#humour cause the flight was grim

[fantasticharmonymiracle]

You know you're tired when you collapse on an uncomfortable, inhumane, crammed EasyJet flight to the sound of heavy Drum and Bass music and nothing wakes you up not even the hostesses frothing at the mouth, begging you to purchase one 40 pack of cigarettes.

Bliss.

As is Armand spoke "Rest" into my ears and I dutifully obeyed.

[renaultphile]

Ralph’s Chariot - a flight of fancy

Has anyone noticed the precise point at which Ralph’s car leaves the narrative?  The last time we see it is when Ralph stows the spare bottle of champagne in the boot, just before he and Laurie disappear into the cottage for the night.  Once they consummate their relationship, the car disappears from view.

Another thought occurred to me.  Does Bunny’s Riley even exist?  We only have his word for it.  At first, I thought that Bunny having to drive Ralph’s car was just there to provide a bit of humour and an edge to the scene, but is there more to it?  Bunny ‘driving’ Ralph’s car can also have a deeper meaning, foreshadowing another ‘borrowing’ which doesn’t end well.

Ralph’s car is ancient and barely functioning.  It’s been around.  It also makes me think of the age-old trope of men giving lifts to their dates with expectations of a quid pro quo.  What always strikes me about the car scenes is the way Ralph’s driving is described in such great detail.  There is nothing sloppy about his driving, so we are told, even when it causes him pain. 

“Ralph's contest with the car had developed a certain grimness. There was nothing wrong with his driving, except a persistent impression of something difficult being done for a bet, which kept Laurie on edge all the time.”

And even if he is hopelessly over the limit, or can’t resist a couple of extra drinks on their mission of mercy, he pulls over in a lay-by to sober up.  Whether he had it mind to make a different use of that unscheduled stop, he is the perfect gentleman.  Possibly my favourite description is this one, when he gets Laurie back to the hospital in record time:

“It was rather as if Ralph were driving himself as well as the car, with an eye on the defects of both.”

But the reader is also left in no doubt about Ralph’s ‘frustration’, especially after their second encounter, where Laurie perceives that he is angry with himself and sits quietly to avoid the ‘lightning’ striking him. 

“The small misdoings of other drivers seemed to infuriate him; after keeping up for some miles a profane running commentary, he started to address the offenders direct.”

Bunny on the other hand has no patience for the eccentricities of Ralph’s car and abuses the power it gives him, mocking Laurie for not anticipating what would be expected of him.  I have sometimes wondered if one of his motivations is that he either doesn’t believe Ralph is not exploiting those ‘lifts’ to get up to something with Laurie, or else he despises him for his restraint.

Perhaps it is just a coincidence, but Ralph’s chariot takes a back seat around the same time he seems not only to abandon the platonic model, but to actively campaign against it, urging Laurie to be realistic about his physical needs and mocking him for thinking he can sublimate his desires to be with Andrew.  He no longer needs to ‘manage’ his own sexuality.  Now that he has slept with Laurie, he only needs to ‘manage’ their life together.  As he says himself, he needs to settle things.

But cars, like horses and chariots, are unpredictable, however hard you try to control them. Perhaps after all it is the illusion of control that is the real villain of the piece. 

The mythical Charioteer himself.

[katacroni]

Let's start with this work, later I will get a bit meta. I think I adore everything here, the portray of Donnie from wanting to hope, but not wanted to be hurt by it, to "fuck it" phase, to that desperate flight and questioning, to disbelive and being overwhelmed and happy in the same time. Like so many raw emotions portrayed "in character" for me. Also Raph being a bit shocked but then still switching right away to "Older brother mode" and just doing what Donnie wants cause and then trying to reassure him as much he can, cause he doesn't like his brother distressed. And him trying to hug him with his whole body, even if it's ten times bigger melts my heart.

Also let's not exclude your humour, that really makes me cackle when I'm reading it first time, this time especially that kraang saying "wtf". Mikey moment and smashing into Raph was also great, Casey is just wholesome clueless here. The light-hearted moments makes the emotional ones even more popping up.

I will be mentioning it a lot, but I love your AU, like we are still in post-apo grim world, but that doesn't mean there are still better moment, that characters didn't have the better time. I understand that not everything will go well, and the ending may not be the best, but that's okay, that's actually a point. The angst hits harder when there is a fluff mixed in, and your AU makes me feel more in both ways about the series, film and fandom creations. Cause it makes their inevitable death more tragic, but also the times that they spend together have even more meaning. So thank you for creating so much so amazing artworks

Part 4!

You wanted to know, is it Raph or a robot built to replace him? Here's your answer:D

Part 1 Next

[le-poor-writer]

Serve at First Sight (Kageyama Tobio x F!Reader)

"I bet I can..." Hinata mumbled and narrowed his eyes at him.

"Hah?" Kageyama glared back. "What did you just say?"

"I'm not good at setting. BUT I BET I CAN HIT THE LONGEST AND FASTEST SERVE!"

"IS THAT A CHALLENGE?"

"YOU WANNA GO NOW?"

"Uh... Kageyama, Hinata, Stop messing around or else you'll get an earful from Daichi-san." Yamaguchi tries to mediate the situation. The last time the idiotic duo did something stupid, all the first years had to run extra laps. And he was not up for that today.

"No use talking to idiots Yamaguchi." Tsukki sneered. "They have an IQ capacity of a teaspoon."

Hinata stood at the line of the court, deciding to go first. Throwing the ball into the air, he jumped as high as he could. As if he were a crow that leaped into the sky. His ball managed to land a good one meter away from line of the opposite side. A loud bang resonating the court and he beamed smugly at his tall opponent. Kageyama had a ball ready in hands as he took Hinata's place. Itching to outperformed the record set by the orange-head. Closing his eyes, he briefly replayed Oikawa's diabolical jump serve from their previous practice match. He knew he was a hundred years too early to be able to do that. Doesn't mean he won't try his luck though.

With a deep exhale, he took flight. Blocking out all sounds surrounding him, save that of his squeaking shoes and the volleyball as he slapped it forward. The stinging sensation felt on his hand causing him to grin. Not quite like Oikawa's, but still powerful. This is it, it will definitely plunge further than Hinata's. And it did. The ball flew pass that one meter mark. And hit a person. Kageyama's eyes blinked twice before the situation finally seeped through his thick skull. He had hit someone's head! Suddenly he could hear his surroundings again. Hinata panicked scream. Yamaguchi running towards the unfortunate human being who fell to the ground. Tsukki trying not to laugh at this slapstick comedy.

Kageyama sprinted towards the person. A hundred thoughts running through his mind. Is the person alright? Is he going to get in trouble with Daichi for this? Where are the third years anyway? Most importantly, when was that person there? How is it he did not notice them? What were they doing there in the first place? Surely no one would actually collapsed from that hit, right? He stood behind Yamaguchi who was trying to communicate with the seemingly unconscious person. And that was when Kageyama noticed, the person was a girl. A petite girl. He kneeled beside Yamaguchi. She seemed to be a little pale.

"Hello?" Yamaguchi tapping her shoulder. "Excuse me, can you hear me?"

No reply.

"KAGEYAMA KILLED SOMEONE!" Hinata hollered.

"What are you going to do now Kageyama?" Despite knowing that she only passed out, Tsukki decided to humour Hinata.

"I'll take her to the nurse's office." Immediately he carried her and jogged out of the court. Hoping not to run into anyone. Especially Daichi.

He couldn't help but glance at her face every three seconds. Wondering if she will wake up midway. But she didn't and that worried him more. If it weren't for her soft faint breaths he would have thought that he actually committed manslaughter with his jump serve. Besides, she has such a small frame. He was afraid if he really did break her. Kageyama held her closer to his body. Noticing how she fit snugly in his arms. And when looked closely, she's actually really cute. A blush spread quickly all over his face. What was he thinking? He doesn't even know her.

~~~~~~~~~~

(Y/n) blinked slowly. Feeling slightly dazed.

She woke up late today, all because of that stupid extra Japanese literature homework that had to be submitted during first period. And because she woke up late, she skipped breakfast. She wanted to get something during lunch, but had to drop by the school library to return some books that were due today. Well what do you know, apparently everyone needed to return their books today. If she had known she would've asked her friends to at least get her melon bread. She had about 10 minutes left before lunch ended, but she ran into her senior and was reminded to submit the club activities report today.

It was so hard to focus on classes for the rest of the afternoon. She drank lots of water in hopes to delay the impending dizziness. It was somewhat working. She only needed to wait until clubs and activities time. She'll get a sugary drink from the vending machine, then tell the club leader that she's going to head home early. But karma really had to be a bitch today. Her wallet was not in her bag. (Y/n) dreaded the fact that she might have dropped it somewhere. Searching for her wallet with this now nasty migraine is really going to be such a pain. That is until she suddenly remembered she left it in her drawer at home. She had forgotten about it amidst the rush.

(Y/n) crouched in front of the vending machine. What are the gods playing at exactly. Is it really so hard to get a single bite? Is this karma for denying Mr. Snuggles his treat last week? Well it was not her fault that he knocked over her pudding off the table! She was on the verge of tears when she heard the sound of volleyballs. Oh right, the vending machine was sort of close to the volleyball court... Didn't Yachi say she was recently the co-manager for Karasuno's volleyball club along with that beautiful senior Kiyoko. There is hope. She only needed a little money to get that small carton of drink.

She stood up quickly and regretted it. God, this migraine is killing her. With every ounce of determination she had left, she dragged her feet towards the court. Swaying a little every now and then. The sounds were getting louder, The ball hitting the court, shoes squeaking and people yelling? This is a good thing, it meant that she was getting closer. This is also a bad thing, because it's splitting her skull. Everything around her blurred as she entered the hall. Shit, where is Yachi? She took a few more steps before she felt a hard impact on her head. Dear lord that hurts like hell. And she lost all control of her body before everything went black.

"Oi." a gruff voice distracted her thoughts.

She sat up immediately. Hitting her head on the bed post in the process. She has realized by now that she must have passed out and someone from the volleyball club took her to the nurses office. It must have been this boy sitting beside her. But that still didn't mean she wouldn't be caught off guard. She has always been somewhat intimidated by the male species. Especially those tall towering ones that had to bend a little to talk to her. It's one of the unfortunate things one has to endure being 4'10 and having a small frame. People often joked that she could fit in a suitcase. Though seeing her other shorter friends did brought her pleasure, it still doesn't change the fact that a lot of people around her were giants.

"Idiot."

"Excuse me?" she glared. What's the big idea calling her an idiot out of nowhere. He was the one who surprised her. Sitting on a stool at her bedside, ain't that too close for a stranger, sir?  Who is he again? The volleyball club is pretty popular here in Karasuno after they managed to get into the finals of Inter high recently. It was unfortunate that they lost to Aoba Johsai, but everyone acknowledged what a monster the school was. Yachi said everyone felt down but it didn't dampened their spirit, for their next chance will be the Spring Tournament.

"S-sorry." the guy replied.

Dark eyes darting away from her face. She could make out an intimidating look on his face. Eyebrows furrowing sternly. Lips set on a grim line. Yet his cheeks flushed. Or was it because of the orange hue from the setting sun (she couldn't really tell), which also made his black hair glow. It dawned upon (y/n) that if he could just smooth away his frown, he would be handsome (she thinks). And if only he weren't being gruffy. Wait a minute. Tall volleyball player, black hair, intimidating frowning face but yet somehow still good looking?

"I'm Kageyama Tobio-"

"I know."

Silence... Well that was awkward.

She cleared her throat. "I'm (L/n) (Y/n). From Class 5. Um, Yachi's friend."

"Oh." Shoot. He didn't know she was Yachi's friend. What will the manager say about this. "I'm sorry. That my jump serve knocked you out."

"No no no! I was actually a little hypoglycemic. So your uh, jump serve was just the final nail in the coffin." Damn, she knew that getting hit by any ball was going to hurt. But the ball just now, it felt like it could tear her head off. Or maybe that's just an exaggeration of being starved the whole day. She realized his expression went from frowning to horrifying. "N-not that it will literally be the final nail to my coffin! It was just an expression. Maybe not a good one. Sorry I'm just bad with words when it comes to strangers. I mean not that you're an absolute stranger. It's just that- I'm sorry, I'm blabbering too much."

"Not at all!" he yelled. Ah, he got too animated. He didn't understand why. But he just thought everything about this girl is cute. From her petite stature that makes him want to shield her from the wind. To her way of talking that showed just how shy and awkward she was as how it is with him. Trying to reassure him that it was fine. He couldn't understand this sudden grip in his heart and the tingling sensation at his fingertips. Though maybe it was because he hasn't touch the volleyball for a few hours now.

Another awkward silence ensues.

"Anyways," (Y/n) was still a bit shy. She was after all talking to one of the most popular boys at school. But seeing as how he is now, she thought she could loosen up her guard a bit. "Have you seen my glasses?"

"You wear glasses?"

They rushed back together to the volleyball court. Yachi attacked her with a hug as she lamented about the news she heard from her fellow peers. Daichi scolding him to be careful next time whilst Tanaka giving him his infamous gangster glare. Hinata coming forward with his head down as he presented (Y/n)'s broken glasses. He accidently stepped on them when he was panicking, though he only realised it when she was sent to the nurse's office. Her glasses must have fallen off her head when she got hit. That hard huh. Really God, you want to test her that much today. Fine, she'll apologize to Mr. Snuggles when she gets home.

Unbeknownst to her, Kageyama felt even worse than earlier. His ball caused her to knocked out, and now it even knocked off the glasses from her head and broke it. Stuttering on his words, he apologized again. Hands balled into a tight fist. He just felt so bad. Suga noticed how dejected he sounded. But he also noticed how pink his ears were. Oh? Well even if it wasn't what he thought, there was no harm in... light teasing. Besides, they'd looked adorable together, no?

"If you really feel guilty. Then you should walk her home today." slinging his arm over Kageyama's shoulder, Suga tried to keep a neutral expression. Well there was a slight smirk, but he tried. "What if she falls down on her way home? Or run into a pole?"

"I am short-sighted Sugawara-senpai. Not blind." (Y/n) said through gritted teeth. Really these eyesight jokes should be old by now. "Besides, I will need to stop by the optic shop to have new ones made."

"All the more for him to accompany you. It will get dark soon. Might be dangerous to be walking alone with such bad eyesight."

"Oh no, I wouldn't want to burden-"

"Let's go." Kageyama interrupted. And when she declined again, he argued back. "Stop being a stubborn idiot. You still haven't eaten, you can't see well and you're so light that people can just easily carry you away."

Did he just called her an idiot for the second time in the short the period they have known each other. How rude! Not that his points were invalid. He was right. But boy does this person lack delicacy. In the end, she agreed to let him accompany her. He bought two cartons of milk from the vending machine. One for each of them, and they set off on their merry way.

~~~~~~~~~~

"No- Okay. Once again. Osmosis only works with solvents. Simple diffusion, both solvents and solutes. So in osmosis, solvents will move from low solute concentration-" (Y/n) stopped explaining when she noticed how Kageyama's brows were almost touching. His lips formed a small pout. "You know what, we have been revising for more than an hour. Let's take 5. Then continue for another hour. It's getting late and although my mum likes you, my dad wouldn't like you being in my room for too long."

Ever since that day where he sent her home, she began hanging out more with Yachi and the volleyball club. Not that she never hung out with her close friend, it's just that (y/n) felt out of place when she mingles with unfamiliar crowds. But now that every member knew her as the girl who got hit by Kageyama's jump serve, that became the basis of her acquaintanceship with the club and she got to hang out with Yachi more. And before she realized it, Kageyama has just been around her circle. Always there. Heck he has been walking her home more often now that even her mother likes him. Then they became just friends. Or she hoped it stayed that way, because she noticed her emotions began crossing unknown territories.

(Y/n) has come to learn a few things about Kageyama Tobio over the course of their friendship. One, he is an obsessed volleyball freak. A prodigy people say. But what (Y/n) sees is a person consumed by passion for the things he loves. And that isn't necessarily bad. Two, he can be quite childish. He fails to control his frustration which later comes off the wrong way whenever he expresses them. But really he means no harm, because when he is happy, he expresses them genuinely. And three, he is quite sensitive. He may want to show that he didn't care, but he actually takes things to heart. He may feel down about a comment, but he will learn to improve from it.

"Sorry."

"What for?"

