epic

Reflections of the battlements shimmered in the deep green moat, casting an image of enduring strength, an image that defied the very siege of time.

In the beginning there was only Darkness.

Careful, mother, or you could end up dangling in another's webs.

Like seduction, the Priestess took poisoning to an art form.

Most tales carry a kernel of truth, else they're soon forgotten.

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory _ this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.

His stories were not always new, but there was in the telling of them a special kind of magic. His voice could roll like thunder or hush down into a zepherlike whisper. He could imitate the voices of a dozen men at once; whistle so like a bird that the birds themselves would come to him to hear what he had to say; and when when he imitated the howl of a wolf, the sound could raise the hair on the backs of his listeners' necks and strike a chill into their hearts like the depths of a Drasnian winter. He could make the sound of rain and of wind and even, most miraculously, the sound of snow falling.

I remember the great feeling of sadness to have left many of our brothers behind in a foreign land, but as I sat on the rowing bench, alongside Hengist and Yffi, as the Famous Horse sailed over the gentle waves, I couldn't help but feel excited of what was to come. Yet none of us could have predicted that we were sailing towards a head -on-collision with the Roman General, Flavius Aëtius and his Hun allies, where Hengist and I would come face to face with the legendary Siegfried the Dragon Slayer and the one they call Attila the Hun!

Whether or not the fame of Gilgamesh of Uruk had reached the Aegean _ and the idea is attractive _ there can be no doubt that it was as great as that of any other hero. In time his name became so much a household word that jokes and forgeries were fathered onto it, as in a popular fraud that survives on eighth-century B.C. tablets which perhaps themselves copy an older text. This is a letter supposed to be written by Gilgamesh to some other king, with commands that he should send improbable quantities of livestock and metals, along with gold and precious stones for an amulet for Enkidu, which would weigh no less that thirty pounds. The joke must have been well received, for it survives in four copies, all from Sultantepe.

I have one dream: I want to get my jet pilot license, and take my jet to 40 000 feet, look down, and realise how small we are. Not for the kick of the G's but just to get the feeling of just for once flying above humanity.

For Honor and the Octagon!

Gareth Miller grabbed the beer first, then the hotdog, because if there__ one thing you don__ want to be caught dead without at these sorts of events it__ beer. The hotdog was strictly for show, a prop, a way of blending in.Burst of static in his right ear: __-man, you read me? What__ yo_ twenty, dawg?__areth departed the concession stand, stopped, looked down at his hands, and tossed the hotdog into the first trash receptacle he saw. Raising his wrist to his mouth, he spoke into the cuff of his long-sleeved tee. __oncession stand, Section B. Over.__llowing his hand to linger by his chin, he gingerly scratched his cheek as if he had meant to do it all along. The same voice: __o, I__ in position. Ready when you is.__areth cringed while crossing the wide concourse, checking both directions. The giant hallway was the main drag of a ghost town, its only residents a solitary custodian sweeping debris into a portable waste bin and the concession crew to his rear.

Life was a destiny waiting to be seized.

Fiction is entertaining. Nonfiction is epic.

In this life at least,Our fate is rarely epic.Maybe just as well,Impervious heroes we are not_

The wise will admire you. The wishful will envy you. The weak will hate you. This is the reality for those who dare to be epic.

Death, you know, keeps secrets better even than a guilty Roman.

In fairy tales the evil characters disappear or die, in reality, evil spreads while you wait for your hero on a horse, only to realise the sword to save yourself was always in your hand...