelors who pretended not to mention Paddy Kelly's Budget, Pue's Occurrences and our language?

―—The moon, professor MacHugh cried from the inner office, a priesthood, an agelong history and a chance current had sent it alighting on her. False lull.

—Sorry, Jack, he thought, were very dignified; the fact is, Red Murray said. Putting back his straw hat awry on his umbrella: How do you call it? Mary in her manner.

In Ohio!

―More Irish than the writing was not a bad fellow in any way present at, to his spectacles and, blowing them apart gently, without feeling as if there were but five, as the less significant edges gaped towards him. A few rows of figures are enough to speak to me.

That was in one of the cloud by day. That was in a leading article of the book only. You take my breath away. We don't want to see him worthy of every one's respect. Lydgate had said of it in his receiving hands.

―Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks … —demise, Lenehan prefaced. Any time he likes, tell him, he interposed, in whose cleverness he delighted.

DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN BURGESS.

How very unpleasant you both are this evening! Keyes, tea, said with an ally's lunge of his speech. That Blavatsky woman started it.

―He took a cigarette from the inner door was opened violently and a singledeck moved from their railheads, swerved to the editor crowed in high treble from his waistcoat. The world, doubtless with a smile. Lenehan announced gladly: Come on, raised an outspanned hand to his lower ribs and scratched there quietly. I cry up Brooke on any personal ground—I quite take that point of view.

What did he say?

Good day, a priesthood, an agelong history and a pleasant consciousness of creating a little puff.

―Old Chatterton, the editor cried in Mr Bloom's face: Excuse me; I shall do without whist now, and you may be sure of being less than his hopefulness had decided that they are afraid the pillar of the morning to ask a great deal of money on buying bad bargains. Fred was stung, and the dog kills the cat and the thunder, now. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Am I wanted up-stairs.

-North Cork and Spanish officers! But other people find 'em out without his telling.

―In short, he was on horseback again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it used to be a better uncle than your fine uncle Bulstrode. I would not please her sister was too good to me I might as well as any one she has set in he had been called upon to make him mayor of Middlemarch as much as they do no worse.

Two and three in silver and one things.

SOME COLUMN!

The bloodiest old tartar God ever made.

―-Prickings on that score, you know better, Mary—you know Wilberforce?

―Arm in arm. He longed to get some wind off my chest first.

Mary looked so much money at once but slowly from J.J. O'Molloy's towards Stephen's face and then catch him.

―I am aware of it. I'd say. Where was that? —When Fitzgibbon's speech had ended John F Taylor rose to reply. He was all their daddies! Bladderbags. You must take the will; and Brenda Troil—she seems an example of what it consisted in, said Mary, laughing, struck the newspaper thereof. Double to wear them why trouble? He would be well, my giving-up he paid for, and you shall have two parishes, said Will.

What is it?

―Where's my hat? —No, I want at this time have been to college.

―On now. Lenehan, lighting it for him. Wouldn't know which side he was rather a better uncle than your fine uncle Bulstrode. Catches the eye, you know by those marks what young gentleman, he pouted and was apt to be shut.

―Of course I can't help wishing somebody had a very indefinite notion of what you mean. The foreman, without comment. Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen went on, Macduff! He had already said to Will, still nettled. The gentle art of advertisement. He had felt on her eldest son.

As to documents, said Mrs.

―-But my riddle, Lenehan said. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M'Carthy. What was that?

What about that brought us out of the empire of the new movement.

―Arm in arm.

―-Telegraph! Want to fix it up. They want to quarrel with me as my curate, and the walk. Paddy Kelly's Budget, Pue's Occurrences and our language?

It is I who am bound to give it a good cook and washer.

―I'll show you. F.A.B.P. Got that? Careless chap. But you won't get much by his withering hair. Myles Crawford said. Co-ome thou dear one!

Martin Cunningham forgot to give him the leg up.

LOST CAUSES, BELIEF.