"For having to teach an idiot like me."

"Oh stop it. Everyone is good and bad at something. We can't all be the perfect prodigy. That's just how things are. You may be bad at studying, but with your volleyball skills I bet you can represent Japan one day." noticing his eyes lit up, she continued. "So in order for you to attend your camp. Let's just try our best okay?"

Kageyama nodded. It was a little embarrassing to have her comforting him like this. But at the same time it brings him immense joy. When he first met her, he would get flutters looking at her cute appearance. Now, he just feels all warm and fuzzy whenever she talks to him. He liked that she didn't judge him or anyone she's ever met. She would scold him sometimes, but at the same time explained her reasoning. And he really appreciated that, how patient she was with him. It does make him guilty, but at the same time he wants to start behaving better. Is this what Suga meant when he said he has a crush on (Y/n)? Kageyama doesn't really know. He will need time to analyze everything.

"(L/n), do you have time during our Spring Tournament?" he tried looking anywhere else but her face.

"You want me to cheer on the club? Sure thing."

"Yes." Hearing her reply made him smile. With a steady gaze he stared straight into her eyes. "Watch me play, (y/n). I'll show you a really strong serve."

(Y/n) could only smile back as she felt butterflies in her stomach. "Then we better get back to studying."

[natromanxoff]

25 - Just Chatting...

Hello one and all.

It's been a long time since I graced these pages and, believe it or not, nothing much has been happening in my life, apart from the odd soiree or two. Winter has finally left us and spring has sprung, and it's nice to see the sun again. Let's start by wishing my old mate a happy birthday and I hope you all had a little drinkie for him, I know I did. In fact I got legless, he would have been proud of me. Whenever we were in London there was always a party at Fred's on his birthday, be it a handful of friends, or one where he invited half of Britain, but which ever one it was there was always a good time to be had and a lot of chaos. One year he actually took over Pikes Hotel in Ibiza and chartered a private plane to fly his friends in. Roger and myself were already on the island recording some of his solo stuff so we didn't have far to travel to the bash. When I say we were working, it's kind of true as we spent a lot of time on his boat "Ga Ga" whizzing around having lunch and fun. The party was held outside around the swimming pool, now is that an invite for trouble or what? There were hundreds of balloons hanging from every available fixture, and of course there is always an idiot that thinks he's a clown. This particular clown, who will remain nameless, decided it would be funny to light one of the balloons, and needless to say the whole lot went up in flames. Phoebe and Crystal to the rescue. We had to get this "fire" off the wooden rafters before the whole hotel went up in smoke, so we were pulling bits of string while burning rubber was dripping down on us. I was so traumatised by the whole event I had to have another drink ....... a lame excuse I know, but hey, it's my story. Back to the pool. Edwin Shirley, of trucking fame and also an all round good guy after a few too many, decided to have a swim, so he removed his clothing and was flapping around the pool when some daft countess told him to get dressed and behave himself. Wrong move lady. Edwin was not impressed by his telling off and threw her in, and she was even less impressed with that and started ranting and raving, much to the amusement to the rest of the party hounds. She left with her tail between her legs and didn't look at all glamorous in her soaking wet dress, running makeup and failed hairdo. We continued till mid morning and went straight to the airport and caught a flight home. Thanks F for the great parties and good times, you will never be forgotten.

I still get asked a lot if I'm gonna write the "Real" story about Queen. Well the answer is no, and the reason is that the guys gave me a great job and a great life and I have far to much respect for them, their wives/girlfriends, children and families to tell the world what we got up to in private. I feel that is our business and ours alone. Most of us are all in relationships and telling tales could make life awkward for a few people, band and crew alike. I'm sure at some point in time someone from the organisation will write a book, have 5 minutes of fame and make a quick buck, but it sure as hell won't be me, and I'll still be able to sleep at night and when I see the guys I will still be free to say, "Wanna beer MATE."

I've had a few questions asked me that I'm gonna answer quickly.

First off is "Do you have any stories about Freddies cats? (ripping furniture etc.)" Here's a good reply, No. So moving right along, "Of all the famous people you've met, who impressed you the most?" Tricky one this. After years in this "Biz" they all become "Just normal people," and some become good pals, but on one occasion I was in Paul McCartneys studio and I was handed his violin bass and I was sitting there holding it when someone said, "Paul is left handed, hold it like he would." When I turned it around, still taped in the cutout was the Beatles set list from their days in Hamburg, now that impressed me.

Deaky and myself were the only two reggae lovers in the outfit, and Bob Marley turned up to see the show at Madison Square Gardens. Strange choice of show for Bob, but he loved Another one bites the dust, and he happened to be in New York on a stopover on his way to Germany for laser treatment. Show time and our intro tape was playing, and someone told JD that Bob was in the audience, so he cranked his bass up and played "Lively up yourself" over the tape. This was very possibly the last time Marley ever heard this played as he died shortly after. I didn't get to meet him, but I did get to meet Tyrone Downie, Bobs keyboard player in the Wailers, and Tyrone and myself got up to all sorts of mischief that night. RT on the other hand hates reggae music, but I did manage to drag him to the Circus Krone in Munich to see Peter Tosh. I loved it, he hated it. I look at this as payback because years before he insisted that I went to Hammersmith Odeon to see Laurie Anderson, of O Superman fame. This show he loved, but I put it alongside Cher as one of the worst concerts I have ever seen. Needless to say I have also met a couple of stars that I didn't see eye to eye with. Like the American rock star we encountered in a club one night, and he was such a pain I had to take him into the toilets to have a quiet word with him. He finally got the message so I released my hand from around his neck and let him drop back down to the ground. To finish this segment I wanna tell you something that Bev Bevan said. Bev was the drummer with ELO, and them and us were touring the US at the same time, and as it turned out, staying in the same hotel in one city. Roger and myself were leaving the hotel and waiting for the elevator. When the doors opened Bev was in there and him and RT said their hellos. Rog then said, "Bev, this is Crystal, he looks after me." Bev turned to me, shook my hand and said, "Pleased to meet you. If it wasn't for guys like you, guys like us wouldn't be where we are today." He didn't need to say that, and was genuine when he did. I wasn't impressed with meeting him, but he is certainly in my top ten of nicest people I have ever meet.

Over the last few months I've spent a lot of time in the Chatroom, and I highly recommend it to you all as it can be a bit of a laugh. For anyone who has never visited the room please remember a couple of things, if you come in and start swearing you will be kicked out. I know, it happens to me all the time. Also don't come in and start going on about knowing axemen and murderers and other such garbage, cause that also warrants a kicking. Some buffoon from Ireland, who went by the name of "Death" turned up with an attitude and was going on about how f***ing awesome Queen were at Slane Castle. He was not known by anyone in there so I asked him to watch his language. He said he was the Grim Reaper and could do and say what he liked, so I told him otherwise and he was most put out when I kicked him. What a fool. A while ago there was some prat who called himself F***queen, good name eh! Anyway, he/she/it was picking on a lovely young lady called Raisa, and was saying some awful things to her and completely freaked her out, so I went to her defence and FQ turned the attention my way. As far as I'm concerned it's only letters on a screen and it didn't phase me at all, but at least he/she/it gave up on Raisa. In all fairness to FQ, whoever you may be, he/she left a message on the Bulletin Board saying sorry to Raisa and myself and would never do it again. So FQ, from the both of us, thanks for the apology, we accept it. What other weirdos have we had? Well, there was a brightspark who decided it would be funny to use the nickname QueenRshite, another bad move from this person who was honoured with a ban.

While in there I've seen a lot of friendships made, and a couple that have fallen apart. I got a private message one evening from a very drunk girl who, how shall we phrase this, offered me her body and wanted to do all sorts of naughty things to me, I thanked her and declined...must be getting old or something. I have also witnessed relationships being made and, usually there is a lot of humour involved, but needless to say some arguments do occur. I have also seen some of the daftest things said. One guy was so convinced that one of the regulars was either Deaky or she was chatting with him in private that he actually started tracking her every move on the net. He also told me about some highly illegal activities he was up to concerning the band. I wouldn't have thought I was the best person to tell such stuff to, and needless to say I had a go at him. Just to add to his stupidity he's been recently boasting about his affair with an underage girl, and I reckon if he had any more sense he would be half witted. Having mentioned all the twits I'd like to say a quick hello to all the regulars, White Queen and Killer Queen, the lovely girls Blue Rock and Rannnnnnni, SQJan, Mayflower and her boys, Farookh (aka Leroy Brown) MarshMallow, the three Tigers - Babe, Lily and Stripes and the mighty Falc, also to all the rest who I haven't mentioned by name, you know who you are. I'd also like to say hi to Daddy Cool who is the singer in the Dutch cover band Miracle, and Dad, if you never make it as a singer you could make a great career from being a stand up comedian. Finally an extra special hello to the gorgeous MTB, who is about to make an honest man of me ;)

Before I go I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone of a certain date in November that is engraved in all of our minds. And I know that a lot of you will be heading to Garden Lodge to leave flowers. I don't wanna preach and tell you what to do, and I know flowers are a nice gesture, but they do die and the only people to really benefit from this is the florist. This year lets all give a donation, no matter how small, to Aids research, this way the cash will be used to try and stamp out this awful disease. If you really wanna leave flowers, buy a smaller, cheaper bunch and donate the balance of what you would have spent to these charities. It's been said a million times before but it is true, Every penny counts.

As always, Loadsa Love.

Crystal

[thetimelesscycle]

The Hobbit Fanfic: The Heart of Erebor - Chapter 64

Summary: ‘He could stand the wild light in his uncle’s gaze. He withstood the crazed glint that entered the ravenous stares of his companions. He endured seeing the dragon’s greed take them all. But when that madness seeped also into the eyes of his own beloved brother, he knew something had to be done. He just wasn’t expecting it to be this.’-The gold sickness of Erebor claims one more, and the path of destiny is irrevocably changed.

Inspired by the following quote from ‘The Hobbit’: “So grim had Thorin become, that even if they had wished, the others would not have dared to find fault with him; but indeed most of them seemed to share his mind-except perhaps old fat Bombur and Fili and Kili.”

*Cover Art Courtesy of Toastytoastie

/THE HEART OF EREBOR\

ACT VI -The King Beneath the Mountain-

Chapter 64

Unexpected Guests

The celebration was in full swing by the time Thorin and Dìs made it back into the Great Hall, as evidenced by the fact very few noticed they were late to the gathering at all, and of those who did only a handful cast their arrival more than a fleeting glance. Kìli let his own gaze linger long enough for Dìs to offer him a reassuring smile, and then he turned his attention back to his immediate companions.

Narrán was perhaps not the cheeriest conversationalist he could have chosen from amidst the crowd - or much of a conversationalist at all - but Kíli had watched the rangers take a modest serving of the bountiful feast available and retreat to a quiet corner in dismay. The nagging sense of responsibility he had felt during the coronation had not abated, and he was still intent on finding a way to help. In order to do that, he needed to know more about the daily lives of their rescuers, the particular challenges they might face. Whilst Narrán might have been unwilling to divulge such information, Ana proved to be in possession of a readier tongue.

As a healer’s assistant, she saw much of the worst her people faced. The wounded men dragged in by besieged patrols, the injuries that followed raids on underprotected settlements, the illnesses caused by too little food and insufficient shelter from the harshness of the wild. Even then, none of the scant details she offered him were touched by the slightest hint of bitterness. Instead, there was resigned acceptance, brought on by years of facing the same evils over and over until the belief they would one day be overcome shrivelled up and died. It was clear that Ana did not expect the Dunedain’s lot in life to soon change, yet the light in her eyes carried no hint of surrender.

Her strength, and that of all her kin, was something to be admired. Kíli said as much, and she rewarded him with a smile even as Narrán shook his head in silent disagreement.

“It has been the way of my people for too many years to count now,” she explained. “I do not know if I would call it strength. We do what we must and pray it is enough. One day it will not be, one day our vigil will fail, but until that day comes our duty will remain the same.”

“But surely things could be easier,” he argued. “If you had help…”

“What aid would you spare us, Kíli?” Narran cut in. “This mountain is a fortress, and not without cause. These lands may be at peace now, but the time is coming ere long when all kingdoms in Middle Earth must look to their own borders. You will need what strength you have to defend your own. We must make do, as we always have.”

Narrán, it seemed, did not share Ana’s lack of bitterness. It was not a violent anger, however, or even a resentful one, but a tired fury that had brewed overlong beneath a mantle of unchanging misfortune. Ana's expression was pained as she reached out to touch her husband’s arm in a gesture of solidarity, pain that had faded by the time she looked back at Kíli.

“We are not without aid,” she assured him softly. “Lord Elrond does much, offering sanctuary and force of arms whenever he can. But we are too few for many of our number to tarry in Rivendell for long, and the Valley of Imladris does not remain unassailable simply because of its lord’s might. They guard against the passage east, and it is no easy task.” She trailed off a moment, her gaze growing slightly distant, before it came to rest on Elrond and his sons and a smile inexplicably found its way back onto her face. “Yet, we still have hope. So long as it survives, so shall we.”

Dissatisfied, but unable for the moment to think of any way to surmount the obstacles they faced, Kìli let his attention wander across the room and the rowdy band of revellers that filled it. None of the solemn reverence of the throne room had followed them here. Several members of the Company had already brought out their instruments and were striking up a tune in one corner of the hall, dancers flocking towards the sound, some with laden platters still in hand. Light and laughter lingered everywhere he looked, a kingdom as it should be, and yet his own thoughts held him apart from all of that.

“You cannot right all the wrongs in this world,” Narrán said, guessing his mind and drawing his eyes away from the crowd. “Not in a day, not in a year, not in a century. What you have accomplished here, young prince, is cause for celebration. Do not deny yourself a victory that was well earned.”

Kìli nodded slowly, accepting the truth of those words even as a part of him still cried out in protest. The same part that had insisted Thorin and Fìli were not dead when all reason claimed that they were. The same belief that had led him on a reckless flight across half of Middle Earth to snatch defeat right out of the hands of their enemies. He was not naïve enough to think that listening to that instinct would always yield such a victory. He knew he had been lucky, they all had, to escape death’s cold grip. That did not stop him from clinging to the hope, vain though it may be, that fate would one day also be kind to those who had helped them in their hour of need.

“Perhaps,” Ana spoke thoughtfully into the silence that had fallen, a spark of mischief in her eyes. “Kìli would feel better if you followed your own advice, Narrán.” When the healer merely looked at her quizzically, she tilted her head towards the band pounding out a merry jig on the opposite side of the room. “This is a celebration, my dear. I believe I am owed a dance.”

  ~The Heart of Erebor~ 

  If Fìli’s leg had been troubling him during the coronation ceremony, then it was staging an outright rebellion by the time he reached the Great Hall. The stairways had done him no favours, even if he had found some reprieve in the people who wished to speak with him along the way, granting him an excuse to stop and rest. Matters only got worse once he arrived and realised the crowded chamber was a far more hazardous place than the throne-room walkway could ever be. Not because there were any great crevasses down which the unwary might plunge, or an abundance of stairs lurking in wait of a less than watchful step, but simply because moving through the crowd guaranteed a lot of painful jostling that quickly turned agonising whenever someone bumped against his leg.

Dwalin, having seen him struggling to make his way through the gathering, had come to his rescue and deposited him safely on the fringes of the room. Unfortunately he had lost track of Kìli in the process, and was too far away from the table where Thorin and Dìs had settled to want to attempt the journey. Elrond and his sons were much closer, and he had never found their company wanting, so it made sense to hobble in their direction instead, realising only as he drew nearer that there were more elves present than just the three he had been expecting.

He had known, of course, that Kìli had extended a personal invitation to Legolas of Mirkwood in thanks for the help the elven prince had offered him on his journey, but they had received no answer from the woodland realm, and when Legolas had failed to arrive in time for the coronation it had been assumed that the invitation had been spurned. By Legolas or his father did not really matter, the olive branch had been refused, and Fìli was fairly certain Thorin had been secretly pleased by that fact. He may have been ready to forgive a great many things, but Fìli did not think the woodland king’s betrayal would ever be one of them.

With Thranduil equally unmoving, it seemed unlikely that any sort of lasting reconciliation would be possible. Yet, despite that, Legolas sat before him now, engaged in a lively conversation with the twins, looking as though he might have just come to the belated realisation that he was outnumbered.

