You know that euphemism, she’s expecting? It’s apt. The birth of a baby, so long as it’s healthy, is something to look forward to. It’s a good thing, a big, good, huge event. And from thereon in, every good things, too,” I added hurriedly, “but also, you know, first steps, first dates, first places in sack races. Kids, they graduate, they marry, they have kids themselves- in a way, you get to do everything twice. Even if our kid had problems,” I supposed idiotically, “at least they wouldn’t be our same old problems... ” (22)

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.

The education of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not take so much care of instructing them in letters, as in forming their minds and manners aright; they use all possible methods to infuse, very early, into the tender and flexible minds of children, such opinions as are both good in themselves and will be useful to their country, for when deep impressions of these things are made at that age, they follow men through the whole course of their lives, and conduce much to preserve the peace of the government, which suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise out of ill opinions.

I'm sorry," I heard him say again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden blur of movement as he slid out of his seat, left some bills for the breakfast he wouldn't eat, and walked away. And as he did, I thought again of those mornings in the hallway at school, way back in ninth grade. Everything had started in such sharp detail, each aspect pronounced and clear. Obviously, endings were different. Harder to see, full of shapes that could be one thing or another, with all the things that you were once so sure of suddenly not familiar, if they were even recognizable at all.

It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!

He could not have faced her right then. He had started to sense their relationship was over, that she wanted more than he could ever give her. They hardly saw each other any longer, had nothing much to discuss, and had even ceased doing the one thing they were good at. Still, to smell the sheets where she had lain brought him a certain peace, lulling him to sleep under the veil of her perfume. He dreamed they were married, running beneath a flurry of white rose petals, and then a door slammed shut, and suddenly he was awake. He was back at Cedar House, and it was night and the room was dark.

Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood. The moment it tries to be anything else it becomes cheap, puerile, and unconvincing. Prime emphasis should be given to subtle suggestion - imperceptible hints and touches of selective associative detail which express shadings of mood and build up a vague illusion of the strange reality of the unreal. Avoid bald catalogues of incredible happenings which can have no substance or meaning apart from a sustaining cloud of colour and symbolism.

Anne has small superstitions which she uses to dispel anxieties. For instance, if she can make it to the fourth stain on the carpet by the time the elevator door closes, that means Nate has thought positively about her today, and there is a future where they know each other. It becomes a one-sided competition when a negative consequence is imagined: if she cannot touch two different kinds of tile with her feet by the time the toilet flushes, that means she said something crucially “wrong” in an email, and Nate will never contact her again. She doesn't keep track of which side is winning.

People say I talk slowly. I talk in a way sometimes called laconic. The phone rings, I answer, and people ask if they’ve woken me up. I lose my way in the middle of sentences, leaving people hanging for minutes. I have no control over it. I’ll be talking, and will be interested in what I’m saying, but then someone—I’m convinced this what happens—someone—and I wish I knew who, because I would have words for this person—for a short time, borrows my head. Like a battery is borrowed from a calculator to power a remote control, someone, always, is borrowing my head.

Dawn cackles as she guides me through the all-glass porch. Thinner, paler Reina shuffles about behind Dawn, watching as I slip my boots off. Although she tries to hide her hands, her fingers flicker nervously. I place my boots neatly on the floor of the porch beside the other pairs in the shadows under the coats. Music drifts through to us from a distant room – it’s the Beach Boys’ California Dreamin’. Dawn looks at me and I smile – they’ve put the record on for me. Dawn nods along happily. ‘Hear you’re a surfer boy!’ she says and she mimics riding a wave.

I had forgotten what fiction was to me as a boy, forgotten what it was like in the library: fiction was an escape from the intolerable, a doorway into impossibly hospitable worlds where things had rules and could be understood; stories had been a way of learning about life without experiencing it, or perhaps of experiencing it as an eighteenth-century poisoner dealt with poisons, taking them in tiny doses, such that the poisoner could cope with ingesting things that would kill someone who was not inured to them. Sometimes fiction is a way of coping with the poison of the world in a way that lets us survive it.

Don't worry I won't embarrass you. I'm just going to check out hisfriends. Maybe his grades and definitely his track record with the ladies.”“Jackson Ryan Taylor, I swear to whatever holy being there maybe thatI will personally rip you a...”“Whoa, calm down. She's violent,” he whispered only for Danny. “Can't Ibe concerned?”“Yes, so long as you keep your mouth shut.”“What?”“Not a word, Jack. I mean it.”“Moira...”“Not a word!”I stormed out of the bathroom and that was the end of thatconversation

Picture this broad: 22 going on 18. Half the guys in my class would have given their left testicle to date her. This cupcake is the guidance counselor the principal has assigned me. Miss Boyle is her name. We all call her “Miss Bubbly Water.” Imagine the teasing I have to endure from my friends. Not to mention what it’s like, sitting across from this Barbie Doll every Thursday afternoon, watching her cross and uncross her legs, while she’s lecturing me about—get this: “staying focused.” Right! My pants are on fire, and she’s handing me a crash course in Psych 101!

I went to say no, but I winced as I pulled my tooth out of my lip.I was absolutely hopeless. In a two minute period my front curls hadstarted to go straight due to my constant brushing them behind my earsand I was pretty sure my lip was bleeding. Frustrated I pushed myself off ofthe couch with a huff and walked around the glass coffee table to head forthe kitchen.“I've made you angry.”“No.”Darren got up and cut me off in the middle of the room. “Yes, I did.You're angry with me.”“No, not with you.”“Then what's wrong?”“I'm angry with myself.

That's what scares me the most, Paul. That I'll just pass through life and all the people I know will just disappear, without a trace, without me ever telling them how much they mean to me, no matter how small the time spent was or how great the friendship was. That they'll be gone and they'll forget me and I'll end up with nothing."I saw in my head Charley laughing, Charley sticking his head out the window and screaming, Charley playing a video game so intensely he was a foot from the screen. Moments flashed before my eyes in a quick, unrelenting sequence. I shook my head. "I know. Believe me, I know.