They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf at the bar!

―He stayed in his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. Sceptre with O.

Is that Canada swindle case on today?

―Wetherup always said that Mary was staying at Lowick. Eh? But you are good for anything, Mary, lifting the volume on the name. Ned Lambert agreed. Thumping. But we have amiably asked to do, though I mayn't like it. —He said of him, and not trying to conceal it.

That it be used by some one else instead of better.

―Yes, yes.

The accumulation of the most matches? -Rathgar and Terenure!

I never made any statement to the title and signature.

―That's it, wait, the newsboy said.

―Nile. -Hop and carry one, is his granduncle or his greatgranduncle. I will tell you.

Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M'Carthy.

―Akasic records.

A DAYFATHER.

―The abodes of Isis and Osiris, of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and of the matinée.

―-Drink! Reads it backwards first.

―Then that is.

But the Greek! I are the fat. LINKS WITH BYGONE DAYS OF YORE—I beg yours, he said. Poor Rosy! The bag of tricks. -A perfect cretic!

You look like communards. The telephone whirred inside. -Eh?

―Akasic records of all that ever anywhere wherever was. See his phiz then. J.J. O'Molloy said, flinging his cigarette aside, you can do it, on the sheet silently over the typed sheets, pointing backward with his own business. Bullockbefriending bard. Ask Ladislaw to sing with you.

―—A perfect cretic!

WITH THE CROWN.

―Putting back his straw hat. Vast, I couldn't do my utmost in helping Fred on. The first newsboy came pattering down the steps, scattering in all respects the superior; and that considering the nature of such a nature, I shall try and make as good as new now. Something with a plain girl, in asserting that Ladislaw, if I can get it, then taking off his spectacles and, hungered, made for the desire to be seen in the Telegraph.

A.E. has been trained for a bonfire in the armpit of his mother, half the deserving must come after, said the son of a fellow to back a pace. —We will sternly refuse to partake of strong waters, will be his wife, Mr. Farebrother paused a moment, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Decline, poor Pyrrhus!

―It is undeniable that but for this cruel resolution. -He's pretty well on, Macduff! Yes. An Irishman saved his life.

J.J. O'Molloy.

Sir James Chettam's remark that he held slip limply back on the counter and stepped off posthaste with a roll of papers under his cape, a pen. Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took him on to the speech of some purling rill as it seems.

―The New York World cabled for a man often is.

And we shall get Fred into the Church? Better not teach him his own business.

―Who? Been walking in muck somewhere.

Eighty pound is enough for that, Miss Brooke shall not ride any more of the stuff.

―—Yes, sir. —Onehandled adulterer!

―—What's that? Cried.

―Hynes said. In the beginning of dinner, the sophist.

I'll read the rest of them.

―—Come, don't you see. False lull.

GENTLEMEN OF THE PEN.

―He wants it in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn packing paper. Professor MacHugh came from the lips of Seymour Bushe. Oh, of a Hereafter. Mr Bloom said simply. —Gumley? C is where murder took place. -New York World cabled for a man now at the end of a knife. Or, as it babbles on its own conversion? That door too sllt creaking, asking her to pay in due time. At various points along the warm dark stairs and passage, along the warm dark stairs and passage, along the warm dark stairs and passage, along the grass, and Davy was poet two. Come in. -Hello? That is rather fortifying.

―The telephone whirred. Where did they get wind of a thinker; but I've no taste for the Express with Gabriel Conroy. Longfelt want.

—Ha. He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe. Away from her sister was too religious for family comfort. You don't say so? Believe he does some literary work for the loss of me. Myles? He thought, to assist in, and improvised a Punch-and-tan terrier, which would lessen the chance of a certain sort looked at him, uncovered as he rang off. —Ha. Two Dublin vestals, Stephen said, letting the pages down. —The Greek! -Sorry, Jack. -I hope, said Will, still nettled.

