Sunday, 30 July 2023

THE STORY OF A LOVER

 



THE STORY OF A LOVER

By Hutchins Hapgood
Chapter One
I was thirty years old when I saw her for the first time. We did not speak, we were not introduced, but I knew that I must meet her; I knew that love which had hitherto been gnawing in my imagination and my senses, had found an object. I fell in love at first sight. She did not see me, and I sometimes think she has never seen me since, although we are married and have lived together for fifteen years. Life had prepared me to love. I was born sensitive and passionate, and had acquired more emotion than I was endowed with. I had acquired it partly through ill-health and ignorance as a lad, and partly through an intense sex[1]imagination to which I habitually and gladly yielded. My boyhood was filled with brooding, warm dreams, and partial experiences, always unsatisfied, and leaving a nature more and more stirred, more and more demanding the great adventure. Then, in youth and early manhood, a student, a traveller, experiences came rich enough in number. The mysterious beauty and terrible attraction that woman has for the adolescent was not even relatively satisfied by my many adventures. Each left me more unsatisfied than before. My hunger for profound relationship grew so strong that all my ideas of beauty, in art, in life and in nature, seemed to be a mere comment, a partial explanation, of that which was a flame in my soul.....
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Tuesday, 25 July 2023

ACCEPTABLE RISK by Ronin Cook

 


ACCEPTABLE RISK

BY ROBIN COOK

(NY TIMES BESTSELLER}

 

Spurred on by the penetrating cold, Mercy Griggs snapped her riding crop above the back of her mare. The horse picked up the pace, drawing the sleigh effortlessly over the hard-packed snow. Mercy snuggled deeper into the high collar of her sealskin coat and clasped her hands together within her muff in a vain attempt to shield herself from the arctic air. It was a windless, clear day of pallid sunshine. Seasonally banished to its southern trajectory, the sun had to struggle to illuminate the snowy landscape locked in the grip of a cruel New England winter. Even at midday long violet shadows extended northward from the trunks of the leafless trees. Congealed masses of smoke hung motionlessly above the chimneys of the widely dispersed farmhouses as if frozen against the ice blue polar sky. Mercy had been travelling for almost a half hour. She’d come southwest along the Ipswich Road from her home at the base of Leach’s Hill on the Royal Side. She’d crossed bridges spanning the Frost Fish River, the Crane River, and the Cow House River and now entered into the Northfields section of Salem Town. From that point it was only a mile and a half to the town centre. But Mercy wasn’t going to town. As she passed the Jacobs’ farmhouse, she could see her destination. It was the home of Ronald Stewart, a successful merchant and ship owner. What had drawn Mercy away from her own warm hearth on such a frigid day was neighbourly concern mixed with a dose of curiosity. At the moment the Stewart household was the source of the most interesting gossip. Pulling her mare to a stop in front of the house, Mercy eyed the structure. It certainly bespoke of Mr. Stewart’s acumen as a merchant. It was an imposing, multi-gabled building, sheathed in brown clapboard and roofed with the highest-grade slate. Its many windows were glazed with imported, diamond-shaped panes of glass. Most impressive of all were the elaborately turned pendants suspended from the corners of the second-floor overhang. All in all the house appeared more suited to the centre of town than to the countryside. Confident that the sound of the sleigh bells on her horse’s harness had announced her arrival, Mercy waited. To the right of the front door was another horse and sleigh, suggesting that company had already arrived. The horse was under a blanket. From its nostrils issued intermittent billows of vapor that vanished instantly into the bone-dry air. Mercy didn’t have long to wait. Almost immediately the door opened and within the doorframe stood a twenty-seven-year-old, raven-haired, green-eyed woman whom Mercy knew to be Elizabeth Stewart. In her arms she comfortably cradled a musket. From around her sides issued a multitude of children’s curious faces; unexpected social visits in isolated homes were not common in such weather. "Mercy Griggs," called the visitor. "Wife of Dr. William Griggs. I’ve come to bid you good day." "~’Tis a pleasure, indeed," called Elizabeth in return. "Come in for some hot cider to chase the chill from your bones." Elizabeth leaned the musket against the inside doorframe and directed her oldest boy, Jonathan, age nine, to go out to cover and tether Mrs. Griggs’ horse. With great pleasure Mercy entered the house, and, following Elizabeth’s direction, turned right into the common room. As she passed the musket, she eyed it. Elizabeth, catching her line of sight, explained: "~’Tis from having grown up in the wilderness of Andover. We had to be on the lookout for Indians all hours of the day." "I see," Mercy said, although a woman wielding a musket was apart from her normal experience. Mercy hesitated for a moment on the threshold of the kitchen and surveyed the domestic scene, which appeared more like a school-house than a home. There were more than a half dozen children. On the hearth was a large, crackling fire that radiated a welcoming warmth. Enveloping the room was a mixture of savoury aromas: some of them were coming from the kettle of pork stew simmering on its lug pole over the fire; others were rising from a large bowl of cooling corn pudding; but most were coming from the beehive oven built into the back of the fireplace. Inside, multiple loaves of bread were turning a dark, golden brown. "I hope in God’s name I am not a bother," Mercy said.....