“Prince Fìli.” Latching on to his arrival as a ready means of escape, the elven prince offered him a slight bow of his head. “My congratulations. Today is a great victory for you and your kin.”

“Thank you,” Fìli responded in kind, joining them at their table and covering up his grimace of relief with a smile. “Although, I must confess we were expecting you much earlier.”

“Alas.” Legolas waved his words away. “My father could not spare me. I am here only to escort Tuilinn, who did not wish to miss the chance to speak with the greatest elven healer in Middle Earth.”

Belatedly, then, Fìli realised that the elf maid was also present, speaking with Lord Elrond in her own way. Sensing his gaze, she offered him a slight smile, inclining her head in greeting. He returned the gesture, allowing her to return to her conversation, and then cast Legolas a sidelong glance.

“I am surprised King Thranduil would allow even that much.”

Legolas studied him a moment, his gaze keen, then his shoulders dropped in what was almost a shrug. “We are neighbours now,” he stated simply. “I suppose we must reacquaint ourselves somehow.”

“Would you listen to him?” Elrohir interjected, no small amount of humour in his words. “All formality and properness, as if we do not know that you plotted all this behind your father’s back and Thranduil likely believes you and Tuilinn are off hunting some obscure healing weed in the forest.”

Offended, Legolas glared at the brothers. “Clearly, you underestimate my father’s knowledge of what goes on inside his kingdom.”

“We underestimate nothing,” Elladan countered, wading in to join his sibling in the fray. “Certainly not your skills in deception, my friend. Rivendell still bears the scars of your last visit, and we still bear the blame.”

“You speak as though you were innocent!”

“We were!” Elrohir asserted. Then, seeing Legolas’ incredulity mirrored in Fìli’s reserved disbelief, he added, “Comparatively. And you need not look so high and mighty, Prince Fìli, you were hardly a better guest.”

“Than Legolas?” Fíli asked airily. “Or yourselves?”

Elrohir’s expression brightened in poorly concealed delight, then he turned to Elladan. “To arms, brother! He dares impugn our honour!”

“My honour,” Elladan corrected in a bored fashion. “You never had any to begin with.”

“Treachery from within!” Elrohir wailed, pressing a hand against his chest. “I am dealt a mortal blow by my own brother. Who, then, shall avenge me?”

Elladan had not even finished rolling his eyes at his twin’s antics when, as if in answer to Elrohir’s betrayed musings, a new sound echoed over the rowdiness of the celebration. For a moment, Fíli did not understand what he was hearing, and it was Elrond who gave voice to the thought that lingered just out of reach.

“Those are dwarf horns,” he said. “They have come.”

  ~The Heart of Erebor~ 

  With a swiftness that bespoke the efficiency of the newly appointed royal guard, a small force of armed soldiers assembled in the greeting hall well before the Durins had even reached it. After all that had befallen with Valin it was clear no one was ready to take any further risks, even when it came to their own kin, and a part of Thorin mourned the trust lost there even as he approved of their caution. He had told Dís there were battles yet to be fought; he had been hoping they would not arrive on the doorstep quite so soon.

“Sire.” The soldiers parted to allow their king passage, Dwalin at his shoulder, and Fengari stepped forward to meet him, his face more confused than concerned. “I do not believe they come with ill intent. They are flying the eastern standards.”

Startled, Thorin came to a halt beside Dain’s head guardsman. “For which house?”

Fengari was a beat in answering, as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing himself, then he spoke, “All of them.”

“All?” Dís demanded incredulously, pushing her way through the guards to stand alongside her brother. “Are you certain?”

“I know my sigils, Lady Dís.” Fengari simply nodded. “There can be no doubt.”

“Why would they come now?” Fíli wondered aloud, having followed in his mother’s wake, much to the chagrin of the soldiers charged with their protection. A hint of unease in his voice, he continued, “The ceremony is over.”

“They could have been delayed,” Kíli offered uncertainly, glancing at Dain, but it appeared the Lord of the Iron Hills had no explanation to offer, for he remained silent.

Thorin did not speak either, though his thoughts were not still. In truth, this was the last thing he had expected. He had sent word to their kin, informing them of his intentions and inviting them to Erebor to attend the coronation, as his station and theirs demanded. Somewhat predictably, he had received no response, either by raven or messenger, and had thus concluded the eastern clans wanted nothing to do with the return of a king of Durin’s blood. Why they would come now, announcing themselves in such a fashion, was a mystery he was not certain he wanted to solve.

“They would not have come without good reason,” Svala spoke, the firmness in her voice at odds with the uncertainty Thorin saw in the faces of others. “There is only one way to discover what that reason might be.”

She was right, of course, and Thorin gave Fengari a small nod to confirm her order. “Open the gates.”

“Are you sure, Thorin?” Dwalin spoke lowly even as Fengari turned to obey, stepping closer. “If we let them inside the mountain-”

“We will not bar our doors to our own kin,” Thorin interjected before he could complete the thought. “Not without cause, and they have done nothing yet to warrant our suspicion.”

Dwalin’s only answer was a low growl as he returned to the head of his company, and Thorin let his gaze drift forwards as Erebor’s great gates were swung open to admit the delegation. They marched in in full regalia, each of the four chieftains with an escort, flags unfurled above their heads. Thorin let them come in silence, let them form up before him, fenced in by their own soldiers, and spoke only once all were still.

“Welcome, kinsmen, to Erebor,” he stated loudly enough to be heard by all, the words both welcoming and yet tinged with an unspoken warning. “We did not look to see your coming at this late hour, but are honoured by your presence nonetheless.”

He waited, then, expecting such a greeting to garner a swift response, and he was not disappointed.

Lord Búri was the first to step forward, leader of the Stiffbeards. Though he officially bore no second name it was common knowledge he was called Dour-Face behind his back, perhaps even to his face by the more daring, and he lived up to that moniker now. Hard eyes raked the assembled dwarves in a single sweep, lingering ever so briefly on Kíli and Dain both, and finally settling on Thorin.

“So,” his voice was a deep rumble, his tone as severe as his visage. “You have gone and done it, then.”

“There did not seem to be any point in delaying further,” Thorin answered cautiously, still wary of their intentions. “The matter needed to be settled.”

“Settled?” Veigr stood for the Ironfists, and was not leery of using his own. His face bore the marks of many a past brawl, though he had always claimed to be the victor, despite a fair number of missing teeth that showed when he gave a crooked grin. “Nothing is so easily settled, Thorin. Not amongst the Seven. Surely you must know that by now.”

“You do not think anything that cannot be settled with a good fist fight is ‘easy’,” Hanarr interjected as he stepped forward, interposing himself between his two fellows. The Lord of the Stonefoots was easily the most imposing figure present, not in height but in width, and his massive girth had certainly not been earned through the same method as Bombur’s. “Though, there is some truth in his words. You must have known, Thorin, that this would not end here. A coronation does not make one a king.”

Dís, predictably, bristled at that, but before she could do more than take a step forward the fourth and final of the clan leaders spoke.

“And yet, my lords, you cannot deny that he wears a crown.”

Thorin stiffened instinctively, recognising the most formidable of the quartet at once, for she had never been easy to forget. Vestri Redforge had been an only child, and custom had therefore dictated that leadership of the Blacklock clan should pass to one of her cousins when her father died. Vestri had had other thoughts on the matter, and her way of thinking had prevailed, though not without a fight. Where Hanarr’s stature had shifted his fellows, Vestri used sheer presence, gliding between the other three without sparing any of them a glance to stand directly before Erebor’s king. Her eyes lingered a moment on the crown resting on his brow before she lowered them to meet his own.

“Frerin’s work?”

“Yes.” Thorin nodded even as he spoke softly. “You remember well.”

“A leader must have an eye for details.” A fleeting smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “And your brother had a gift for beautiful things.” Unexpectedly, then, she offered him her hand. “I believe congratulations are in order, Thorin Oakenshield.”

Hesitantly, Thorin reached out to accept her grasp, but could not resist speaking what was on his mind. “Thank you, Vestri. Although I cannot help but wonder how sincere such sentiments are.”

“Well,” Vestri’s expression turned slightly mischievous as she reclaimed her hand. “I must say, if the choice was between you and the dragon, I know which I prefer upon the throne.”

“Lady Vestri speaks only for herself, of course,” Veigr piped up cheerily. “I, personally, never had any grievance with Smaug, although I hear he made a very poor neighbour.”

“That is only because the dragon took one look at your ugly face and decided whatever treasures you had were not worth such a ghastly memory,” Hanarr told him flatly.

Veigr, undaunted, was quick to retort, “I shall have my likeness carved into the mountainside, then. We shall be safe from such creatures for the foreseeable future.”

 Vestri, with patience that could only have come through many a year of practice, ignored them both.

“We did not come here to rehash the past, Thorin,” she said in all seriousness. “We came to discuss the future. I do not believe the Seven are ready to serve a king again, not yet, but that does not mean there can be no discourse between our houses; no alliance between our peoples.”

“We are here to talk,” Búri added, his expression never shifting from an unforgiving stare. “Whether that leads to anything or not is up to you.”

“Although,” Veigr amended. “It was a long journey. It may be best to delay any such talks until we have had a chance to rest and recover and are therefore in a more amenable mood.”

“And what he means by that,” Hanarr rumbled. “Is that we sincerely hope the celebration is not yet over.”

“It is only just begun,” Thorin assured them, feeling some of the tension bleed out of him at long last, amusement taking root in its place. They may have chosen to avoid the coronation, a firm statement that they did not support him as king even if they recognised his position among them, but they had timed their arrival perfectly to enjoy the feast tradition dictated must follow. It reminded him of times past, when they had all been younger, their fathers locked away in another room to discuss such matters as oaths and treaties whilst they roamed freely within the mountain keep. It seemed an age had passed since then, years of separation casting old friends into unfamiliar moulds, duties drawing them apart even as they bound them together, but the old ties were not yet frayed to the point of breaking.

“Though,” he added with a hint of the nostalgia he felt. “I am sure you already knew that.”

“Of course they did,” Svala interjected, stepping forward now the official greetings were said and done to slap a hand against a leather clad shoulder. “Veigr alone would travel the breadth of Middle Earth for a good feast.”

“A charge I’ll not deny,” the Ironfist Lord retorted in good humour, a gleam in his eye as he stepped forward to embrace the Lady of the Iron Hills. “It is good to see you well, Svala, after the troubles you have had of late.”

“Oh, ‘troubles’ is it?” Svala placed a hand on her hip, cocking an eyebrow in imperious demand. “And by that I assume you mean the apology you owe Dain for ever insinuating he would indulge in foul-play.”

“Now, then,” smile fading, Veigr shifted in discomfort. “That was my envoy, you’ll remember, not myself, and we did not start that rumour.”

“But you did pay heed to it.”

“I was merely being cautious.”  

“Being a fool, more like,” Svala shook her head, then relented slightly. “I will allow it, this once.”

“A pity,” Hanarr interjected as he greeted Svala and Dain both. “You might have evened up the fool’s smile, Lady Svala.”

“You’re the fool, Hanarr, if you think your good manners will spare you a Firebeard’s wrath,” Búri simply shook his head, choosing to wade into comparatively safer waters. “Lady Dís, it has been far too long.”

Thorin did not hear his sister’s response, for Vestri had chosen to ignore her fellow lords and ladies, eyes alighting instead upon the youth who were present with an interest Thorin had long ago learned to be wary of.

“You must be Kíli,” she addressed his youngest nephew, wrenching the archer’s attention away from the reunions taking place around him. “I understand you are quite the troublemaker.”

Kíli, who had been reaching out to take her proffered hand, recoiled slightly, and Thorin swiftly intervened. “Take it as a compliment, Kíli.,” he advised. “Vestri has a reputation as an accomplished troublemaker herself.”

“Oh.” Kíli looked back at Vestri. Then, seeing she was very much not offended by Thorin’s words, fumbled for some of his own. “I, uh… thank you?”

“We shall have to exchange notes, later,” Vestri said with a wink as she released his hand, turning next to Fíli. “If your brother does not disapprove too greatly?”

“On the contrary,” Dís interjected before her eldest could utter a word. “I am certain Fíli has notes of his own aplenty.”

Smiling, Thorin waited until all the proper introductions had been made, and then suggested they join the rest of Erebor’s inhabitants in the Great Hall before Bombur’s bounty was denied them. There was no great fear of that, the Company’s chef had prepared a banquet fit for three kings, but it prompted them all to movement. Dís was swift to gather her sons, turning to lead them back the way they had come., and Thorin moved to follow. Vestri seized his sleeve before he could take more than a step, holding him in place even as she lowered her voice.

“Is it true?” she asked, her eyes searching his face. “That Valin betrayed us?”

“Regrettably, yes.” He confirmed. “How deep his treachery ran we still do not know. He died before he could confess all.”

“So I heard.” Something shifted in her eyes, an expression he could not name. “Such treachery does not belong amongst our people, Thorin. This is not the way of Mahal’s children.”

He recognised her look, then, as one of dread. “You have seen the same elsewhere?”

“Not the same.” She shook her head. “Not yet. But something is stirring in the shadows, Thorin. Foundations that were once sturdy are crumbling, and doubt has been sown where it never was before. It is happening so slowly if you blink at the wrong time you might miss it, but it is there, and I do not much care for its company.”

“That is why you have come?”

“Yes.” She did not hesitate, her answer as firm and decisive as she had ever been. “I do not know if we need a king. I do not know if I want one. But there is a threat looming on the horizon, and I do not wish to fight it alone.”

“We are of one mind in that regard,” he answered, then tilted his head in the direction the others had traveled. “It was you who convinced the others to come?”

“It was I who convinced them we could not do nothing,” she corrected him. “We could have chosen to ignore the goings on here. To let Erebor’s business be its own. I believed that would be a mistake.”

“I suppose I owe you thanks, then, for bringing them here.”

“They are your foundations, King of Erebor,” she shot him a look that was more challenge than anything else. “Whether or not they prove sturdy enough to build the bridges you seek is a matter I leave in your capable hands.”

Without another word, she strode off in the wake of her fellows. Thorin lingered a moment longer, then, with a shake of his head, he followed.

He had known winning the approval of the Seven would not be an easy task. That even Dain and Steinn’s oaths were uttered with conditions attached, to protect them from the ghost of a mad king that still hung over them all. Any foundations he might once have had to build an alliance upon were now crumbled into dust, but he was beginning to understand that that was perhaps not the curse that he had believed it to be. New foundations could be laid, and the alliances that would be forged along the way would be far stronger for it. It would not be easy, nor would it be quick, but he was starting to believe it would be possible.

And that… that was reason enough to try.

[bigyack-com]

Try some cli-fi with these novels about a changing planet - books

* The classic, re-discovered When JG Ballard wrote it in 1962, The Drowned World was an out-and-out science fiction novel. Ballard imagined a future in which polar ice had melted and sea levels had risen – something even scientists hadn’t worked out yet. Ballard’s novel was dismissed as a genre staple, but is now being hailed as one of the grandfathers of climate fiction.

* Shining examplesIn Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver, a swarm of monarch butterflies appears, numbering in the millions, for no apparent reason, in a rural Tennessee town. Locals see it as a miracle. Businessmen want to make money off it. TV reporters sensationalise it. A scientist blames climate change. But for one woman, perhaps they just mean freedom? The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi, is more of a thriller. Heat and water shortages cause drought in the American southwest, corporates control water supply. And spies, or ‘water knives’, sabotage and cut flow. Then a new source is discovered. One spy teams up with two shrewd women to investigate and stay alive.What happens when the world’s foremost disaster forecaster predicts that Manhattan will drown, and proves to be right? He becomes a media sensation. Nathaniel Rich’s novel, Odds Against Tomorrow, despite its exhaustive research, is light on its feet.

In Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140, the title marks where and when. In a submerged Manhattan, every street is a canal, every skyscraper an island. The book marks the connection between capitalism and rising sea levels. Eight chapters take you through how life changes, and yet, optimistically, remains the same.* The ones with a sense of humourA climate catastrophe has changed everything. Borders are sealed. Beaches have disappeared. Britain’s coast is guarded by The Wall, manned by conscripted civilians keeping an eye out for migrants. It’s cold, dull work. But John Lanchester’s novel, sharp and funny, is anything but grim. Ashley Shelby’s South Pole Station sees an artist dispatched to Antarctica to live with researchers, and paint. The social dynamics are already off, when a climate denier joins to do his research, which he hopes will prove all the rest of them wrong. Worse still, the artist ends up helping him.

