Waking Rose

There was a silence. Then Paul looked at Alex. 'She knows Chesterton.' 'She lives,' said Alex.

There are billions of men in the world, probably millions near my age. Maybe hundreds who are compatible with me. Maybe at least a dozen who would want to date me. There's got to be at least five on the continent whom I could probably marry. So why am I so hung up on this one guy?

I shall have twenty cats and talk to them all," she said, picking up the volume of poetry. "My cats and I shall have fish every day for dinner." Her imagination taking flight, she finished, dropping the book into the box, "And I shall memorize every line in this book and paint it in calligraphy on my living room walls.

Some scars never heal. And he sounds like he has a lot of them.' 'But Christ had scars too, even on His risen Body. Wounds in this life become glory in the next.

She couldn’t picture anyone falling madly in love with such a person as Fish. What a name, Fish...Fish: think cold, slippery, detached. Benedict: think dry scholarly monk from the Dark Ages. Denniston: think English preparatory school, stolid country squire. Nothing about his name sounded the least bit romantic.

Because I liked you better than it suits a girl to say, It irked you and I promised to throw the thought away To put the world between us, we parted stiff and dry 'Goodbye' and you: 'Forget me'. 'No fear I will' said I. Now here where clover whitens The dead man's knoll you pass And now tall flower to meet you Starts in the trefoiled grass Halt by the headstone naming the heart no longer stirred And say the girl that loved you Was one who kept her word.

The world was still a turbulent and uncertain place. And there were serpents. But serpents still make the world a place for adventures, Rose reminded herself.