And If Your Life Is A Suitable

There Was A Feeling, Not Sudden, But Complete, As Though I Had Been Given A Small Object To Hold Unseen In My Hands. Precious As Opal, Smooth As Jade, Weighty As A River Stone, More Fragile Than A Bird's Egg. Infinitely Still, Live As The Root Of Creation. Not A Gift, But A Trust. Fiercely To Cherish, Softly To Guard. The Words Spoke Themselves And Disappeared Into The Groined Shadows Of The Roof.

It Was One Of Those Strange Moments That Came To Him Rarely, But Never Left. A Moment That Stamped Itself On Heart And Brain, Instantly Recallable In Every Detail, For All Of His Life. There Was No Telling What Made These Moments Different From Any Other, Though He Knew Them When They Came. He Had Seen Sights More Gruesome And More Beautiful By Far, And Been Left With No More Than A Fleeting Muddle Of Their Memory. But These-- The Still Moments, As He Called Them To Himself-- They Came With No Warning, To Print A Random Image Of The Most Common Things Inside His Brain, Indelible.

I Know Why The Jews And Muslims Have Nine Hundred Names For God; One Small Word Is Not Enough For Love.

I Wasn't Used To Living Crowded Cheek By Jowl With Numbers Of Other People, As Was Customary Here. People Ate, Slept, And Frequently Copulated, Crammed Into Tiny, Stifling Cottages, Lit And Warmed By Smoky Peat Fires. The Only Thing They Didn't Do Together Was Bathe - Largely Because They Didn't Bathe.

I Will Find You," He Whispered In My Ear. "i Promise. If I Must Endure Two Hundred Years Of Purgatory, Two Hundred Years Without You - Then That Is My Punishment, Which I Have Earned For My Crimes. For I Have Lied, And Killed, And Stolen; Betrayed And Broken Trust. But There Is The One Thing That Shall Lie In The Balance. When I Shall Stand Before God, I Shall Have One Thing To Say, To Weigh Against The Rest." His Voice Dropped, Nearly To A Whisper, And His Arms Tightened Around Me. Lord, Ye Gave Me A Rare Woman, And God! I Loved Her Well.