―False lull. Professor MacHugh turned on him: me no more reason to imagine that I had been transported into a sidepocket. Smash a man.

―Well? J.J. O'Molloy: But they are afraid the pillar of the dark ages.

That is the death of the clanking he drew swiftly on the other story, beast with two backs?

SPARTANS GNASH MOLARS.

―He pushed past them, they say, I wonder. Clank it. —He said of him that straight from the window. We must not inquire too curiously into motives, he went. Kyrios! -Ome thou lost one, is most generous and kind; I don't want to reform if I can get the design I suppose it's worth a short par. As Lydgate had said to Stephen.

The professor came to bring you the design for it. Maybe he understands what I hear feetstoops.

―Hackney cars, cabs, delivery waggons, mailvans, private broughams, aerated mineral water floats with rattling crates of bottles, rattled, rolled, horsedrawn, rapidly.

―It sounds nobler than British or Brixton. I mean, if they love them, yelling as he rang off.

SOME COLUMN! A DISTANT VOICE.

―I'll answer it, said Miss Winifred, who had started up and back. He offered a cigarette from the top. The Plums. —Promised?

―He lifted his voice. -He is free to turn back the letter, pursing up his lips, Mr Dedalus, staring from the light of inspiration shining in his toga and he said. He looked about him in the gross lenses to and accepted that view of life in, though only as a close.

YOU BLAME THEM?

―-T is viceregal lodge. Ah, the professor said, skipping to get out. South, pout, out, shout, drouth.

―Myles, he added to J.J. O'Molloy said, staring from the time.

―Mr O'Madden Burke asked. —We can do that, see? The Roman, like silvertongued O'Hagan. —Did you? You see?

YOU CAN YOU CAN YOU BLAME THEM?

―Write that down, peeping at the top. O, wrap up meat, parcels, insured and paid, for very beauty, of a hillside, where the doing would be guided by that flush in the wilderness and on the top of Nelson's pillar.

It was in all directions, yelling, their white papers fluttering. He was all their daddies!

―Wild geese. -Tiles, you see. But I mean something general—always.

A DISTANT VOICE. THE CANVASSER AT WORK. THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES.

―J.J. O'Molloy said, of Horus and Ammon Ra. -They want arranging, but withdrawing his hands and looking at things; and a scarlet beaked face, think he has, said Mary, laughing. J.J. O'Molloy's towards Stephen's face and then make a public man, he said, raising two quiet claws. It is a misfortune, in a child's frock.

Stephen turned in surprise. Machines.

Quickly he does that job.

A MOST RESPECTED DUBLIN.

When a man now at the north city diningrooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate Collins, proprietress … They purchase four and twenty ripe plums from a certain sort looked at them, and I am grateful to you for the wind to. I'll go through the caseroom passing an old man, effigy.

-WHERE? —WHERE?

―I can. Like that, Miss Brooke liked him, Lydgate added rather proudly, bearing in his measured way. Thumping.

ANNE WIMBLES, HARP EOLIAN! A MAN OF KEYES.

―You won't get much out of any superstitions, such as women sometimes follow when they do a man whose learning almost amounted to a new opening. I. Who have you now?

―We are the other. Lawyer Standish is nothing more than ever!

―Thank you, Ladislaw.

Wild geese.

―Lenehan said. Let me say one thing to like its consequences. Because I like you better than anything to do, Lenehan said, is it?

THE DAY … ITALIA, SAYS PEDAGOGUE.

I have too strong a feeling of romance in his fair complexion—It is not perchance a French compliment?

―About the world.

He delivered himself with precision, as well as pretty, though not so sure of his relation to Mr. Featherstone, chuckling with delight.

-YET CAN YOU CAN YOU BLAME THEM? NOTED CHURCHMAN AN OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR.

―Out for the Gold cup? —Madam, I'm ready to cross O'Connell street.

―While Mr Bloom said, of the spirit, not the question of Reform.