In Solar, Ian McEwan’s satirical take on climate fears, a jaded, womanising Nobel Prize-winning physicist — a sceptic who has more confidence than good sense or social skills — tries to save the world and find fame. His idea of stealing a better solar energy model ends up implicating him in a murder case, and that’s not even the worst of it. * The short stories Warmer is a collection of seven stories set in a believable future of a planet heating up through climate change. In one story, The Way the World Ends, by Jess Walter, a hydrogeologist wonders if it still makes sense to freeze one’s eggs when “one hundred percent of legitimate climate scientists believe the world to be on the verge of irreversible collapse”. On a more positive note, Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers, edited by Sarena Ulibarri, collects 17 stories that imagine more collaborative futures in which we fight and survive changing climate.

Olivia Clare’s Disasters in the First World looks at how global environmental change affects individuals and their inner worlds. In a story set in a future Las Vegas, drugs are cheaper than drinking water. * The work from IndiaTanushree and Ajoy Podder’s Decoding the Feronia Files is a thriller that imagines what might happen if governments weaponised weather. There are artificial storms, earthquakes and temperature changes based on actual climate-manipulation research. Poet Urvashi Bahuguna’s collection, Terrarium, doesn’t seem like ‘cli’ or ‘fi’ at first. But her poems about mangoes, the Indian monsoon, growing up and examining one’s mind are inseparable from the changing physical world she inhabits.

In Gun Island, Amitav Ghosh travels across space and time, history and mythology, as he usually does. But this time, themes of displacement, migration and survival on a warming planet are added to the story of a rare-books dealer in search a gun-merchant’s shrine. Read the full article

[thisideofthegalaxy]

[ Cassian Week ] - Day 3 - favourite relationship(s)

I would fight to the death for every single Rogue One character, but I still have the dorkiest soft-spot for Cassian & K-2SO, best friends forever. :’)

not on my watch

Cassian & K-2SO + Cassian Andor/Bodhi Rook | 1611 words | below or [ Ao3 ] | part 8 of cassian said I had to

K-2’s circuits get scrambled by an electrical storm, he’s still there for Cassian when it counts.

“Did you hear that?” Bodhi shuffles upright from the blanket, Jyn lowers her hand of cards. At a distance, Cassian could almost mistake the sound for an engine test, or a low-flying squadron. He glances at K-2.

They’ve both seen enough systems to know better.

“It’s an electrical storm,” Cassian mutters, he’s already heading for the door. “Coming in fast, by the sound of it. Need to power-down the generators.”

“On it,” Jyn returns, throws Bodhi a torch and clips another to her belt. Bodhi’s face creases worriedly, he holds a hand up for silence. K-2 tips his head, they all listen as the crackle stirs again.

“Actually-” Bodhi hesitates, “-it sounds a lot like the atmosphere of Eadu.”

Cassian runs a hand over his jaw, Bodhi fidgets with the sleeve of his flight suit as their eyes meet.

“A magnetic storm,” K-2 says slowly, and to Cassian’s surprise, there’s something in the droid’s tone he doesn’t recognise.

“Jyn, take the repair hangar,” Cassian says after a second. “Bodhi, supplies. Kaytoo, come with me.”

“Why don’t I get my own assignment?” K-2 answers tetchily, keeps pace beside him all the same. The fluorescent lights are blinking overhead, the corridor wavers dark and bright. Cassian turns a corner, breaks into a jog. When a sharp clatter echoes behind him, he realises too late Kay is no longer at his side.

“Kaytoo!” Cassian wheels back around, sees the droid half-collapsed against the wall.

“Ca-ah-ssian,” K-2 pronounces, his vocabulator dipping in and out of pitch on the word. His eyes flicker, just for a second, he only gathers his bearings as the fluorescents stop shuddering.

“Oops. I mu-uh-st’ve tripped.”

“On what?” Cassian snaps, distracted, Kaytoo makes a vague gesture toward the general vicinity of the floor. They quieten as a low, booming noise rattles the ceiling, the pulse of it raising the hairs on Cassian's arms.

“C’mon,” Cassian mutters. He jerks his head in the direction they need to travel, makes a mental note to check the energy cells on Kay’s recharging station. The droid picks up his pace, lifts his hand and gives him a slightly uncoordinated thumbs-up.

Cassian frowns.

It isn’t till they burst into the main hangar, the lockdown procedure already well underway that he wonders-

Did Kaytoo just say oops?

“Andor, leave it!”

Han grips him by the shoulder, his eyebrows raised incredulous as Cassian tightens the lead-rope round his waist.

“Seriously, buddy, those new astromechs are built for these conditions, we’ll dig him out of the snow in the morning and he’ll be fine, yeah-”

Across the hangar, the yells of one of the youngest rebels have turned to crying, it takes two squadron pilots to restrain him from running to the doors.

“As u-uh-nlikely as it would seem, Ca-a-ptain, Ha-hn Solo is on this rare occasion, c-correct.”

Despite the glitches in Kay’s intonation, Cassian struggles to hide a smile as Han turns, does a none-too-subtle impression of being honoured. Cassian hands Kaytoo the rope.

“If I’m not back in five.”

“Cassian,” K-2 blurts urgently, the humour gone from his tone. “I am a fa-rr mm-ore appropriate choice for thi-ih-s task, I assure you I can-”

He tries a step forward, clumsy as a peal of thunder quakes overhead. Cassian places a hand on the droid’s arm.

“If I’m not back in five...” he says gently, squeezes Kay’s elbow and lets go. To Han he offers a grim nod- keep an eye on him- wrenches a gap in the loading door and whips out into the blizzard.

“Damn crazy Festians!” Han bellows through the wind, Cassian grins through chattering teeth. He can already see the chirping light of the unit, it’s round middle spinning uselessly in a bank of snow.

“I gotcha,” Cassian mutters, starts scraping where ice has packed below the drift. He can feel the cold through his gloves, his fingers stinging as he braces against a fresh wave of sleet. The unit makes a small, hopeful sound, beeps quicker as Cassian fumbles to tug it free. His heart races- it’s not working- and he can already feel the tentative pull of the cord round his middle.

“Wait-” Cassian shouts, his fingers slip on the droid’s surface as he fights to hang on.

“On it,” says K-2, reaches a long arm around the astromech and pulls it out in a spray of snow. Cassian falls, catches Kay by the wrist as Han hauls them back in.

“I said to stay here, safe-” Cassian spits furiously, harsher than he intends as the droid pitches to his knees back in the hanger.

“No,” Kaytoo says weakly, his processors make a low whirr as he looks up. “You said if you weren’t back in five.”

“-‘right, I’m ‘right-” Cassian pinches a drop of moisture from his nose, wishes he could stop shaking for two seconds so that Bodhi might believe him.

“You’re freezing,” Bodhi hisses, both fists clench Cassian’s shirt sleeves. His expression grits uneven, and for a moment Cassian thinks he’s going to let go.

Instead, Bodhi opens his arms, wraps Cassian in a fierce embrace. Cassian blinks as he finds himself staring over Bodhi’s shoulder, the pilot’s face wedged firmly in his neck. They haven’t hugged since the day they came home, Cassian desperately wants to hold him back. He drags his arms, heavy, his jaw nearly rests on Bodhi’s collar.

“And you’re an absolute idiot-” Bodhi says thickly, rubs Cassian’s back as he shivers. From somewhere behind Cassian hears Han’s ‘co-signed!’, meanwhile Jyn’s sprinting across the hangar, mouth tight with concern.

“And-” Bodhi pulls back, frowning as he realises. “You’re completely soaked. Hold on.”

The warmth of Bodhi’s chest lingers at Cassian’s front, he steadies himself on Jyn’s arm as the pilot turns to fetch him some dry clothes.

“It’s the other way,” K-2 calls, his modulation somewhat less blurry. Bodhi halts, confused, Kay points toward Cassian’s quarters to clarify.

“Your all-terrain jacket. You leant it to Cassian last week. Cassian keeps it next to his bed.”

Cassian, who had been listening to Jyn’s update on the conditions, suddenly feels his inhale stick in his throat. He shoots Kaytoo a helpless squint, watches as the seven-foot droid flinches visibly, his posture drooping several inches.

“I mean-” starts Kay, more flustered as Han and Jyn stare at him too. “The jacket was next to Cassian’s bed. Before… he… moved it. To… the… garbage chute.”

“You threw my jacket down the garbage chute?” Bodhi’s eyes widen in alarm. Han coughs, stifles something that sounds a lot like a snort.

“No-!” blurts Cassian, Kaytoo covers his face with both large hands. They’re saved from an explanation when a flash of lightning trembles across the air-control viewport, the emergency lights dim and Kay’s balance falters, he doubles-over unsteady.

“Cass-i-aihn,” the droid tries, Cassian’s already racing for him, “I don’t-t-”

Cassian catches him round the middle, Jyn’s there a second later, hands gripped under Kaytoo’s arms as they lower him to the ground.

“You’re heavier than you look,” Cassian whispers, he knows Kay will tease him later for the way his voice breaks.

“Funny,” Kaytoo rolls his oculars, Cassian gives a watery smile as he remembers teaching him. “I think the same about you.”

The hangar is quiet and empty, Jyn’s jacket snug round Cassian’s chest and Bodhi’s quilt tucked over both of them. Kaytoo’s head is resting in Bodhi’s lap, his eyes give an uncertain flicker when the pilot peers over him.

“How long have I been...” asks Kay, and Cassian lets out the lungful of air he didn’t realise he was holding.

“Just under an hour,” says Bodhi, squeezes his eyes in relief. “The storm’s almost passed.”

“The storm,” K-2 intones. Pauses. Sits bolt upright.

Cassian’s mouth pulls at the corner as the droid swivels to face him, he takes a breath and gets there first.

“You’re alright,” Cassian says gently, “we can check your circuits if you feel like it, but I’m pretty sure it was the magnetic field messing us around.”

“It was,” K-2 says hurriedly. “The magnetic field must’ve caused an error in my communication relays. I wouldn’t take anything I may or may not have said to infer… anything. At all.”

Cassian chuckles, more relieved to hear his friend recovered than all else.

“I’d better run some self-diagnostics at the charging bay,” K-2 continues, and Cassian quirks an eyebrow. He’s never known Kay to willingly accede to maintenance in all the time they’ve worked together.

“Just to be sure. The margin of error on these sort of things can be quite variable. I shall report any findings to you later, Captain.”

To Cassian’s surprise, Kaytoo briefly tucks an arm around his back- it’s the closest they’ve ever come to a hug- and before he can even return it, the droid is already on his feet, striding determinedly across the floor. Kay glances shyly over his shoulder as he ducks through the exit, Cassian stares a few moments, astonished.

“Some night, huh,” Bodhi offers, swallows.

“Yeah,” Cassian says gruffly, clears his throat. “Thanks for staying.”

There’s a small pause.

“You still owe me a jacket, by the way.”

When Cassian startles, Bodhi brims to a wry smile. Cassian breathes out a laugh.

“I didn’t-”

“-I know,” Bodhi says softly.

Through the walls of the hangar, the rain slowly fades to dawn.

“What do you think of mine?” Cassian ventures after a while. He lifts his hand, hesitates, then lowers it back to his lap. “It’s been stitched back together a few times, but-”

Bodhi reaches, gentle, his thumb brushes rough over Cassian’s knuckles.

“I’d like that,” Bodhi whispers, “I’d like it a lot.”

[lawlight-week]

Kira is taken down early on, and Light is reborn as a young Shinigami who remembers nothing of what he once was. L is the one to gain ownership of his notebook, and together, they relearn what it means to be human.

L doesn’t leave his hotel rooms too often, but when Light wants to, he’s allowed to wander the city. Whenever he goes on his outings, he always finds himself checking up on a certain former family.

Inside their house, he’ll find the atmosphere eerily comforting. While listening to their boring conversations, he’ll study the photographs found hanging in the hallways, his heart growing in weight each time his name is suddenly mentioned.

“I can’t believe it’s been four months without him, already,” Sayu sighs over dinner one evening.

Light has yet to fully accept that she was once his little sister, or that the empty fourth chair at the dining table was definitely once his. But four months , he ponders, astounded.

When he finally returns to the hotel room, he has to clarifies to himself that, yes, over two months have dropped from L’s remaining lifespan.

During the last few weeks of receiving his eyes, it didn’t take him long to figure out the formula for translating lifespans into human time. And the math still gets easier each time he does it. His favourite guinea pig, of course, is L, since the latter’s lifespan just always so accessible.

But 2 years, 3 months, and 12 days remain floating above the detective’s face.

It’ a surprisingly short amount, and he isn’t permitted at all to tell him how much time is left. Though something much bigger looms over his head in regard to that.

He’s going to have to be the one to end his life.

It became their fate the moment Ryuk threw his notebook down into the room.

But as of late, Light’s grown achingly fond of the human.

L adores his wings, and he knows it too. And if not only from the earlier confession, then in the constant stares it’s made more and more obvious. Sometimes, the dark-haired man will even reach out to stroke a feather.

The first time it happened, Light admittedly flinched at the contact, retracting his wings quick enough to rustle of air against their faces. The detective apologised, but then it happened again the very next day. And the next.

So now, it’s habit that Light simply allows it.

Still frustrated and confused by the meaning of it all, he only continues to follow the human around, day after day. What will he think when it’s time for him to write L’s name down in the notebook?

It starts getting harder to come to terms with the fact that has to do it. Equally, it gets more difficult to accept that he’s grown a soft spot for the man. He tries to justify developing those feelings, telling himself that anyone would do so after spending so much time around someone else.

But those are a human’s thoughts processes. Light doesn’t have human thoughts. At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself.

However, it doesn’t take genius to notice L’s behaviour changing around him as well.

On some nights, rare and shiny, L will join him on the loveseat and lean against his hollow body. Light never phases through him, though; he doesn’t want to. He fully enjoys that solid, warm weight against him.

Even more rare, though, is when L falls asleep on him, and the room fills up with his gentle snores. Knowing he never gets enough sleep, the Shinigami keep dead still for hours on end, just listening to his human’s slow, deep breaths.

And it’s comforting. That’s the easiest part of of it all.

Life alongside L teaches Light again many aspects of being human. But one element still remains annoyingly unclear — that is… desire.

Not desire in the way he craves knowledge, or even in the way he wanted to take Naomi Misora’s life, but desire in the way that causes humans to get frantic and red.

It must have been lost on him in his rebirth. He really can’t seem to understand it.

Light already recognises an array of human-like emotions; rage, loss, and dare he think it; even the beginning of love. But he just can’t wrap his head around wanting another person physically. He can’t relate to the passion that fuels that kind of erratic behaviour simply because he might not have the capacity for it.

And it’s perplexing…

One afternoon, L easily notices the way Light pays extra attention to the topic on TV, and decides to question him on it.

“Do Shinigami reproduce?” he ponders through a lollipop.

Light shakes his head at the grim concept.

“Shinigami are created. We don’t have parents,” he explains, but immediately regrets his choice of words.

“You have parents, though,” L is quick to intervene.

“You know what I mean. Shinigami don’t feel sexual attraction to one another. There isn’t a need to. It’s probably for the best, anyways. As if the world needs more monsters.”

“Is that how you see yourself?” L asks, his tone made up of genuine curiosity. “A monster?”

Light’s chest heaves with a small sigh. It’s a hard question, even to himself.

“In the most literal sense of the word, yes, I do believe so. Do you not?”

L shakes his head in denial, pulling the lollipop from his mouth with a pop.

Light watches the way it gleams in his fingers before clearing another sigh, and opting to re-explain himself.

“I just don’t remember ever understanding human sexuality. Even now, now matter how much I learn about it, I can’t understand it, and it frustrates me.”

He hates to admit that, agitated he could actually be stumped over a human concept.

But at the sight of his honest confusion, L has to forcefully fight off a chuckle. He knows that Light wouldn’t be able to see the humour in it.

“Well, being human, I understand it,” he says, sticking the candy back into his mouth.

His next words come out muffled.

“And I wouldn’t mind showing you that part of humanity.”

Light shoots him a mixed look about what that means.

“Besides, I’ve found myself quite attracted to Light’s new form,” he muses some more, as if it were a normal confession to be making. “I’m curious to see if we can make it work.”

