They say Jesus Kristus was untouched.You learn it in school, you hear it from parents, from grandparents—from them especially—from friends, and from preachers. You read it in the Bible: Jesus Kristus was the first to, and the only one ever to, escape, ascend, transcend, what have you, the Storm. He was the first ever to rise above it unscathed, as they like to put it on the late-night TV preacher-shows, especially now with a new Storm approaching, although unscathed means the same ...

There is a visual suggestion. Not much more than an unexpected movement of the air, a fluttering in the corner of his eye.Perhaps not even that—it was more like a barky whisper as he strode past the old tree on his left, a gentle tap on his shoulder that didn't register for a few more steps: words, it said, words carved here in this bark.At that he stopped and turned. He looked back, then up; took the tree in. An oak it was, old and grand and mum, as if denying having said ...

Sussex nights in early July do not stay dark for long, and by four o'clock gray creeps up on you from under bushes and from behind walls and soon you can easily make out shapes and features again. Half an hour later, it's as good as day.We had stayed up talking right on through the night against a shared, and much enjoyed backdrop of Joni Mitchell, Stealers Wheel, Ralph McTell, and even some George Frideric Handel, sustained by deeply held and shared beliefs. It was timeless talk. ...

The day before his execution, I saw my dad for the next to last time.I had never seen him this thin, nor this unshaven. In fact, I can't for the life of me ever remember him unshaven. Yet, here in his cell, with only a day to go—less than a day, now, more like twenty hours (not even that) till the blessed event, as he liked to call it—the gray stubble was probably a week old.It had been a while. For months, now, he had refused all visitors, and not even the Warden, apparent...

He sleeps in a small grass hut. Its floor is smooth ground, is hard dry mud trod and trod again by feet coming, going, coming, going, and sometimes staying.The hut contains nothing but empty space and a yellow and green mat of woven grass, still fresh and with a scent of field, serving as his bed. This mat is light and easy to roll up and stow away or to carry. Although it is thin he sleeps well on it and he does not wake sore.This morning was no exception: when he woke he ...

The new blade, one of a sharp twin pair, slices skin and lets blood out. There's hardly even a sting at first, before the foamy shaving cream turns pink, then red, and here's the sting, for real now, as if let loose by blood. Foam redder still. It's a pretty deep cut."Damn."His right hand passes the razor to his left then dives into a blue box of paper napkins by the basin and brings one—two actually, they tend to cling together—out. He presses them against his skin. Holds ...

Before the beginning of time there was no such thing as surprise.By the way, by the "beginning of time," I mean the beginning of this time, the one that we're now busy living and dying and doing things in, the one we're currently complaining about. There may well have been other times, you understand—there quite likely were, in fact—with their own beginnings and endings and complaints, but our time, the one going on right now and the one we are concerned with here, knows nothing of...

This never happens to plumbers.The plumber's world makes sense. It's all about water and gravity and slanting pipes. You channel the water in, you channel it back out. You slant the pipes earthward a little. Not much, just enough for the water to head in the right direction. Gravity does most of the work.Mine is not a plumber's world and my world makes no sense. Marie is on the floor and my knuckles hurt.The plumber has an easy life. Copper pipes bring water in, cop...

Arthur Thelonious Sherry of 46 Rexford Circle, Birchdale, Maine, was doing tax battle again. That is to say, not he personally but by way of Waynemore Bland, his accountant of many years: a 43-year-old man who still lived at home with his mother, and who had lost none of his hair and made a point of wearing it long to prove it.Arthur Sherry, who was losing his (no doubt about that) and wore it cropped to hide, or at best obscure, that fact, now sat in Bland's deep visitor's armchai...

Now, I have only three left.I had seven, the seven Reri gave me. I hid these where I thought they would never find them, but they are ferrets and have found four of them so far. Four, and now I have only three left.They can come at any time but they cannot hurt me.By law they can search any Reader's place anytime they wish, and they do. And I know they will come and search my place again and again, that they will keep looking until they are certain I have none left.

I am a blade of grass. I live in a field of blades of grass.My name is Blade.So is the name of every other blade of grass in this field, for we are all brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and cousins and cousins of cousins, and we are all of us children of First Blade.And we are all one with the field and the field is all one with us. That is why I am never alone, and that is why I am always alone. That is why talking to my brother ne...

I attempted suicide in 1965. I wasn't very good at it.For one, while I have since learned that the lethal dose of regular 75 mg aspirins lies on the far side of 500 tablets, I attempted my lethal feat with 121 of the little darlings (yes, I kept a tally).For two, I did lose my nerve late that fatal afternoon, and alerted my dad to my Bayeresque overindulgence.This is not to say that this was not an interesting exercise, it was. I was sincere in my banging on that da...