To save him...
“Fine. Now, will you tell me how to save Raphael?”
He stretches out a long arm and plucks an apple from a tree. “Of course.
To save him, we must learn exactly where they’re keeping him.”
“So, you don’t know where he is?”
“In my dreams, I see mere glimpses. He is in Auberon’s fortress, but it’s
a vast place, with countless dungeons, cells, and torture chambers. I need to
think.” He takes a bite of the apple, closes his eyes, and leans his head back
against the column.
I grit my teeth in frustration as I turn back to look at the banquet table.
He’s actually still got ancient wine in the decanters. Dust and snow cover
the plates and the faded gold tablecloth. There are food trays with silver
domes on them. I hate to think of what’s underneath them.
I have no idea what Mordred is doing right now. Eyes closed, he seems
deep in thought. He begins to hum, an eerie, haunting tune that raises the
hair on my nape and pulls my attention from the banquet table. The song is
uncanny, strangely familiar, and his body glows with silver. And for some
reason, I feel as if the tune is beckoning me closer.
After a while, movement catches my eye from above, and I glance up to
see a cloud of silver moths fluttering down from the ruined ceiling. As
Mordred hums, they twirl and dance in the air, their wings ignited by the
slate-silver moonlight. Mordred holds out his hand, and a moth lands on his
palm.
He opens his eyes and clamps his hand into a fist, crushing it. The rest
of the moths scatter, flitting away from him. He opens his hand again, and
my breath hitches. On his palm is a jeweled silver moth, its wings decorated
with tiny, sparkling stones.
“Take it,” he says.
I take it from his palm, a lifeless moth made of metal.
“This moth will be my ears and my eyes. Carry it into Auberon’s
But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo.Kendime Dair
Zihnim ağrıyordu, ruhumda iç kanama vardı. En önemlisi kamburdum, sevilmemiştim, hayatım yalanlar üzerine kurulmuştu ve çirkindim.
Her çiçeğin bir mevsimi, her kitabın bir zamanı vardır. Haziranın tadını yeni hikâyelerle çıkarın.
“Sonya and Mac had some good substitutes for love songs. I guess I don’t like songs about love that much.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t really…They don’t feel real.”
She gestured to “Your Song” by Elton John, the bride’s processional. “It’s like ‘I wrote you this song to tell you I love you. By the way, I also hope to make millions off of it, so thanks, sweetheart.’ It feels very transactional.” She glanced up at him, and he tilted his head, watching her.
She continued, “I guess I like ‘Creep’ because it’s like, ‘I’m a weirdo and you ran out on me; at least I ought to make money off of it.’ I don’t know. Maybe I’m not explaining it well.”
“Anti-love songs,” he said.
Her eyes snapped up to him. That’s exactly what she called them herself. “Yeah.”
One could simply resign oneself to all this and put it down to Russia’s age-old inability to get its act together. The telephone isn’t working, the fax has been switched o, there’s been a downpour, a snowstorm is expected, there’s been a blizzard of bureaucratic paper. But what if someone really does need the state to protect them from some weirdo with a grudge?
bazen pili bitmiş oyuncak bebek gibi hareketsiz kalıyom
The majority of these women are getting through each day with an often sophisticated set of compensatory behaviours, personas and clever strategies for avoiding certain situations without anyone knowing. Their ability to do this is testament to an extraordinary resilience and sometimes stubborn determination not to ‘fail’ or be ‘outed’ as a ‘weirdo’. Unfortunately, these efforts can come at a price: exhaustion, breakdown and other mental health issues are commonly mentioned by these women.
“Listen, I’m the freak. I’m the weirdo. I’m the troublemaker. I start fights. I let people down. Don’t make Finch mad, whatever you do. Oh, there he goes again, in one of his moods. Moody Finch. Angry Finch. Unpredictable Finch. Crazy Finch. But I’m not a compilation of symptoms. Not a casualty of shitty parents and an even shittier chemical makeup. Not a problem. Not a diagnosis. Not an illness. Not something to be rescued. I’m a person.”