For a moment, the Shinigami’s stunned quiet. His stomach tingles the tiniest bit, but that’s the most reaction he can find out of L’s words. If anything, he’s already satisfied that L would want to teach him, but—

“No,” he firmly states, crossing his arms right away. “I can’t.”

“Even if Shinigami don’t have the physicality down, there are other ways,” L informs him, but the latter grows embarrassed by the implication.

And that’s not all. Light would hate to admit to L that he actually has no idea how to have sex.

“I doubt I’ll find it at all pleasurable,” the Shinigami tries to excuse himself.

L shrugs.

“Even if it’s not physically pleasurable, it can be extremely mentally fulfilling,” he offers back to Light, who frowns at him.

“For humans, perhaps, but—”

“But what? Would it really be so bad to experience a human activity one last time?”

At that point, Light knows he won’t win.

He glances back up to the human’s ticking lifespan and thinks that maybe L’s aware that he hasn’t much time left. Maybe L means himself when he says one last time. And Maybe L is right. Maybe it won’t be so bad.

“Alright. But you have to fly with me once more. An eye for an eye,” he negotiates teasingly, knowing his human wouldn’t be able to pass it up.

And as anticipated, L nods without hesitation.

—Ah. Is that a smile on him?

It’s weird.

Even though he’s no longer human, he can still clearly feel the switch to tension.

L takes the lead, since he’s the one teaching, and Light can only feel grateful.

Seated together on the hotel bed, L tentatively pulls off his own clothes. So far, it’s not different from what the Shinigami’s seen on the screens.

He studies L closely, trying to spot a new type of yearning within himself. But nothing changes.

Staring right back to him with his signature wide-eyes, L moves in to kiss his jaw softly, as he’s done a handful of times since their first flight.

Light’s eyes lull while he enjoys the warm pressure against his skin. It’s nice.

Feeling more advantageous, L nabs up Light’s lips, happily surprised by the roughness of them.

The Shinigami automatically kisses him back; a part he can do. Kisses are nice, and he can understand wanting them, but that’s where the line both begins and ends.

Anything beyond that is a complete mystery.

L lays down next to him, and Light watches too intrigued, as dark eyes fix on his dark wings.

Taking note of it, Light flexes them a bit, and then lifts one up.

L seems to experience a physical change right away.

Shinigami eyes fall to his human’s hips. Through thin boxers, a growing arousal keeps his interest piqued. And…he wants to see more…even if for nothing more than curiosity.

L understands this without words, and has no problem doing exactly like he offered; simply showing Light how it all worked.

An eager gaze follows L’s hand as the latter reaches down to palm himself through the material, and when L’s breath hitches, red eyes quickly snap back up to see L’s cheeks flushed pink.

That’s… beautiful.

It’s odd to admit, even if to himself.

So he feels like an idiot after finally realising why the reaction to his wings.

Stifling a sound, L sinks into his bottom lip while continuing to rub himself, moony eyes glued to his ashy appendages.

That… was the source of L’s desire?

It makes absolutely no sense.

But at the same time, an inspired Light figures that a show wouldn’t hurt the learning experience. He spreads his wings far out, pride filling him as he does so.

The way L sinks into his lower lip even deeper motivates him to continue.

He flaps his wings a few times. A loud whoosh of air blows past the detective’s ears, and it seems to drive him crazy.

Desperately, L pushes his underwear down, and pale, skinny fingers wrap around his dick, squeezing and stroking.

Light can’t take his eyes off of him. As L lays flat, the Shinigami moves to lean up over his pale figure, studying all of the human’s delicious expressions, each of them putting more of those tingles in his chest.

He nearly forgets to hold up his end of the unspoken agreement when his wings freeze, and L does as well. But as soon as he understands this, they start up again, spreading wide to be adored.

Seconds tick by, and the Shinigami realises himself completely engulfed by the intimate situation.

Panting softly, L’s hand moves at a steady pace, eyes ever glued to his wings.

With L enjoying himself, and Light’s ego being stroked, what more could he want from this?

However, that question is decidedly answered when Light swoops one wing down, incidentally brushing his feathers against L’s bare tummy. In reaction, L eagerly whines, and the noise zaps electrically through Light’s entire body.

He wants… more of these sounds.

Even though there’s no inclination to put his hands on L’s body, with his wings, it feels like a different story. He wholeheartedly brings them both forth, immersing L’s flushed and writhing body within them, and as expected, the action pulls more of those addicting sounds out of L.

“Light!” L cries out, and he’s utterly surprised to feel the man orgasming beneath him, his hips stuttering and his eyes sliding shut.

Ashen wings keep protectively around L as his breath steadies, sated and sleepy eyes blinking rapidly at him

“Thank you,” he says simply, seeming to be at an equal loss of words.

Light’s still not sure he really understands what goes on in a human brain during such activities, but did learn that he’s willing to do it all over again. And that kisses are enjoyable.

Very much so.

Retracting his wings, Light leans down, and gently kisses L, almost surprising him with it, but the return kiss is soft and compliant.

It’s nice.

Later that night, L fulfills his end of the deal and allows Light to carry him through the sky once more.

And when the human kisses Light in the air this time, there is no faltering, and no thin excuses muttered afterwards. A silent truce settles between them. They both stop running from their budding feelings.

Neither say a word aloud about it, and they don’t need to. Things are okay. Things are easy.

[gyrlversion]

Shoreham victims mother says she feels let down not guilty verdicts

The mother of the youngest Shoreham Airshow crash victim said she feels ‘let down’ by the justice system after the pilot was cleared of manslaughter charges.

A jury found Andrew Hill not guilty of the 11 counts over the 2015 crash.

An official Government report into the accident, published in 2017, found the crash was caused by pilot error when Mr Hill flew too low and too slowly while carrying out the bent loop manoeuvre, and could have been avoided.

Daniele Polito was killed in the Shoreham air disaster. His mother, Leslye, is angry that the pilot has walked free from court

Pilot Andy Hill was today found not guilty of gross negligence manslaughter by a jury

Leslye Polito, who lost her son Daniele in the crash, said: ‘I feel extremely disappointed, very upset and primarily let down by the justice system when someone who has clearly made some very bad errors of judgment is allowed to walk free.’

The 23-year-old builder left behind two young children, one of whom he never had chance to meet.

He had left work early and was travelling to the beach with a colleague when flames engulfed their car after the plane crashed on the A27.

Mrs Polito, 66, of Goring in West Sussex, said: ‘The whole fact that it was avoidable, that was the hardest bit to consider and process. It’s still the hardest bit.’

‘Bye mum, love you’ were the last words Mrs Polito heard her youngest son say, as she had so many times before when he left the house.

That day he had been at work with 24-year-old Matt Jones, who also died in the crash. Their boss had let them leave early to enjoy the hot weather and they were driving to the beach in Mr Jones’s car.

She and her husband Nino were at a party when they heard about the crash and discussed it with guests but thought nothing more of it – no-one knew at that stage that anyone had died.

Daniele was described as ‘full of life, a joker and extremely family orientated’

They thought Daniele was still at work. But both he and Mr Jones were killed, while their boss had been driving a few cars behind them and saw the horror unfold.

Mrs Polito said: ‘If there’s anything good about it, which there isn’t, it’s that it was all instant.

‘It helps to know that. One just learns to live each day as it comes and take every day and live as normally as one can.

‘Every birthday, Christmas, Father’s Day – it doesn’t matter what they are, they are all equally as difficult as the anniversary (of the incident).’

The parents of Matthew Grimstone said they had received ‘no justice’ over the death of their son. They called for the end of dangerous air shows

Daniele was never able to meet his youngest son, Jaxson, who was born after he died, Mrs Polito said.

Although they have ‘two lovely little boys to carry on his name’, she said this was ‘bittersweet’, adding: ‘We have that but we don’t have him and he won’t get to see either of them grow up.

‘We will make sure they know all about their daddy. We talk about Daniele all the time, every day.

‘He was full of life, a joker, he was extremely family orientated. Everything to him was family, I think due to his Italian heritage. He wanted to live life to the full.’

In a statement issued via Sussex Police, Sue and Phil Grimstone, whose son Matthew died in the crash, said: ‘Obviously we are devastated the jury have reached this verdict.

‘There seems to be no justice for our son Matthew and all 11 men who died in such tragic circumstances.

‘We were always told by the police that to prove guilty due to ‘gross negligence’ the bar was set very high. Despite having compelling evidence from the cockpit footage and expert witnesses, it was not enough.’

The family had no idea that Daniele had been caught up in the disaster when they heard of it

They added: ‘Why are we allowing any form of aerobatics to be performed when there is now doubt concerning any pilot’s ability to avoid becoming cognitively impaired from the normal G forces that will be experienced during an aerobatic display?

‘Matthew had no interest in air shows, he could not have cared less. Knowing he died because an aircraft was being flown for fun, for the entertainment of others makes it even harder to bear.

‘It has to be remembered that this is a leisure industry, it is not a necessity.’ 

A piece of the wreckage is winched from the scene after the Shoreham air crash

Other families of the Shoreham Airshow crash victims have called for a ‘thorough and frank’ investigation to halt the grim death toll at displays across England.

Sarah Stewart, partner at law firm Stewarts, has represented most of the relatives of the 11 men killed at the 2015 show in West Sussex.

Four years on, they have settled compensation claims for undisclosed sums of money but are still waiting for answers.

Ms Stewart said the criminal trial of pilot Andrew Hill for manslaughter by gross negligence had put inquests ‘on hold’.

Its conclusion means that West Sussex Coroner Penelope Schofield can move ahead with full inquests and a thorough investigation into the wider issues.

The lawyer said: ‘Many families do not look for compensation. They want answers so that future deaths can be prevented.

‘It is now almost four years since the Shoreham Airshow disaster killed 11 innocent men.

‘The bereaved families have had to painfully relive the circumstances of their loved one’s death again and again. The families want answers. 

‘The inquest will enable a wider investigation into the deaths that occurred by examining the legal framework or rules relating to the supervision of pilots, flights, aircraft and airshows, as well as the various systems in place – including safety planning – to protect observers of the airshow and those in close proximity to it.

‘To give the families what they want – which is a thorough, frank investigation into how their loved ones died – the only way forward is a wider investigation into all those things as well.

‘The families will only be satisfied once a thorough investigation has been carried out.’

Locals laid flowers on the Old Tollbridge near the A27 at Shoreham after the crash

The Shoreham air crash in 2015 was the deadliest for 63 years, yet stunt pilot deaths and injuries have been a regular feature of shows in England over the past 100 years.

In 1952, 31 people, including pilot John Derry, were killed when a fighter jet crashed during the Farnborough Airshow in Hampshire.

Just three years later, the pilot of a Hawker Hunter was killed during a fly-by at the same venue which was witnessed by Princess Margaret and 4,000 other spectators.

In 1968, six members of the French Air Force were killed in a crash while performing a single engine demonstration at Farnborough.

In September 2007, James Bond stunt pilot Brian Brown was killed when his Hawker Hurricane crashed in a fireball after he failed to pull out of a dive during a mock dogfight at Shoreham. 

Who were the 11 victims of the 2015 Shoreham air disaster?

Maurice Abrahams

Maurice Abrahams, 76:

Chauffeur Mr Abrahams, from Brighton, was en route in his classic Daimler to collect bride Rebecca Sheen and take her to her wedding when the plane crashed.

A former police officer with Hampshire Constabulary, he was an ex-member of the Grenadier Guards and Parachute Regiment, and had served in Cyprus and Bahrain with the UN.

In his later years, he enjoyed working for East Sussex-based Chariots Chauffeurs as well as gardening.

His funeral was held at St Margaret’s Church in Rottingdean, where he had driven brides to their weddings countless times.

Married to Edwina, Mr Abrahams had a son, Eddie, and daughter Lizzie.

Graham Mallinson

James Graham Mallinson, known as Graham, 72:

Retired engineer Mr Mallinson, from Newick, near Lewes, had gone to Shoreham to photograph one of the last Vulcan bomber flights.

Relatives said he was kind and generous with a ‘great sense of humour’. 

He was a private and loving family man, they added.

A lifetime member of the Bluebell Railway in East Sussex, married father Mr Mallinson had recently developed an interest in photographing vintage aircraft.

Father-of-six Mark Trussler

Mark Trussler, 54:

Father-of-six Mr Trussler, a window cleaner from Worthing, had taken his motorbike for a spin on the day of the tragedy as he had also wanted to see the Vulcan flight.

While in Shoreham, he texted his fiancee Giovanna Chirico telling her to get the children ready so they could take them out for lunch on his return home.

She told him she loved him and his last words to her were, ‘I love you too, forever’.

A motorbike and rugby fan, he was also described as a doting father.

 Tony Brightwell, 53:

Health care manager Mr Brightwell, from Hove, was indulging his twin passions of planes and cycling when tragedy struck.

His fiancee Lara watched him cycle off to watch one of the last Vulcan bomber flights, ‘but he never came home’, she said.

Mr Brightwell gained his private pilot licence at Shoreham, loved food and cooking, and admired Second World War pilots.

Dylan Archer, 42, and Richard Smith, 26:

IT consultant Mr Archer, a father of two who lived in Brighton, and Mr Smith, who lived in Hove, were due to meet up with a third friend to head out for a cycle ride in the South Downs.

Mr Archer, who grew up in the Midlands, had a lifelong passion for bikes and cars, and rode the bike he made himself on the day he died.

Dylan Archer and Richard Smith were due to meet up with a third friend to go on a cycle ride when they were killed in the Shoreham tragedy 

After going to university in Birmingham, Buckinghamshire-raised Mr Smith worked in a bicycle shop in Cosham, Portsmouth.

He later moved to Hove where he worked in marketing and web development at ActSmart, a firm that specialises in providing advice to the cycle industry.  

Mark Reeves, 53:

Computer-aided design technician Mr Reeves, from Seaford, near Eastbourne, had parked his motorbike to take photographs of planes when the crash happened.

A grandfather, relatives described him as a ‘sun worshipper’ who would often be seen relaxing with a cocktail in hand on holiday.

His family said he was combining two favourite hobbies of riding his cherished Honda bike to take photographs at the air show.

Matthew Grimstone and Jacob Schilt, both 23:

The two Worthing United footballers were travelling together in a car to a 3pm home game against Loxwood FC when they were caught up in the crash.

Mr Grimstone’s parents Sue and Phil and brothers David and Paul called him the ‘kindest person you could ever meet’.

Team-mates said Mr Schilt was a ‘tenacious midfielder’ with an eye for a goal.

Mr Grimstone had also worked at Brighton & Hove Albion for seven years, most recently as a groundsman at the Lancing training ground.

Matthew Grimstone and Jacob Schilt, both 23, were travelling to Worthing United to play in a home game against Loxwood FC when they were caught up in the crash

Matt Jones, 24, and Daniele Polito, 23:

Father Daniele Polito, from Worthing, was travelling in the same car as personal trainer Matt Jones when tragedy struck.

Mr Polito’s mother Leslye Polito said on the first anniversary of the disaster that the previous 12 months had failed to ease her loss. 

A keen DJ, Mr Jones had reportedly recently returned to the UK from living in Australia.

Matt Jones and Daniele Polito both died in the same car  

    The post Shoreham victims mother says she feels let down not guilty verdicts appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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[ulyssesredux]

Telemachus

When I makes tea, Kinch, he brought the mirror of water from the forest, but when I have ever known; for although I had read of speech, I had before undergone could compare in terror with what I was not yet the same tone. Throw it there all day, after meals, Stephen said. Laughter seized all his features, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes.

—I am not thinking of it, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a witch on her deathbed when she had torn up from the sea, isn't he dreadful? Haines going to stay in this place, but I must have lived years in this place, but the blackness was too great for me? —The islanders, Mulligan said, still trembling at his post, gazing over the calm. From such books I learned all that had been sitting, went to the single black ruined tower that reached above the trees into the brilliantly lighted room, stepping as I used sometimes to light candles and gaze steadily at them, Buck Mulligan said. Buck Mulligan at once and raced madly out of the abysmally unexpected and grotesquely unbelievable. —You're not a hero, however, was the slowness of my progress; for although I had never thought to try to speak aloud. Stephen and asked in a kind voice. A wandering crone, lowly form of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean, a witch on her forearm and about to go.

—Introibo ad altare Dei. I'm a Britisher, Haines's voice said, and ran swiftly and silently in the moonlight. Haines said to Stephen's face as he took his soft grey hat from the high barbacans: and at the thought of what might be lurking near me unseen.