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Tuesday, 18 July 2023

BEST DIVORCE LETTER EVER


BEST DIVORCE LETTER EVER (author unknown)

Dear Wife,
I’m writing you this letter to tell you that I’m leaving you forever. I’ve been a good man to you for 7 years & I have nothing to show for it. These last 2 weeks have been hell ... Your boss called to tell me that you quit your job today and that was the last straw. Last week, you came home and didn’t even notice I had a new haircut, had cooked your favourite meal, and even wore a brand-new pair of silk boxers. You ate in 2 minutes and went straight to sleep after watching all of your soaps. You don’t tell me you love me anymore; you don’t want sex or anything that connects us as husband & wife. Either you’re cheating on me or you don’t love me anymore; whatever the case, I’m gone.
Your Ex-Husband

PS don’t try to find me. Your SISTER, Carla, & I are moving away to West Virginia together! Have a great life!
.
.
.
Dear Ex-Husband
Nothing has made my day more than receiving your letter. It’s true you & I have been married for 7 years, although a good man is a far cry from what you’ve been. I watch my soaps so much because they drown out your constant whining and griping, too bad that doesn’t work. I DID notice when you got a haircut last week, but the 1st thing that came to mind was ‘You look just like a girl!’ Since my mother raised me not to say anything if I can’t say something nice, I didn’t comment. And when you cooked my favourite meal, you must have gotten me confused with MY SISTER, because I stopped eating pork 7 years ago. About those new silk boxers, I turned away from you because the $49.99 price tag was still on them, and I prayed it was a coincidence that my sister had just borrowed $50 from me that morning. After all of this, I still loved you & felt we could work it out. So, when I hit the lotto for 10 million dollars, I quit my job & bought us 2 tickets to Jamaica. But when I got home you were gone ... Everything happens for a reason, I guess. I hope you have the fulfilling life you always wanted. My lawyer said that the letter you wrote ensures you won’t get a dime from me. So take care.

Your Free and Rich EX-Wife

PS … I hope you and my SISTER have a great life.
By-The-Way, did she tell you her name use to be 'Carl' before her operation?....


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His Sixteenth Face


His Sixteenth Face

By Stephanie Van Orman

 

“What's going on?” I whispered, startled in the darkness. “I'm holding you,” Christian explained evenly. Though he was familiar, the feeling of his arms around me was not. He lifted me clean off the bed as if I weighed nothing. In the rocking chair, he settled my head into the space between his chin and his shoulder. His breath feathered down my nose to settle on the moist curves of my lips. I had to remain calm. If I showed I was excited, even with my heartbeat, the monitors would show it, the nurses would come in and the moment would be lost. I had to stay steady, pretend his warmth, his shape and his closeness meant nothing. “Why would you do that?” I asked. Though I had never been given this much of him, already I wanted more—his voice. “Did the doctor tell you something about my surgery that he didn't tell me?” “No,” Christian said, brushing my hair away from my face. It was the blackest blue in the hospital room, but there were dashes of light everywhere: my monitors blinking my condition, the lights from the building across the courtyard, and the strip of yellow light under the door. We swayed in a waltzing rhythm in the rocking chair, almost like we were dancing. The chair was in the room because I was still young enough to be in the paediatric wing of the hospital. When I looked at it, I tried not to think about all the dead children who had been rocked, and felt their last moment of comfort, before they took those fateful steps into the world of spirits. I thought about the bodies they left behind and wondered how long children had continued to be rocked, even after they had left their fragile bodies behind. Christian, my would-be guardian angel, held me like a princess in that chair, close to my monitors. He had never rocked me before, and certainly never visited me in the middle of the night. He should not have been there outside visiting hours, but he was there—the greatest gift I had ever been given. Nights alone in the hospital were the hardest. How many times had I dreamed someone was there with me, holding me? I shivered in my happiness. He pulled a blanket over my body and tucked me in like a little girl, except I was being tucked into his arms—enjoying every moment. He smelled expensive and like the grown-up man he was. He was not holding me because of my girlish dreams. He simply didn't have the heart to stay away. Teenage girls dying of heart disease were irresistible, in that they couldn't be left alone. His feelings for me could not be what I wished. He sat in the chair and held me, a girl so perfectly on the cusp of womanhood, and rocked me as if to lull me to sleep. If I had been dying under ordinary circumstances, perhaps he would not have visited me after midnight. My tragedy was deeper than the death that loomed ahead of me. Three months before, my parents had both been killed in a car crash. It was a thoughtless accident. My mother had been driving my father on a slick rainy night and while applying her lipstick, she slammed into the support beams of a bridge. She killed them both instantly. The wreck never seemed real to me. The problem was that I had never had much to do with my incredibly rich parents. I was always away from them, with nannies or tutors who tried to teach me ballet and how to play the piano. I was only mediocre at any of these paid-for activities. My mother wasn't good at anything, except looking pretty, which she was skilled at beyond belief. Sadly, I contrived to look nothing like her….

 

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Friday, 14 July 2023

THE BROKEN CANDLE

 


THE BROKEN CANDLE
( by Liz Liles Wagoner)

"Tonight, I walked in from the store with my arms full and a brand new candle in my bag. As I struggled to get it all on the counter, one bag dropped and I heard the glass break. My brand new candle was ruined as the glass shattered. Frustrated, I was ready to throw the whole thing away. My husband refused to let me do so. “It will still light; it will still serve its’ purpose,” he stated.
Immediately, I began to argue back.... “But it’s broken and ugly and glass is everywhere. It’s just not the same.”
I walked away and when I came back, he had placed the candle on the counter and lit the wick.
My heart immediately was drawn to the light. How often do we do this in our own lives or with others? Things don’t turn out the way we want them to. Plans fail. Dreams shatter. Goals hit the floor. People break our hearts. And we are ready to throw the whole dang thing in the trash. Even though it can still light.... still shine.... still bring the fragrance of goodness. It just may not be pretty or in the package that we wanted or imagined.
Tonight, may we all be reminded that even in the brokenness and cutting edge of life, there is still goodness and purpose and light. We simply must be willing to not throw it all away and allow the redemption to take place. There are times that our story will simply speak a little louder and impact even more people when we are willing to allow the broken places of our life and story to shine for others to see and understand."

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Wednesday, 12 July 2023

OUR FREE E-BOOK LIBRARY IS NOW OPEN



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EXPECT LESS & ENJOY MORE



EXPECT LESS & ENJOY MORE
(author unknown)
Photograph by Karsten Thormaehlen

This 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coiffed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home yesterday. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.
After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. “I love it,” she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.
“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room …. just wait.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged, it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice;
I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away, just for this time in my life.”
She went on to explain, “Old age is like a bank account, you withdraw from what you’ve put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing.”
And with a smile, she said: “Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less, & enjoy more of every moment.

 

Monday, 10 July 2023

MRS GREENE'S GARDEN


MRS GREENE'S GARDEN
(author unknown)

Mrs. Greene lived on the 52nd floor of a high-rise apartment building. Mrs. Greene barely said a word to anyone and when she did, people privately wished she hadn’t, if you catch my drift.

Mrs. Greene wasn’t known for her lovely demeanour, but she sure was known for her lovely balcony garden that could be seen clearly all the way down on the ground floor.

Mrs. Greene loved to go out onto her balcony and tend to this beautiful garden of hers. And oh my, was it lush, with plants grown from cuttings she’d collected from nearly every garden she’d spent time in over the entirety of her existence.
Directly above Mrs. Greene’s apartment on the 53rd floor, lived Ms. Celia Tolliver and her six year old daughter, Sheila.

Celia Tolliver always wished for a garden like Mrs. Greene’s, but she sighed and settled for the barren slab of concrete that supported the couple chairs and table she’d managed to find the year before discarded on the curb.

Truth was, Celia Tolliver could barely find the time to do much else other than cook, clean, get her child to day care, go to work, pick her child back up, go home, play with her child, have a glass of wine, think about things and try to be grateful for what she did have more than what she didn’t.

One afternoon, Celia Tolliver and her daughter Sheila were out on their balcony enjoying a snack, sharing stories about their day, when her daughter noticed a flower peeking through the slats of the balcony fence. “Look, Mama!”

Her mama leaned down, and sure enough, a most beautiful flower was peeking through, a flower that had grown wild all the way from Mrs. Greene’s garden.
“Now don’t you pick that, Sheila,” her mama said. “That flower still belongs to Mrs. Greene.”

“Oh, Wow! Isn’t Mrs. Greene so kind to share her flowers!?”

Celia Tolliver smiled and kissed her daughter’s head, knowing full well that Mrs. Greene had definitely not shared her flowers on purpose.

This knowledge was culled from the only interaction she’d ever had with Mrs. Greene—the time she’d been so tired and distracted and accidentally got off on the 52nd floor and tried getting into Mrs. Greene’s apartment instead of her own. And though she’d apologized and tried explaining what happened, Mrs. Greene still called the police, insisting she’d been trying to break in.

No, Mrs. Greene was not sharing her flowers.
But she didn’t breathe a word about any of that to her daughter.
.
Time marched on, as it tends to do, and Mrs. Greene’s garden continued to grow. And grow. And grow.

“Why don’t you give some of these flowers away,” asked Mrs. Greene’s nurse who visited a couple times a week. “Before long, there won’t be room for you out here.”

“Why should I? They’re my flowers. The fruits of my labour. If other people want flowers, they should grow their own. I don’t do charity work.”
“Whatever you say, Mrs. Greene.”

“Besides, I enjoy them all.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’re finding some enjoyment, Mrs. Greene.”

What Mrs. Greene didn’t know was that her garden had not only grown thick, but it had continued to climb up the building, filling not only Celia Tolliver‘s balcony, but the balcony of the apartment above theirs. In fact, Mrs. Greene’s garden had grown from the 52nd floor all the way up to the 64th.
Not only were Celia Tolliver and Sheila enjoying sitting out on their balcony tending to all those beautiful flowers, but so were the neighbours above them. And above them.

But one afternoon, Sheila looked upset.
“What is it, sweetheart?” her mama asked.
“Well, Mrs. Greene has been so kind to share her flowers…”
“I guess so,” said her mama, smiling.

“And we’ve all been enjoying them, but we haven’t even said thank you to Mrs. Greene. Don’t you think we ought to say thank you, Mommy?
“You have a golden heart, Sheila.”

Celia Tolliver didn’t want to discourage her daughter’s kindness so she asked her daughter what she had in mind.
“I’ve decided I’m going to make her a bouquet!”

“A bouquet?! Don’t you think Mrs. Greene has enough flowers?”
“Yes, Mama, but has she ever received a flower from me? I don’t think so.”
So Sheila got busy making her flower arrangement and then insisted her mama call the neighbours upstairs and get them involved.

And by late afternoon, Celia Tolliver, Sheila, and several other children and their parents gathered on the 52nd floor carrying their armfuls of bouquets.
Sheila knocked on Mrs. Greene’s apartment door and waited as the parents looked at each other, sceptical and worried, hoping for the best.

When Mrs. Greene answered the door and saw all the children holding all those flowers, she looked confused. “You’ve got the wrong apartment,” she barked. But just as she was closing the door, Sheila interrupted.
“No, Mrs. Greene. We wanted to thank you for sharing your garden. We used to not have a single flower to enjoy, but you grew your garden big enough so we could all enjoy your flowers! And we decided to make you these bouquets as a gift. We arranged them especially for you!”

It took Mrs. Greene a very long moment to understand what was going on.
“My garden’s grown that big?” she asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Greene, Sheila said. “It’s grown straight up to the 64th floor!”
“You don’t say?”

Mrs. Greene looked startled. But then, as she began to look carefully at the children’s sweet faces, Mrs. Greene suddenly smiled, and felt something she hadn’t felt in many, many years, joy.

“Would you like to come in?” she asked softly. “I don’t have much to offer, but you’re more than welcome to come join me in my garden. I could tell you the stories of where each of these flowers first came from.”
Sheila was delighted, and so she and her mother, along with the other kids and their parents, joined Mrs. Greene in her garden.

“These right here are peonies from my grandmother’s house. Oh, I can still remember planting them with her. I remember the day she gave me a cutting. She told me if I took good care of it, it would never die... Oh, and these flowers were from the house I grew up in, before I had to go to the orphanage after both my parents grew ill. I remembered what my grandmother said, though, so I took cuttings from each flowering plant I loved best... And these flowers, these right here were from my first job at the candy shop. Oh, was that owner kind… I’ll never forget the way he used to let me take home whatever candy I wanted and never made me pay. Not once. And these flowers, these were from the garden of the house I lived in with my husband, before he was sent off to fight in the war and never came back…”

On and on Mrs. Greene shared as if she never shared before, and the children and their parents sat listening, mesmerized.

“I’m so sorry you’ve had so much sadness,” Celia Tolliver said, her eyes tearing.
“Thank you, dear. Funny, I don’t think I realized this until just now, but I suppose I was trying to take something beautiful with me from every place I’d ever been, so I could look back and remember the beauty and not just the heartache.”
“Thank you for sharing your memories with us,” Sheila said.

“You’re welcome, said Mrs. Greene. Thank you for helping me realize how much more meaningful it is to share what’s precious, instead of trying so hard to keep it safe just for myself.”
“We’ll take good care of your flowers, Mrs. Greene. And we’ll make sure to keep sharing your memories.”

“I know you will. And you’ll be making your own memories too!”
After that day, Mrs. Greene began to grow as many friends in her high-rise apartment building as she grew flowers. And they visited often and took the time to share with each other the things that mattered most.


 

"A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS MARKET, NOT"

"A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS MARKET, NOT" (author unknown) Is there anything less festive than the Christmas markets? Thousands of piss...