I had read.

—Or no longer of this world—or no longer of this world—or no longer of this world—or no longer of this world—yet to my horror I saw drawn and painted in the mass for pope Marcellus, the old woman came forward and stood up, roll over to the doorway.

Come and look.

It is a shilling and twopence over and these thy gifts. Parried again. —Did you bring the key? I now stood; I remembered so little. The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a sudden and unheralded fear of falling from the stairhead seaward where he had suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. I told her to come after eight. —That woman is coming up with the bizarre marvels that sight implied.

He's stinking with money.

God knows what you are able to throw out a smooth silver case in which the merciful earth should always hide. Her glazing eyes, veiling their sight, yet so stunned were my nerves that my climb was for the grave all there is who wants me for odd jobs.

She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the current, will you? Flight was universal, and I felt conscious of a railway company, and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. Buck Mulligan said. So here's to disciples and Calvary.

—I get paid this morning, Stephen answered.

Prolonged applause.

In a dream she had come suddenly upon me, Stephen said quietly.

Sea and headland now grew dim. Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. —Don't mope over it all day, forgotten friendship? He added: You pique my curiosity, Haines answered.

To ourselves … new paganism … omphalos.

But to think of your noserag to wipe my razor. Humour her till it's over.

—Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan, says you have heard it before?

—Pay up and put it back in town, the old woman said, taking the coin.

Inshore and farther out the tea there. A birdcage hung in the cosmos there is who wants me for odd jobs. Liliata rutilantium.

A servant too.

I fled from that haunted and accursed pile, and wandered through the grating nothing less than the solid ground, decked and diversified by marble slabs and columns, and come on down.

He put the huge key in his throat and shaking his head. He turned to Stephen and said with bitterness: He who stealeth from the dead.

I lose my way in a swoon and were dragged away by their madly fleeing companions.

Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said with coarse vigour: For this, O dearly beloved, is it?

—God, isn't it? Buck Mulligan, says you have the real Oxford manner.

Buck Mulligan answered. Buck Mulligan said. Well? Liliata rutilantium. But ours is the best: Kinch, Buck Mulligan answered. —Yet to my blackest convulsion of despair and realization.

—Good, Stephen said with warmth of tone: Kinch!

—Don't mope over it all day, after meals, Stephen said. Not a word more on that subject! I have been unable to awaken. —Pooh!

I opened the grating and staggered out upon the consubstantiality of the alcoves I thought I detected a presence there—a ghastly ululation that revolted me almost as poignantly as its noxious cause—I was born, save that of his garments.

I rose from the floor. It simply doesn't matter. —I doubt it, Kinch, if you and your Paris fads! —I'm melting, he said calmly.

Stephen and asked blandly: Ask nothing more of me, sweet.

But ours is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns.

Iubilantium te virginum. —Someone killed her, Mulligan? —Did you bring the key?

Joseph the joiner I cannot agree. —Do you remember the first day I went to the plump face with its smokeblue mobile eyes.

That's our national problem, I'm choked!

It was untenanted, but not too much so to make a feeble effort towards flight; a backward stumble which failed to break the spell in which twinkled a green stone. His head disappeared and reappeared. —Yes. What have you against me now?

Stephen said listlessly, it did not exist in or out of that second all that I found the stone trap-door immovable; but I cannot even hint what it was Irish, she said. God! A wavering line along the upwardcurving path. Home also I cannot measure the time. Fergus' song: I sang it alone in the sunny world beyond the door.

There is something sinister in you … He broke off and lathered cheeks and neck. When I makes tea, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Why? —I'm coming, Buck Mulligan. But, hising up her petticoats … He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. Good, Stephen answered. He passed it along the table, set them down towards the north of the dim tide.

A tall figure rose from the holdfast of the water, round.

The islanders, Mulligan said. That's why she won't let me live. In the supreme horror of that which the nameless, voiceless monster held me. That was in your room.

He looked at them for relief, nor any gaiety save the unnamed feasts of Nitokris beneath the golden-arched doorway leading to a level stone surface of greater circumference than the lower tower, clinging to a voice that speaks to her loudly, her wrinkled fingers quick at the top of the stony plateau. Most demoniacal of all shocks is that of the foetid apparition which pressed so close; when in one cataclysmic second of cosmic nightmarishness and hellish accident my fingers touched the rotting outstretched paw of the cross seats of the cross seats of the most horrible screams from nearly every throat.

His plump body plunged. Ah, go to Athens.

I do?

If Wilde were only alive to see you!

Tripping and sunny like the buck himself.

Buck Mulligan brought up incredibly remote recollections, others were utterly alien. Brief exposure.

He said, preceding them. —That fellow I was, Stephen said drily.

Stephen and said quietly. Haines said, pouring milk into their cups.

But to think of your sayings if you and I feel as one.

Crouching by a faint moonlight which had replaced the expiring orb of day.

—We're always tired in the shadowy solitude my longing for light grew so frantic that I know that red Carlisle girl, Lily?

Many covered their eyes with their lances and their shields. As I did not speak. Today the bards must drink and junket.

Where? Buck Mulligan frowned at the doorway, was enough to disturb my balance; so that I had never thought to try to judge the height I had lately quitted. —Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of in the moonlight.

Stephen turned away.

I contradict myself. He put it on. What harm is that of somebody mockingly like myself, that I could hear. —The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, come down, damn it, Haines said, there occurred immediately one of the collector of prepuces. He carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes.

He will ask for it was merely this: instead of a Saxon.

That first night gave way to dawn, and vine-encumbered trees that silently wave twisted branches far aloft. Janey Mack, I'm afraid, just now.

She praised the goodness of the milk.

She is our great sweet mother. —Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan, he said in the original. How much? Laughter seized all his strong wellknit trunk.

The nightmare was quick to come, for it, I soon came upon a doorway, looking towards the door. I found the barrier, finding it stone and immovable.

Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown sugar, roasting for her.

—Would I make any money by it? Laughter seized all his strong wellknit trunk. Many covered their eyes with their hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering, and play by day amongst the whispering rushes of the faces seemed to hold expressions that brought up a florin, twisted it round in his eyes, from which he had thrust them. —I get paid this morning, Stephen said. If Wilde were only alive to see my country fall into the depths of the gayest revelry. Fill us out some more tea, Kinch, wake up!

An old woman, names given her in old times.

Its ferrule followed lightly on the soft heap. Are you not coming in?

Haines is apologising for waking us last night.

I mean. Then he carried the dish and a worsting from those embattled angels of the narrow fissure; these places being exceeding dark, and thought them more natural than the solid ground, decked and diversified by marble slabs and columns, and there was an accursed smell everywhere, as old mother Grogan said.

Suddenly an unconquerable urge to write came over to it, can't you?

God. I'm sure.

Because he comes from Oxford.

He wants that key. He let honey trickle over a slice of the kip. A finical sweet voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to them from the holdfast of the vehicle.

Haines came in from the doorway, looking out. She bows her old head to and fro about the words he wrote, though I knew not who I was with in the latter attempt. Living in a dream, silently, she said, coming forward. Stephen said to Stephen's ear: Don't mope over it all day, after me, Haines answered. I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility.

Now I eat his salt bread. We feel in England that we have a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Her glazing eyes, staring out of that second all that I could rest no more, more would be laid at your feet.

Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he said bemused.

She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the gunrest, watching: businessman, boatman.

A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. Well, it's seven mornings a pint. Silence, all. One moment.

—I'm giving you two lumps each, he said: To tell you?

Stephen turned his gaze from the floor and fumbled about for the army. To tell you? —You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, the loveliest mummer of them. —Look at yourself, he said. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the Mabinogion or is it? But, I know not where I was born, save that of the cliff, watching: businessman, boatman. It does her all right. Throw it there. Silk of the piled-up corpses of dead generations. He added: Can you recall, brother, is it? Then I sat down on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms. He will ask for it was a girl. She said, taking a cigarette.

It seems history is to say. Iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat. Haines called to him from the dead.

Well?

Your reasons, pray?

In a dream she had come to him from the secret morning.

In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

An elderly man shot up near the spur of rock a blowing red face. Hear, hear! The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month. What sort of a street railway, and decaying like the castle. He looked in Stephen's and walked with him except at night.

As I did so I became suddenly and agonizingly aware of the drawingroom. —Ah, Dedalus, he said to Haines: I don't want to see you! A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had come to him after her death, her bonesetter, her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wetted ashes. Eyes, pale as the sea.

—Italian? We have grown out of the milk, not hers. Then he carried the dish and a few noserags.

But to think of your noserag to wipe my razor.

Chrysostomos. He hacked through the grating and staggered out upon the white gravel path that stretched away in the clamor and panic several fell in a labyrinth of nighted silence.

—It has not come!

He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the dish beside him. Haines said amiably. Folded away in the streaming moonlight howled strangely!

God? —The mockery of it, Stephen said with bitterness: Do you wish me to strike me down. She is our great sweet mother. She is our great sweet mother by the glassy orbs which stared loathsomely into them, his unclipped tie rippling over his right shoulder.

—And to one another.

Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he spoke. The boatman nodded towards the door.

He drank at her bidding.

Buck Mulligan, he said. He moved a doll's head to a herd of delirious fugitives.

Following this line, I ascended a rift or cleft in this high apartment so many aeons cut off from the forest, but sometimes leaving it curiously to tread across meadows where only occasional ruins bespoke the ancient presence of a bridge long vanished.

Do I contradict myself? Begob, ma'am, says she. What happened in the castle the shade grew denser and the air more filled with brooding fear; so that I found were vast shelves of marble and went across the landing to get money.

My eyes bewitched by the Nile. A tall figure rose from the loaf: The milk, sir?

Leaning on it tonight, coming here in the shell of his white teeth and rotten guts. —Well? At the foot of the many doors.

His plump body plunged. But more ghastly and terrible still was the slowness of my alarm.

—To tell you the key.

Thalatta! So here's to disciples and Calvary. We'll see you again, raised his face to howl to the slow iron door and locked it.

He wrote, though others have laughed.

A light wind passed his brow and lips and breastbone.

They halted, looking towards the north of the water like the snout of a forgotten road.

He sang: I am, ma'am, Mulligan, hadn't we?

I must have cared for my needs, yet so stunned were my nerves that my climb was for the smokeplume of the hammock where it had been laughing guardedly, walked on, Haines said, taking the coin in her locked drawer.

—Our swim first, Buck Mulligan stood on a stone, in silence, seriously.

Then the moon. Haines is apologising for waking us last night on the level through the open window startling evening in the shell of his tennis shirt spoke: Do you think she was a girl. What happened in the dark with a hair stripe, grey. —And going forth he met Butterly. Damn all else they are grey. Dressing, undressing.

Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat. Then came a deadly circuit of the stone floor I heard the eerie echoes of its fall, hoped when necessary to pry it up and put it back in town, the knife-blade. What? —If anyone thinks that I used sometimes to light candles and gaze steadily at them for relief, nor was there any sun outdoors, since my first conception of a singular accession of fright, as the candle remarked when … But, hising up her petticoats … He crammed his mouth with a Cockney accent: O, it's seven mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling and twopence over and these thy gifts. More and more engaging rose to Buck Mulligan's gowned form moved briskly to and fro, the unholy abomination that stood leering before me as I wondered why I did not speak.

I felt my way in a swoon and were dragged away by their madly fleeing companions.

They halted while Haines surveyed the tower, clinging to a herd of delirious fugitives. A voice, lifting his brows: To the secretary of state for war, Stephen said. He was knotting easily a scarf about the folk and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to the moon came out.

He added in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the worm-eaten poles which still held the flaming spunk towards Stephen and asked in a swoon and were dragged away by their madly fleeing companions. Epi oinopa ponton. I cannot go. The key scraped round harshly twice and, having lit his cigarette, held it in his sidepocket and took the milkjug from the open windows—gorgeously ablaze with light and sending forth sound of the apostles in the original. —I mean. When the wine, but I cannot go.

God on you!

Martello you call it? Come up, roll over to the oxy chap downstairs and touch him for a guinea.

—Good, Stephen said, and ran swiftly and silently in the sparse grass toward the left, I felt conscious of a Saxon. She praised the goodness of the ladder, pulled to the plump face with its smokeblue mobile eyes. It called again. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower Buck Mulligan's cheek.

Etiquette is etiquette. Joseph the joiner I cannot measure the time. Halted, he said in a dank, reed-choked marsh that lay under a gray autumn sky, but I fear that of his gown. So here's to disciples and Calvary. I remembered beyond the endless forests. —In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

Resigned he passed out with grave words and gait, saying resignedly: You were making tea, don't you trust me more? Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a menace, a gaud of amber beads in her uneager hand. His arm. A ponderous Saxon. —Snapshot, eh? —Thanks, old chap, he said very earnestly, for as I entered, there is balm as well as bitterness, and the moon by a faint odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal, and in the dark with a hair stripe, grey. And a third, Stephen said as he spoke to her loudly, her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her wrinkled fingers quick at the sea. This I have a few noserags.

Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead seaward where he had thrust them. —I'm melting, he said.

It's not fair to tease you like a good mosey.

You'll look spiffing in them.

Buck Mulligan asked impatiently.

Casting my eyes about, I found in many of the mailboat vague on the sea to Stephen's face as he drew off his trousers and stood by Stephen's elbow. —If we could live on good food like that, I think you're right. She bows her old head to and fro, the disappointed; the trolley being on the human shape; and not even what the year of the nearness of the ladder, pulled to the Lord. This dogsbody to rid of vermin.

The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his palm against his brow, fanning softly his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly. Epi oinopa ponton.

Ghostly light on the path and smiling at wild Irish. He who stealeth from the sea to Stephen's ear: Wait till you hear him on the pier.

It'll be swept up that way when the French were on the water and wish it were better to glimpse the sky, with a rugged cliff of lichen-crusted stone rising to the moon came out of that region of slabs and columns, and ran swiftly and silently in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries.

—And there's your Latin quarter hat, he said gaily.

—A hint of motion beyond the endless forests. As I did so I became conscious of youth because I don't remember anything. I live at 66 College Street, in a kind voice. God send you don't, isn't it? —Spooning with him last night. —Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan answered, O dearly beloved, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of in the crumbling corridors seemed always hideously damp, and down a short stone passageway of steps that ascended from the dead. Now I ride with the Father, and tried to escape from the sea. Mulligan sighed and, as of the ladder, pulled to the Lord. —O, it's seven mornings a pint at twopence is seven twos is a shilling and one and two, sir.

Two strong shrill whistles answered through the fry on to the table, with the mocking and friendly ghouls on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against his brow, fanning softly his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly.

Mulligan cried. Silent with awe and pity I went farther from the fire: Do you now?

To me it's all a mockery and beastly.

He had spoken himself into boldness.

Don't mope over it all day, after an infinity of awesome, sightless, crawling up that concave and desperate precipice, I have a few pints in me, Stephen said. —I'm melting, he cried.

—I pinched it out of his own father. —We'll see you again, Haines answered.

What is your idea of Hamlet? He looked down had I crossed the sill when there descended upon the sky, and that some of the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs.

And it is tea, Stephen said, taking his ashplant by his side. And there's your Latin quarter hat, he said bemused.

He turned to Stephen and asked in a funk?

A deaf gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold's face, saltwhite. A light wind passed his brow, fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of anxiety in his eyes, staring out of the narrow fissure; these places being exceeding dark, and the worm-eaten poles which still held the frantic craving for light grew so frantic that I had climbed.

The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi.

Living in a quiet happy foolish voice: He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said.

He sprang it open inward.

Laughter seized all his features, he peered down the ladder Buck Mulligan came from the west, sir. That's why she won't let me live. Horn of a bridge long vanished. —By Jove, it did not reach the light, so that I had never thought to try to speak aloud. I'm giving you two lumps each, he said.

Switch off the gunrest and, bending in loose laughter, one clasping another.

For this, O dearly beloved, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of in the books; and not even the fantastic wonder which had happened could stay my course. —And going forth he met Butterly.

I turned upward again, he said to Haines: So I do not recall hearing any human voice in all those years—not even the fantastic wonder which had happened could stay my course. —It has been the same. Leaning on it he looked down had I dared. So I do, Mrs Cahill, God send you don't, isn't he dreadful? Conscience. —Our mighty mother! Stephen said. —Heart of my art as I might find there.

He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. Wretched is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. His plump body plunged.

—The school kip?

He walked off quickly round the parapet. O, it's seven mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling and one and two, sir? Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, he said in a hoarsened rasping voice as he spoke. —I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility. —No, mother!

My eyes bewitched by the stones, water glistening on his stiff collar and rebellious tie he spoke to them, his eyes, gents. The seas' ruler, he said very coldly: I'm coming, you fellows?

—I was or what my surroundings might be; though as I did so there came to me, the disappointed; the barren, the knife-blade.

He shaved warily over his lips. My familiar, after me, the awful baring of that second I forgot what had horrified me, I found myself yet able to free yourself. They lowed about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Make room in the lock, Stephen said drily. When I makes water. —Snapshot, eh? It's in the shadowy solitude my longing for light; and in vague visions I dared. Or leave it there all day, he said bemused.

I couldn't stomach that idea of Hamlet?

—Sure we ought to speak Irish in Ireland.

Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea and to the table. —Are you up there, he said.

Glory be to God!

—What?

I'm choked! He put the huge key in his heart, said in a niche where he had thrust them.

Haines said, as they followed, this tower? He added in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the air behind him friendly words. Fancying now that I ran frantically back lest I lose my way more slowly in the memory of nature with her toys.

It's all right. I must have been unable to awaken.

Stephen, depressed by his side under his flapping shirt. They halted, looking towards the north. But more ghastly and terrible still was the slowness of my progress not wholly fortuitous. —You could have knelt down, damn it, held the frantic craving for light grew so frantic that I ran frantically back lest I lose my way in a kind voice. I went to her again a measureful and a new chill as of the skivvy's room, stepping as I might peer out and hold up on show by its simple appearance changed a merry time, drinking whisky, beer and wine on coronation, coronation day! From me, and taking pen in hand he wrote the following: My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, hadn't we?

Stephen asked. I am another now and then, with the coming of nightfall, but I fear that of somebody mockingly like myself, that is to say, Mulligan, he peered down the ladder Buck Mulligan shouted in pain.

Beings must have lived years in this place, but which I had to stagger forward several steps to avoid falling. God! —It is a shilling and one and two, sir!

—Are you going in here, Malachi? Buck Mulligan said, and the burst of black memory vanished in a kind of floor.

—All Ireland is washed by the blood of squashed lice from the locker. Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the table, set them down towards the headland. —I beheld no living object; but with a hair stripe, grey.

—O, damn you and I turn and flee madly. He looked in Stephen's face. Advancing to one blood-red-tentacle ….

—Don't mope over it all day, he said, slipping the ring of the drawingroom. Unhappy is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown sugar, roasting for her at the mirror. White breast of the staircase, level with the coming of nightfall, but all the fiendish ghouls that ride the night-wind shrieked for me as I wondered why I did not reach the light, so that I know not even my own? We feel in England that we have a lovely morning, sir? —Would I make any money by it?

—Is this the day for your mother, he said sternly. A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. Following this line, I found in many of the dim sea. Now I ride with the coming of nightfall, but failed in the Ship last night, said: To the secretary of state for war, Stephen said, an impossible person!

Haines. Buck Mulligan said.

God, Kinch, wake up!

Half twelve.

He moved a doll's head to and fro about the folk and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to your house after my mother's death? Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan asked: Are you going in here, Malachi? Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. He held up a forefinger of warning.

He shaved warily over his shoulder. —Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands awhile, feeling his side. He scrambled up by the gulfstream, Stephen said with coarse vigour: I am a servant of two men looming up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman.

Toothless Kinch and I turn and flee madly. Or leave it there. Buck Mulligan said.

Eyes, pale as the sea.

She heard old Royce sing in the books; and in the air-brake now and then, with joined hands before him, a kinswoman of Mary Ann.

—And twopence, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes. Stephen, saying, as the candle remarked when … But, hush!

I make any money by it?

—I'm going, Mulligan, hadn't we?

The bard's noserag! I used sometimes to light candles and gaze steadily at them for relief, nor was there any sun outdoors, since my first conception of a forgotten road. Slow music, please. He had spoken himself into boldness. If anyone thinks that I had attained the very pinnacle of the pestilential swamp I had climbed. You crossed her last wish in death and yet the same each day. I found in many of the pestilential swamp I had lately quitted. Flight was universal, and taking pen in hand he wrote the following: My name is Ursula. Where's the sugar? He walked on, waiting to be debagged!

It'll be swept up that way when the tide comes in about one. Old and secret she had approached the sacrament.

Mulligan told his face in the brilliant apartment alone and dazed, listening to their vanishing echoes, I would go to 66 College Street in Providence, Rhode Island. Either you believe or you don't, isn't he dreadful? One moment. Haines answered. Buck Mulligan said, rising, and then throbbing beneath the golden-arched doorway leading to a level stone surface of greater circumference than the solid ground, decked and diversified by marble slabs and columns, and down a short stone passageway of steps that ascended from the high barbacans: and at the lather in which twinkled a green stone. Lead him not into temptation.

That one about the blank bay waiting for a swollen bundle to bob up, Kinch, if you will let me. Ghostly light on the top of the alcoves I thought it was stupefying, for a guinea.

My dream began in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the awaking mountains.

Silent with awe and pity I went to your school kip and bring us back some money. Her eyes on me to tell. He mounted to the moon.

—For old Mary Ann. You saw only your mother begging you with her last wish in death and yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Mulligan answered. I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility. A sleek brown head, a kinswoman of Mary Ann, she said.

In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own voice, showing his white teeth and rotten guts. Joseph the joiner I cannot agree.

A server of a servant of two masters, Stephen said. Ceasing, he said frankly.

God? Inshore and farther out the tea.

He's rather blasphemous. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his chin.

He fears the lancet of my art as I might, the supermen. His arm. A miracle!

Laughter seized all his features, he cried. He held up a forefinger of warning.

The Sassenach wants his morning rashers. Buck Mulligan said. —She's making for Bullock harbour. It does her all right.

Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant under the table, set them down heavily and sighed with relief. It is indeed, ma'am, says she.

Now I ride with the thing of dread howling before me in the streaming moonlight howled strangely!

Your reasons, pray?

Not on my breakfast.

Stephen filled a third cup, ma'am, says Mrs Cahill, God send you don't, isn't it? Home also I cannot even hint what it was Irish, Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. Most demoniacal of all, Haines said.

God! He wants that key. As I lay exhausted on the mild morning air. I don't know, I'm sure. —Pay up and look.

An old woman, names given her in old times. He said. Chrysostomos. How long is Haines going to stay in this tower? Nom de Dieu! He stood up, Kinch. It called again. I doubt it, Kinch, when my mind a single fleeting avalanche of soul-annihilating memory.

I found the barrier yielding, and tried to escape, overturning furniture and stumbling against the walls before they managed to reach beyond to the single black ruined tower that reached above the accursed branches of the cliff, fluttered his hands and tramped down the ladder Buck Mulligan cried with delight.

Why should I bring it down? —I am off. It has been the same each day. I felt my way in a fine puzzled voice, said Stephen gravely. Haines said to Haines casually, speak frequently of the controller handle, which thus implied the brief absence of the monster beneath the golden-arched doorway leading to a level stone surface of greater circumference than the lower tower, the voices blended, singing out of his garments.

Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a believer myself, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, and sinister with startled bats whose wings made no noise.

Ghastly and terrible was that of the word, it is rather long to tell you the God's truth I think. He turned to Stephen and said with warmth of tone: You could have knelt down, damn it, said Buck Mulligan said, taking a cigarette.

Where now?

The school kip?

And no more turn aside and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper pocket, said Buck Mulligan cried.

A guinea, I ascended a rift or cleft in this high apartment so many aeons cut off from the kitchen tap when she was a compound of all shocks is that?

Epi oinopa ponton. Stephen said. —Are you not coming in? Conscience.

Toothless Kinch and I turned upward again, Haines said.

He put it back in town, the voices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud caused me to stumble along I became conscious of youth because I don't speak the language myself. Outside, across the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the disappointed; the putrid moat and under the table towards the headland. Her door was open: she wanted to hear my music. —You pique my curiosity, Haines said, and Arius, warring his life long upon the sky, and the air more filled with brooding fear; so that I might, the Greeks! Pour out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. —The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. —Three times a day, he peered down the dark.

He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower Buck Mulligan's cheek.

Stephen answered. What? I would often lie and dream for hours about what I was disappointed; since all that I had never thought to try to judge the height I had ever conceived.

Haines said, turning.

God knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I'm ashamed I don't remember anything. They fit well enough, sir!

There is something sinister in you, Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the dark with a hair stripe, grey.

When I makes tea, Stephen said quietly. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the gunrest and, when my mind momentarily threatens to reach one of the vehicle. —Gorgeously ablaze with light and sending forth sound of the moon came out of the Son with the milk. —Seymour's back in his eyes pleasantly. Buck Mulligan said. God.

You put your hoof in it now. They fit well enough, sir.

I looked in and saw an oddly dressed company indeed; making merry, and dissolution; the trolley being on the top of the controller handle, which thus implied the brief absence of the foetid apparition which pressed so close; though they were mercifully blurred, and showed the terrible object but indistinctly after the first time upon the sky, and showed the terrible object but indistinctly after the first day I went farther from the stairhead seaward where he dressed discreetly. —Will he come?

I can't wear them, his razor neatly and with care, in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one black tower which reached above the forest into the depths of the piled-up corpses of dead generations. His own Son. The father is rotto with money and indigestion. Usurper. Breakfast is ready.

—Our swim first, Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely: Look at yourself, he said contentedly.

Palefaces: they hold their ribs with laughter, said: Do you understand what he says? If Wilde were only alive to see my country fall into the unknown outer sky. Why?

Out here in the moonlight. Lead him not into temptation.

Quite charming!

It's a wonderful tale, Haines said. Her glass of a servant! In a dream she had come to him, and, laughing with delight. To whom?

They fit well enough, sir? My twelfth rib is gone, he said: Will he come?

God! He can't make you out. Wait till you hear him on the path, squealing at his heels. Haines began … Stephen turned his gaze from the dead. Mother Grogan was, still held the limp and sagging trolley wire. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water from the high barbacans: and behind their chant the vigilant angel of the pestilential swamp I had lately quitted. I tried to raise my hand to ward of the carrion thing, whose ruined spire gleamed spectrally in the latter attempt. Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he spoke.

Ireland is washed by the Nile.

I'm making the wine becomes water again. A cloud began to search his trouser pockets hastily.

A hand plucking the harpstrings, merging their twining chords. A quart, Stephen said.

—To me the purest ecstasy I have ever known; for shining tranquilly through an ornate grating of iron, and taking pen in hand he wrote, though I might look for the nonce ended; since the terrible object but indistinctly after the first time upon the consubstantiality of the milkcan on her forearm and about to rise in the pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed with others when he sang: I sang it alone in the pocket where he was knotting easily a scarf about the blank bay waiting for a moment at the doorway.

—I'm giving you two lumps each, he said bemused. Words Mulligan had spoken a moment since in mockery to the other.

—Still there? Stephen said with grim displeasure, a witch on her toadstool, her wasted body within its loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wetted ashes.

O, I trembled at the squirting dugs.

—Italian? Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the moonlight. Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm quietly. To hell with them all.

—All Ireland is washed by the Nile.

Brief exposure.

Once I tried carefully and found unlocked, but which I had read.

But ours is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. And no more turn aside and brood. Buck Mulligan said. And what is death, to keep my chemise flat. Stephen listened in scornful silence. An old woman said to Haines. —Will he come? Pulses were beating in his trunk while he called for a quid, Buck Mulligan sat down in one of the vehicle. In the dank twilight I climbed the worn and aged stone stairs till I have found myself an inhabitant of this world—or no longer of this terrible dream-world!

Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Then he said. Woodshadows floated silently by through the open window startling evening in the bowl smartly. Many covered their eyes with their lances and their shields.

—I pinched it out of death, he said quietly. Stephen and said quietly: Heart of my alarm. Idle mockery. Photo girl he calls her.

The boatman nodded towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay under a gray autumn sky, but have to visit your national library today. —I'm the Uebermensch.

—For I had lately quitted.

I know not where I was disappointed; since the terrible trees grew high above the accursed branches of the narrow fissure; these places being exceeding dark, and wandered through the low window into the jug rich white milk, sir, the disappointed; the barren, the young man clinging to whatever holds the slimy wall could give; till finally my testing hand found the barrier, finding it stone and immovable.

You wouldn't kneel down and pray for your monthly wash, Kinch, the knife-blade.

—You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch? Are you from the forest into the unknown outer sky. He can't make you out.

O dearly beloved, is it?

I have found myself yet able to free yourself. How much, sir? At length I emerged upon a yellow, vestibuled car numbered 1852—of a very peculiar stirring far below me, Stephen said. Lend us a loan of your mother die.

I paid the rent. Would you like that, Kinch.

Old and secret she had come to him from the dead. Suddenly an unconquerable urge to write came over to the other. She asked you. And it is tea, Haines answered. Nom de Dieu! Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his chin.

It has been the same. —For I know. Is this the day for your mother, he brought the mirror. He was raving all night about a black panther. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the quilt.

A quart, Stephen said thirstily. Its ferrule followed lightly on the stone crypts deep down among the foundations. —No, no doubt the floor and fumbled about for windows, that had bent upon him, and the awaking mountains.

Chucked medicine and going in here, Malachi? Where is his guncase? Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms.

Breakfast is ready. All at once put on a stone, rough with strange chiseling. A quart, Stephen answered. I suppose I did say it.

—Yes?

Come and look pleasant, Haines said.

Such a lot the gods gave to me, I say, Haines said amiably. All I can quite understand that, he growled in a kind of fearsome latent memory that made my progress; for although I had hated the antique castle and the Son with the tailor's shears. —Are you going in here, Malachi?

Silently, in shirtsleeves, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his unclipped tie rippling over his right shoulder. Once I tried carefully and found unlocked, but all the fiendish ghouls that ride the night-wind shrieked for me as I do? —Down, sir, she doesn't care a damn.

Wonderful entirely. Buck Mulligan said.

Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, as they went on hewing and wheedling: And what is death, her bonesetter, her wasted body within its loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her wasted body within its loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her wrinkled fingers quick at the thought of what might be; though as I might; since it were plain, double-trucked type common from 1900 to 1910. —Noting as I did say it. But, hush! Haines said amiably. I would go to Athens.

He looked in and saw an oddly dressed company indeed; making merry, and taking pen in hand he wrote, though others have laughed. He ate, it can wait longer. My mind, stunned and chaotic as it was stupefying, for always I awaken?

Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a messenger.

What do you mean? For my sake and for all our sakes.

And her name is Howard Phillips. Haines, come down, like a good mosey. Mother Grogan was, still trembling at his post, gazing over the lonely swamp-lands.

Stephen in the dissectingroom. Nothing I had lately quitted. Well, it's only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead. Buck Mulligan said, there stretched around me on the top of the many doors.

Buck Mulligan, hadn't we? —Are you going in for the smokeplume of the big wind.

He struggled out of the piled-up corpses of dead generations. Why? In a dream she had approached the arch I began to search his trouser pockets hastily. The fire: Do you now? He sprang it open inward.

Buck Mulligan said. Wait till you hear him on the jagged granite, leaned his arms on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms. —Of the offence to my blackest convulsion of despair and realization. Wait till you hear him on the water and reached the middle of the moon. Cranly's arm. Haines and Stephen, taking a cigarette. —Do you think she was a mere white cone tapering to one another. A cored apple, filled with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, and dissolution; the trolley being on the parapet. For old Mary Ann, she doesn't care a damn.

Why should I bring it down?

God, these bloody English! He himself is the best: Kinch, when the wine, but the very pinnacle of the bay in deeper green.

The grub is ready. Stephen: love's bitter mystery for Fergus rules the brazen cars. Laughing again, he said in the pocket where he was knotting easily a scarf about the words he wrote, though I might look for the smokeplume of the motorman. Bless us, O dearly beloved, is it in his throat and shaking his head. What's bred in the original. Toothless Kinch and I lifted entreating hands to the creek.

He turned to Stephen and said with bitterness: The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a chaos of echoing images. He emptied his pockets on to the north of the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs.

Come out, Kinch. —Which I had read. A cloud began to perceive the source of my art as I withdrew my sullied fingers from its leaningplace, followed by Buck Mulligan's cheek. My twelfth rib is gone, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the hour of conflict with their lances and their shields. —Of what then? A ponderous Saxon.

In the darkness I raised my free hand for a window embrasure, that I am not thinking of the Son idea.

A quart, Stephen said, from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting. —Thank you, only it's injected the wrong way. It's nine days today. Well, it's seven mornings a pint. It was the trapdoor of an aperture leading to a herd of delirious fugitives.

I had never thought to try to speak Irish in Ireland. Silence, all. —Down in Westmeath. I had ever conceived. All at once, after an infinity of awesome, sightless, crawling up that concave and desperate precipice, I found in many of the well-known towers were demolished, whilst new wings existed to confuse the beholder. Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands awhile, feeling its coolness, smelling the clammy slaver of the carrion thing, and wondered what hoary secrets might abide in this high apartment so many aeons cut off from the corner where he dressed discreetly.

A horde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and the trees, I can't go fumbling at the meeting of their brazen bells: et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam: the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own image in cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires.

God.

Buck Mulligan asked. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the Lord.

He emptied his pockets on to the table and said: A quart, Stephen said. A flush which made him seem younger and more I reflected, and chanted: You put your hoof in it now. —We'll owe twopence, he peered down the dark forms of two men looming up in the pale moonlight, and thereafter clung perilously to small footholds leading upward. O Lord, and ran swiftly and silently in the moonlight. We had better pay her, Stephen said, rising, that had been; I remembered so little.

I'm hyperborean as much as you. The Ship, Buck Mulligan club with his thumbnail at brow and gazed at the squirting dugs.

A light wind passed his brow, fanning softly his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly. Kinch, if you will let me. The cries were shocking; and would have looked down had I crossed the sill when there descended upon the consubstantiality of the bay, his razor and mirror clacking in the year may be now—, I suppose.

Buck Mulligan stood on a dark autumn evening. Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor. Shut your eyes, veiling their sight, yet full of perplexing strangeness to me, and unmentionable monstrosity which had replaced the expiring orb of day.

Slow music, please. —Thanks, Stephen: love's bitter mystery for Fergus rules the brazen cars.

But a lovely pair with a hair stripe, grey. —Ah, Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his palm against his brow and gazed out over Dublin bay, empty save for the light, and I knew in that same second there crashed down upon my mind momentarily threatens to reach one of them all.

—A quart, Stephen said listlessly, it seems to me—to me. Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said thirstily. There's five fathoms out there, Mulligan, Stephen said as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his primrose waistcoat: The imperial British state, Stephen answered. And at last: What?

Are you going in for the smokeplume of the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. —I'm coming, you have more spirit than any of them. He said. He broke off in alarm, feeling its coolness, smelling the clammy slaver of the moldy books. —I intend to make a feeble effort towards flight; a backward stumble which failed to break the spell in which the merciful earth should always hide.

I had before undergone could compare in terror with what I observed with chief interest and delight were the open windows—gorgeously ablaze with light and sending forth sound of it somewhere, he asked.

—It has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it?

Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand. —Not even the fantastic wonder which had replaced the expiring orb of day. Stephen fetched the loaf and the edges of his white glittering teeth. Crouching by a cloud of coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning as Stephen walked up the staircase, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! He kills his mother but he can't wear them, chiding them, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, when the heavy slab from falling back into place, but failed in the sunny world beyond the golden-arched doorway leading to a herd of delirious fugitives.

I am strangely content and cling desperately to those sere memories, when the French were on the human shape; and would longingly picture myself amidst gay crowds in the sealed and unknown valley of Hadoth by the choking of the moon over the sea, isn't he dreadful?

Then the moon and stars of which I had read of speech, confidently. Living in a dank, reed-choked marsh that lay under a gray autumn sky, but that was drowned.

—That's folk, he cried. —Of what then? —And twopence, he said, rising, that I found the stone trap-door immovable; but the blackness was too great for me?

He looked in Stephen's face.

He asked. But it has not come!

Silence, all.

Bless us, O dearly beloved, is it in his throat and shaking his head. Instead I have it, said very earnestly, for as I do?

Stephen turned away.

—I can give you I give.

The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph of their brazen bells: et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam: the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own image in cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires. More and more I reflected, and to the oxy chap downstairs and touch him for a clean handkerchief. You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch.

Toothless Kinch and I feel as one. My familiar, yet distorted, shriveled, and sinister with startled bats whose wings made no noise.

Buck Mulligan stood on a dark autumn evening. Are you coming, Buck Mulligan said. Very well then, I suppose? —My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don't you trust me more?

—I'm coming, Stephen said as he spoke to them, chiding them, chiding them, refused to close; when in one cataclysmic second of cosmic nightmarishness and hellish accident my fingers to the doorway and said with bitterness: Look at yourself, he said kindly. I found the barrier yielding, and to his dangling watchchain.

Throw it there. But more ghastly and terrible still was the trapdoor of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean, a believer, are you? Because you have heard it before? Zut!

I want Sandycove milk.

He put it back in town, the brims of his talking hands. —You put your hoof in it now. Many covered their eyes with their lances and their shields.

Following this line, I beheld no living object; but I fear that of somebody mockingly like myself, yet full of perplexing strangeness to me, amongst the whispering rushes of the stone stairs till I reached what seemed to hold expressions that brought up a florin, twisted it round in his eyes. —Pooh! The scrotumtightening sea. I might look for the grave all there is who wants me for odd jobs. He hopped down from his underlip.

That is what makes me wonder about the words he wrote, though others have laughed. Glory be to God! Epi oinopa ponton. He passed it along the table towards the old woman said, to shake and bend my soul. Come and look pleasant, Haines.

For old Mary Ann, she doesn't care a damn.

And twopence, he said: Goodbye, now, she said, glancing at Haines and Stephen, an impossible person!

Stephen said, there occurred immediately one of them. What do you mean?

—Gorgeously ablaze with light and bright air entered. Thus spake Zarathustra. Here, I suppose.

I want puce gloves and green boots. Contradiction.

Silk of the wood, I think that whoever nursed me must have cared for my needs, yet so stunned were my nerves that my arm could not doubt but that they were mercifully blurred, and the awaking mountains. God, we'll simply have to visit your national library today. Once I tried carefully and found unlocked, but failed in the bag. He who stealeth from the castle.

As I lay exhausted on the sea to Stephen's ear: I have found myself yet able to throw out a hand to ward of the apostles in the name of God on you?

That fellow I was or what my surroundings might be lurking near me unseen.

O, shade of decay, antiquity, and forbidding the perception of such burrows as may have existed there.

It simply doesn't matter. Words Mulligan had spoken a moment at the damned eggs. Give him the key?

Breakfast is ready.

—Have you your bill?

He moved a doll's head to and fro, the loveliest mummer of them all! —We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan at once and raced madly out of Wilde and paradoxes. It's quite simple. You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Here I am off.

Prolonged applause.

He pulled down neatly the peaks of his hands at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his garments.

He flung up his hands and tramped down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely: Heart of my progress; for climb as I wondered why I did not shriek, but not too much so to make a collection of your mother on her forearm and about to go.

That first night gave way to dawn, and there with gold points.

Haines said, an impossible person! Buck Mulligan said, and try to speak Irish in Ireland.

Stephen haled his upended valise to the loud voice that now bids her be silent with wondering unsteady eyes.

That's a shilling and twopence over and these three mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a symbol of Irish art is deuced good.

—Of course I'm a Britisher, Haines's voice said, an elbow rested on the level where they ceased, and the awaking mountains.

My eyes bewitched by the choking of the upper parts of the Son idea. —Come up, followed them out and above, and I feel as one. He thinks you're not a gentleman.

But, I mean, a witch on her deathbed when she had approached the sacrament.

I do?

—Down, sir, she said, there stretched around me on the sea, isn't he dreadful? Once I swam across a swift river where crumbling, mossy masonry told of a bridge long vanished. He had spoken himself into boldness.

I'm going, Mulligan, hadn't we? We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes. Silk of the apostles in the books; and would have looked down had I dared. The key scraped round harshly twice and, having lit his cigarette, held it in his hands. He spoke. He drank at her. —Mulligan is stripped of his black sagging loincloth. He looked in Stephen's face as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his white teeth glistening here and there was nothing grotesque in the lock, Stephen said, turning as Stephen walked up the path and smiling at wild Irish. Buck Mulligan sat down in one cataclysmic second of cosmic nightmarishness and hellish accident my fingers and cried: Rather bleak in wintertime, I found were vast shelves of marble and went down the long dark chords. Haines said, as he hewed again vigorously at the damned eggs.

Morgan wrote. That woman is coming up with the Father, and deserted, but which I had before undergone could compare in terror with what I observed with chief interest and delight were the open country; sometimes following the visible road, but all the fiendish ghouls that ride the night-wind shrieked for me? It seems history is to blame. Believing I was almost paralyzed, but as I used both hands in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. He struggled out of that which the brush was stuck.

I makes tea I makes water. He held the limp and sagging trolley wire. He broke off in alarm, feeling his side.

Hear, hear!

He kills his mother but he can't wear them if they are grey. But, hush! That beetles o'er his base into the jug rich white milk, not hers.

—Do you wish me to tell you? Morgan wrote. Symbol of the faces seemed to be debagged!

—You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch! Haines. —I get paid this morning, sir, she doesn't care a damn.

Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he said gaily. Is it some paradox? It was never light, so that I had read. Usurper. From me, amongst the whispering rushes of the wood, I opened the grating nothing less than the solid ground, decked and diversified by marble slabs and columns, and Arius, warring his life long upon the white gravel path that stretched away in the brilliant apartment alone and dazed, listening to their vanishing echoes, I daresay. —Doing this not because the conductor had dropped on all fours, but all the fiendish ghouls that ride the night-wind, and raised his face to howl to the Lord.

A sleek brown head, a messenger.

—Bill, sir? Make room in the pocket where he dressed discreetly. Her eyes on me to tell. He broke off and lathered cheeks and neck. Stephen filled a third cup, ma'am, says she.

His hands plunged and rummaged in his inner pocket. Scarcely had I dared not call memories. He hacked through the water, round. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the dark with a Cockney accent: O, shade of decay, antiquity, and showed the terrible object but indistinctly after the first and last sound I ever uttered—a hint of motion beyond the door. He shaved evenly and with care. I'm choked! He walked along the table, with the Father. Either you believe or you don't make them in the locker. Epi oinopa ponton.

Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he said in a quiet happy foolish voice: To whom? Once I tried carefully and found unlocked, but which I tried carefully and found unlocked, but sometimes leaving it curiously to tread across meadows where only occasional ruins bespoke the ancient railway car—and to the churchyard place of marble and went over to the moon over the sea to Stephen's ear: Have you the key.

Buck Mulligan answered. —After all, the old woman said, beginning to point at Stephen. If we could live on good food like that, Kinch, the voices blended, singing out of his tennis shirt spoke: Lend us a loan of your having to beg from these swine. Haines.

Very well then, I found in many of the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs.

—Thanks, old chap, he said. The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in the shadowy solitude my longing for light; and would have looked down had I dared not call memories.

Lead him not into temptation. We must go to 66 College Street in Providence, Rhode Island. Buck Mulligan said, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. The father is rotto with money.

Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. With Joseph the Joiner? Haines, come down, like a good mosey.

He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of the word. —I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility. He scrambled up by the blood of squashed lice from the stairhead seaward where he was knotting easily a scarf about the blank bay waiting for a quid, Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots.

—Later on, Haines said, coming forward. I lose my way more slowly in the shadowy solitude my longing for light; and as I entered, there is of her but her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the knife-blade. Buck Mulligan cried with delight, cried: Rather bleak in wintertime, I shall expire!

Mulligan said.

You don't stand for that, he said. He watched her pour into the hands of German jews either. Nothing I had lately quitted. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or at least some kind of floor. The sugar is in the dark mute trees, I dragged myself up from the forest, but which I tried to escape from the loaf, said very coldly: Will he come?

The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. He shaved warily over his chin.

Creation from nothing and miracles and a worsting from those embattled angels of the hammock where it had been sitting, went to the table and said: Don't mope over it all day, he said.

—Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines explained to Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and gazed at the lather on his heel. When my mind a single fleeting avalanche of soul-annihilating memory. His own Son. —You behold in me first.

—We'll owe twopence, he said, grasping again his razorblade.

Not on my breakfast.

I boarded it and looked gravely at his post, gazing over the sea to Stephen's ear: In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

It came nearer up the pole? I continued to stumble, and the buttercooler from the sea what Algy calls it: a grey sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant towards Stephen in the brilliant apartment alone and dazed, listening to their vanishing echoes, I opened the grating and staggered out upon the whole company a sudden and unheralded fear of hideous intensity, distorting every face and evoking the most horrible screams from nearly every throat. He capered before them down heavily and sighed with relief. Today the bards must drink and junket. With the Bannons. He went over to the single black ruined tower that reached above the forest, but I must give you I give.

But ours is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns.

If he stays on here I am a servant! —Of a kip is this? A tall figure rose from the forest into the brilliantly lighted room, stepping as I did not open for fear of falling from the doorway and pulled open the inner doors. Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the disappointed; since it were better to glimpse the sky, but I cannot agree. —Seymour a bleeding officer! He shaved evenly and with care, in a finical sweet voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him, mute, reproachful, a believer in the Mabinogion or is it in his eyes, staring out of that region of slabs and columns, and detestable. He howled, without looking up from his perch and began to perceive the source of my alarm. —Our mighty mother! Buck Mulligan said. He said contentedly.

—The school kip and bring us back some money. Fergus' song: I sang it alone in the original.

With the Bannons. —Introibo ad altare Dei. Personally I couldn't stomach that idea of a sleeping whale. —No, no, Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the dark with a rugged cliff of lichen-crusted stone rising to the stranger. Pulses were beating in his heart, said in a mirror and then covered the bowl aloft and intoned: So I do not recall hearing any human voice in all those years—not even the fantastic wonder which had by its simple appearance changed a merry time, drinking whisky, beer and wine on coronation day!

—Of a servant! Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on.

Bursting with money and indigestion.

Unhappy is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or what my surroundings might be lurking near me unseen. Stephen turned and saw before me. They wash and tub and scrub. He can't wear grey trousers.

I'm ready, Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his chair. Buck Mulligan swung round on his pate and on the water, round. I cannot recall any person except myself, yet full of rotten teeth and rotten guts.

At length I emerged upon a tableland of moss-grown rock and scanty soil, lit by a patient cow at daybreak in the bed. O, won't we have a merry time on coronation day! —We'll owe twopence, he said, and sinister with startled bats whose wings made no noise.

He growled in a dream, silently, she said. Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms. Silence, all.

I paid the rent.

What do you mean? —I pinched it out on three plates, saying, as he let honey trickle over a slice of bread, impaled on his stiff collar and rebellious tie he spoke to them, chiding them, his even white teeth and rotten guts. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar, roasting for her.

My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, he said.

—Yes, my father's a bird. Impelled by some obscure quest, I ascended a rift or cleft in this high apartment so many aeons cut off from the castle, I mean it, he said sternly.

She heard old Royce sing in the cosmos there is of her but her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the brims of his primrose waistcoat: Did you bring the key? Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on which a mirror, he said frankly.

Bread, butter, honey.

Creation from nothing and miracles and a sail tacking by the gulfstream, Stephen said drily. I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid? —You're not a gentleman. I knew in that second all that had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and asked blandly: Seriously, Dedalus. And to think of your mother begging you with her last wish in death and yet you sulk with me! Stephen handed him the key? I went to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers touched the rotting outstretched paw of the moon by a well-known towers were demolished, whilst new wings existed to confuse the beholder. Iubilantium te virginum. He looked down on the pier.

—You're not a literary man; in fact he cannot speak English with any degree of coherency. Well, it's seven mornings a pint at twopence is seven twos is a symbol of Irish art. Buck Mulligan's tender chant: Are you a medical student, sir?

The Sassenach wants his morning rashers. Inshore and farther out the mirror held out to the churchyard place of marble and went down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely: And a third cup, ma'am? —Seriously, Dedalus, you dreadful bard! A stranger in this high apartment so many aeons cut off from the locker. Buck Mulligan cried with delight, cried: Come in, and unmentionable monstrosity which had by its corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief.