Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  At Marta’s house, Lenny walked her to the door, though she told him it wasn’t necessary. She pulled out her key and put it in the lock, and she felt his stomach against her back, and he pushed against her. The world was dim under his shadow. His hand was on her arm, its coarse heat. She stiffened, like some stupid, frightened animal. She turned to him and looked up, and he was coming in for a kiss. She turned her head and his lips landed on her cheek, and she knotted her hand into a fist. “Thanks for the evening,” she said. “I enjoyed myself.” Lenny looked faintly stunned by what she had said. She opened the door and went into the dark of her apartment, and for a moment, just before the door closed completely, she was afraid he would stop it with his hand. She was afraid he’d push his way inside. She was afraid of him. “Yeah, see you around,” he said. And she heard his footsteps go down the walkway, thudding. The next day, Lenny was at her cubicle again. He asked her to come back to his place for a couple of beers, knock a few back. He lived not too far from her, he said, it turned out. He was close enough that she could walk back if she felt like it. It wasn’t far at all. Or, hey, if she got too drunk, she could stay over. Marta said that it wasn’t a good day, maybe. Lenny just put his thick arm on the top of her cubicle, stood there with his legs crossed and a look of sad, aspirational confidence. “Didn’t we have a good time last night? Didn’t we? Let’s do it again. Come over.” She said she’d think about it. But Lenny kept coming back, and so she went over there. Just for a few minutes. She went over there, and she brought a six-pack and she sat on his couch, which was so worn out that it almost swallowed her up the moment she sat on it. They watched a taped recording of the Daytona. They talked about the plant, about the boys. And Marta felt like she was in college again. She had not realized how few friends she had until that very moment. Or maybe she had realized it, in small bits here or there, but, sitting on Lenny’s couch, talking to him about things they both knew about, about the common matter that made up their lives, she was suddenly aware of how lonely she’d felt after college. Lenny caught her looking at him in that moment. She could see his face change. It opened. His eyes widened. He stopped talking. His smile turned shy. He leaned in and kissed her, and she bolted up from the couch. “No, Lenny. No. We can’t,” she said.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Milton’s gut drops. Tate leaps up, breathing hard. Abe watches him, perfectly still despite having been jarred suddenly into motion. Nolan hangs over him. He’s still holding the rock in his hands. It’s the size of an apple. His face is pale and smooth. Then Milton sees it all happen, as if at once: Tate rushing, Abe tumbling backward, Nolan reaching out to grab him, and that horrible, horrible burst of sound, a guttural roar, and then there is blood running along the edges of Abe’s face. It’s hard to tell where it’s coming from. His scalp? His nose? His eyes? His cheeks? Where, where is the source? It’s warm and slick, sticky as it oozes out of him, gathering into torrents that fill with dirt as he moans and writhes. Milton gets his sweater off and blots the blood the best he can. He tries to get Abe’s face clean. Abe’s eyes dart around quickly, in fear, in flight, in pain. He’s on the ground, laid out, twitching, convulsing, and the three of them are trying their best to get the bleeding under control, but they don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s hard to know, in the dark, with their clumsy hands, where to press to stop the insides from leaking out. Abe fights them, thrashes on the ground. Tate keeps muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” And Nolan’s straddling Abe to try to keep him still, saying, “Abe, please Abe, stop, chill, fuck, chill.” But it’s Milton with the sweater trying to find and plug the source of the blood. It’s Milton who eventually feels the loose plate of bone shifting under his scalp, and when he looks up, Nolan’s staring right at him, his pupils wide, as if he’s been suddenly thrust into the light from some vast, deep water. Abe’s hand lands on Milton’s arm again, his fingers stiff, his nails piercing Milton’s skin. Abe’s eyes widen, and his groans turn to something like the lowing of cattle. His eyes then roll to the back of his head, and he seizes one hard time, goes so still and rigid that for a moment, none of them dares to breathe, dares to do anything. They wait, holding on to Abe, as if that alone could bring him back to himself. He jerks again. Fills with motion, and they all exhale. Nolan turns to Tate and says, “Call a fucking ambulance.” Milton holds his sweater to Abe’s head, holds it as still as he can and tries, with his eyes squeezed shut, to imagine himself far away from all of this. From Abe and Tate, from Nolan, from his parents, from himself. Anywhere else. Anywhere else. • • •

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  It was the last summer they stayed with their grandparents. The last summer that her father was alive. So much had come to an end that summer. Grace should move to the bed, but she is so tired. She’s got one of her grandmother’s old blankets tossed over her legs. The window emits a cold chill that turns the room bluish in its light. She will regret falling asleep in this chair. Her body will torment her in the morning. But her legs refuse to cooperate. Her arms too heavy. She sinks low in the old chair and closes her eyes. She will rest a moment. Just a moment. She dreams of a boat going farther and farther into the distance. One of those rickety white boats out back, the kind she and Davis had taken across the pond, shouting and squealing so loud, they scared all the fish away. Such a boat had no purpose on the sea or a river, where the water was too wild and would rend it to pieces. She dreams of a boat going farther and farther into the distance, disintegrating all the way, leaving behind a trail like a comet, the shrapnel that a life leaves behind as it burns itself out. And now she feels herself beneath the weight of the invisible world, stuck. After all these years, stuck. She might have known it would happen, might have known to prepare herself for this, but she did not. Beyond the periphery of the dream, though her eyes are still closed, Grace feels suddenly that she is not alone. There is some sort of presence in the far corner of the room. Some barely there shift in the room’s air pressure, the impression of space being taken up. She cannot make her body move, cannot get her eyes to open. Instead, she turns the whole of her concentration toward the presence in the corner. It reaches back toward her, as if it were using her concentration to pull itself hand over hand in her direction. A sensation, heavy, dragging up the length of her leg, the quilt rumpling under this unseen force. She forces her eyes open with all her willpower. What is this, what is this, what is this, she chants to herself. The presence has always been amorphous. Her tongue is stuck to the roof her mouth, her throat full of static fuzz. She floats beneath the surface of her skin, staring at the ceiling, the white globe of the lamp overhead. The door creaks open. There is a change in the shape of the darkness as it lightens fractionally, insignificantly, but perceptibly, if only just so. There is another presence now, coming on from the distance, coming across the void toward her. She swallows thickly. Something is reaching for her, and there, suddenly, contact. Warmth like a human hand. MEAT They were lying in lionel’s bed again, facing each other.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Abe hisses, leans forward to inspect his hand, which must be hurting him now, the impact of it. Milton tenses, glances at Nolan, who is looking at them all as if from some vast distance, as if he’s already on the other side of what is to come and is looking at them with pity. Nolan leans forward and puts his chin in his hands. Milton feels a hot, hard knot press down against the back of his throat. “Pussy,” Abe says to Tate, who is not crying, just blotting the blood from his mouth with his fingertips. “Fuck you,” Tate says, spitting. “You can’t take a lick? One little slap and you’re bleeding like a pussy. Fuck.” “That’s enough,” Nolan says. “Oh, that’s enough.” “Abe,” Nolan says. “Abe. Listen to you. You’re a bigger faggot than Millie and Titty Tate both.” Heat fills Milton’s nostrils, and his vision momentarily blurs. He puts his knuckles into the bulk of his thigh and grunts. “Just a couple of little nigger fags,” Abe spits. The light from the fire is distant and inadequate. Milton leans forward to catch Abe by his throat. Abe’s eyes switch to him suddenly, widen, and then go slender with hatred. He smirks, the heft of his shoulders opening up. He’s leaning toward Milton, too. Their fingers brush, but before they can get a solid hold on each other, something hard strikes the back of Abe’s head and he gives a little jerk. The impact is dull, abbreviated. There and gone again, hardly discernible at all. Milton’s gut drops. Tate leaps up, breathing hard. Abe watches him, perfectly still despite having been jarred suddenly into motion. Nolan hangs over him. He’s still holding the rock in his hands. It’s the size of an apple. His face is pale and smooth. Then Milton sees it all happen, as if at once: Tate rushing, Abe tumbling backward, Nolan reaching out to grab him, and that horrible, horrible burst of sound, a guttural roar, and then there is blood running along the edges of Abe’s face. It’s hard to tell where it’s coming from. His scalp? His nose? His eyes? His cheeks? Where, where is the source? It’s warm and slick, sticky as it oozes out of him, gathering into torrents that fill with dirt as he moans and writhes. Milton gets his sweater off and blots the blood the best he can. He tries to get Abe’s face clean. Abe’s eyes dart around quickly, in fear, in flight, in pain. He’s on the ground, laid out, twitching, convulsing, and the three of them are trying their best to get the bleeding under control, but they don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s hard to know, in the dark, with their clumsy hands, where to press to stop the insides from leaking out. Abe fights them, thrashes on the ground. Tate keeps muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  His father believed in the optimal, and if you weren’t able to get to the highest level, then you were doing something for which you were not optimally suited. Good was an insult. Good was mediocre. And so, every lesson, Alek tried to be more than good. Every lesson, he tried to be perfect. Every position, every line, every angle, every turn, everything perfect. If he didn’t get something right, he tried harder, again and again, each time imagining himself going sharper and sharper, until he was so sharp he felt he might cut himself. It was a ferocity in him that he’d never known he possessed—a ferocity that gave him something—and for the first time, he felt his parents were proud of him, that he wasn’t just messing up. It was not an original story. Every ballet parent was a monster of ambition. Every ballet parent knew the terrible math. Only a few people got to be elite dancers. Everything else was just preparation for a time when dance would be something they used to do, a person they used to be. Starting ballet was like entering a second, more intense gravitational field. At any moment, an injury could end it all. Or the mind could snap and there you went, done, burned out, exhausted. A mass in his body meant that something had gone wrong, and if that was true, he might not be able to dance again. If he couldn’t dance again, what would he do? And there was the possibility that the mass meant cancer, and cancer might mean death. What would he tell his mother? What would she do? How could he tell her this, so soon after his father had died in a way that was somehow both slow and quick? He’d be betraying her. Alek climbed out of the bath and wrapped a towel around himself. He made a sandwich and sat on his bed. The afternoon was over. He had a view of the lake from his window. People were skating. Their voices were lost to him, but he could hear the sounds of their happiness. • • • THE REHEARSAL HALL was empty when he arrived. How long would it be before the evening class began? True, there were fewer people in the evening class because, unlike the morning class, attendance was not compulsory. Instead of one of the main ballet masters, evening class was led by a retired senior soloist. The evening class was mainly a way of working out things that had gone wrong during the day or had been skipped in the morning. It was during an evening class that he had first begun to cough, back in the summer. The cough had come on slowly, small little fits of tension in his chest, an irritating heat, a scratchiness in his throat and chest. At first, he didn’t notice at all, or he didn’t think very much of it.

• From Escape (2007)

  Rulon, who was shy and apparently almost stuttering, said, “Is Rebecca here?” One of the girls said, “Yes, she is, and she is right there.” She then pointed to the youngest sister in the room. That girl quickly exclaimed, “It’s not me, it’s her!” before pointing to someone else who looked way too young for marriage, even in the FLDS. Rulon looked red and embarrassed when he realized the game that was being played at his expense. Finally Rebecca stood up laughing and said, “Yes, I am here. I’m the one you have come for.” Rebecca was one of Merril’s and Ruth’s most beautiful daughters. She had long black hair and green eyes. She had a vibrant and engaging personality. But she was stunned by her arranged marriage, I later learned. She simply told Rulon that her sisters were heartbroken that she was leaving the family and couldn’t resist giving him a hard time. They were married the next day. I went home, eager to settle into the few quiet days of August that remained. When I had free time I would try to go over to my father’s home and help out with the children. Ever since my marriage, it had been difficult for my mother to adjust to having less help around the house. There were still nine small children at home. One slow, sultry day in August, my sixteen-year-old sister, Annette, offered to take the children on a picnic to a place we called Indian Bathtubs. It was about five miles from town where big rocks with holes in them caught the rainwater. It was peaceful and safe, the perfect place for a picnic with a lot of little children. My cousin Bonnie brought six of her siblings and Annette brought nine of hers. All fifteen children were loaded in the back of my father’s pickup truck and left for the day. The kids loved riding in the truck, even though the hot, dusty wind that blew across the desert plateau we lived on kicked up sand that stung their eyes and made a mess of their hair. Annette was driving, and Bonnie kept her eye on the children through the open window that faced the back of the truck. Suddenly the truck came over a crest on the road and hit a bump. Even though it wasn’t going too fast, the truck flipped when it hit an embankment of sand and landed with an enormous thud on top of several children. The children trapped under the truck were panicked and those who had been thrown from it were screaming in terror. The truck was smoking. Annette told me later she knew it was going to explode.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  10. Ingens exinde verberonem corripit trepidatio et in vieem humani coloris succedit pallor infernus, per- que universa membra frigidus sudor emanabat: tunc pedes incertis alternationibus commovere, modo hanc modo illam capitis partem scalpere, et ore semiclauso balbutiens nescioquas afannas effutire, ut eum.nemo prorsus a culpa vacuum merito crederet. Sed revalescente rursus astutia constantissime negare et accersere mendacii non desinit medieum. ‘Qui praeter iudicii religionem cum fidem suam coram lacerari vi- deret, multiplicato studio verberonem illum contendit redarguere, donec iussu magistratuum ministeria pub- lica contrectatis nequissimi servi manibus annulum ferreum deprehensum cum signo sacculi conferunt, quae comparatio praecedentem roboravit suspicionem. Nec rota vel equuleus more Graecorum -tormentis eius apparata iam deerant, sed offirmatus mira prae- sumptione nullis verberibus ac mne ipso quidem ‘succumbit igni. 490 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK X and sealed up the money; wherefore understanding that.he was brought present before you -this:day, I hastily commanded one of my servants to fetch the purse from my house, and here I bring it unto you to see whether he shall deny his own sign or no : and you may easily conject that his words are untrue, which he alleged against the young man touching the buying of the poison, considering he bought the poison himself." When the physician ‘had spoken these words, you might perceive how the traitorous knave changed his colour, becoming deathly pale from the natural complexion of'a man, how he sweated cold for fear, how he trembled in-every part of ‘his ‘body, how:he set one leg uncertainly before another, scratching - now this, now that part of his head, and began to stammer forth some foolish trifles, his lips but half open, whereby there was no person but would judge him.culpable. In the end when he was somewhat returned to his former subtilty, he began to deny all that was said, and stoutly affirmed that the physician did lie. ‘But the physician, besides the oath which he had sworn to give true judgement, perceiving that he was railed at and his words denied, did never cease to confirm his sayings and to disprove the varlet, till such time as the officers, by the command- ment of the judges, seized his hands ‘and took the ring wherewith he had sealed the. purse, and laid it by the seal thereon : and this augmented the suspicion which was conceived of him first. Howbeit neither the wheel northe rack nor any other torment (accord- ing to the use of the Grecians) which were done unto him nor stripes, no nor yet the fire, could enforce him to confess the matter, so obstinate and grounded ‘was hein his mischievous mind. 491 LUCIUS APULEIUS

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  THE TWENTY-NINTH CHAPTER How Apuleius was accused of Lechery by the boy. A few dayes after, the boy invented another mischiefe: For when he had sold all the wood which I bare, to certaine men dwelling in a village by, he lead me homeward unladen: And then he cryed that he was not able to rule me, and that hee would not drive mee any longer to the hill for wood, saying: Doe you not see this slow and dulle Asse, who besides all the mischiefes that he hath wrought already, inventeth daily more and more. For he espyeth any woman passing by the way, whether she be old or marryed, or if it be a young child, hee will throw his burthen from his backe, and runneth fiercely upon them. And after that he hath thrown them downe, he will stride over them to commit his buggery and beastly pleasure, moreover hee will faine as though hee would kisse them, but he will bite their faces cruelly, which thing may worke us great displeasure, or rather to be imputed unto us as a crime: and even now when he espyed an honest maiden passing by the high way, he by and by threw downe his wood and runne after her: And when he had throwne her down upon the ground, he would have ravished her before the face of all the world, had it not beene that by reason of her crying out, she was succored and pulled from his heeles, and so delivered. And if it had so come to passe that this fearefull maid had beene slaine by him, what danger had we beene in? By these and like lies, he provoked the shepheards earnestly against me, which grieved mee (God wot) full sore that said nothing. Then one of the shepheards said: Why doe we not make sacrifice of this common adulterous Asse? My sonne (quoth he) let us kill him and throw his guts to the dogges, and reserve his flesh for the labourers supper. Then let us cast dust upon his skinne, and carry it home to our master, and say that the Woolves have devoured him. The boy that was my evill accuser made no delay, but prepared himselfe to execute the sentence of the shepheard, rejoycing at my present danger, but O how greatly did I then repent that the stripe which I gave him with my heele had not killed him. Then he drew out his sword and made it sharp upon the whetstone to slay me, but another of the shepheards gan say, Verely it is a great offence to kill so faire an Asse, and so (by accusation of luxurie and lascivious wantonnesse) to lack so necessarie his labour and service, where otherwise if ye would cut off his stones, he might not onely be deprived of his courage but also become gentle, that we should be delivered from all feare and danger. Moreover he would be thereby more fat and better in flesh. For I know my selfe as well many Asses, as also most fierce horses, that by reason of their wantonnesse have beene most mad and terrible, but (when they were gelded and cut) they have become gentle and tame, and tractable to all use. Wherefore I would counsell you to geld him. And if you consent thereto, I will by and by, when I go to the next market fetch mine irons and tooles for the purpose: And I ensure you after that I have gelded and cut off his stones, I will deliver him unto you as tame as a lambe. When I did perceive that I was delivered from death, and reserved to be gelded, I was greatly sorrie, insomuch that I thought all the hinder part of my body and my stones did ake for woe, but I sought about to kill my selfe by some manner of meanes, to the end if I should die, I would die with unperished members.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Lionel had nightmares in which he fell through a slot of air, and he’d wake into another dream about being trapped under a thick sheet of ice. He’d cut his way down through sequential layers of dreams, waking into steadily more dire situations until at last he woke from a too-high bonfire or from wolves chasing him or from feeling lost in the woods at the base of an erupting volcano. The tachycardia left him winded just getting out of bed. He spent his time reading or lying under the gravity blanket his mother had brought him. When he’d been there a few weeks, he got permission to open his window. An aide unlocked it and explained that there was no screen and that he should look out for mosquitoes in the spring. The delicate security bars were impossible to remove. Unless you’re really persistent, the aide said with a wink. Even these had been designed. Their appearance. Their material. The interlocking mechanism that prevented their removal. All of it made to look not threatening. An affirming cage, Lionel thought. They wanted the people at the facility to feel affirmed by their captivity. He was there for six months, and then they cut him loose. His mother wanted him to stay with her, but Lionel wanted to go back to his life and his research. He wanted to be himself again. In Madison, Lionel was okay through the spring and the summer. He had a doctor, a routine. His leave of absence was ending, and he’d go back to the program in the new year. He was not yet himself, but he was getting there. Then, a couple weeks ago, he had been startled on the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon by a crystalline image of himself stepping out in front of a car and getting obliterated. The next day, he checked himself back into UW Hospital to be monitored. When the sense of danger passed, when he no longer thought he’d hurt himself, he went home. And there was the invitation from the host. Like a call from the world he’d left behind. People did try to kill themselves—some of them succeeded and some of them did not. • • •

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Milton tenses, glances at Nolan, who is looking at them all as if from some vast distance, as if he’s already on the other side of what is to come and is looking at them with pity. Nolan leans forward and puts his chin in his hands. Milton feels a hot, hard knot press down against the back of his throat. “Pussy,” Abe says to Tate, who is not crying, just blotting the blood from his mouth with his fingertips. “Fuck you,” Tate says, spitting. “You can’t take a lick? One little slap and you’re bleeding like a pussy. Fuck.” “That’s enough,” Nolan says. “Oh, that’s enough.” “Abe,” Nolan says. “Abe. Listen to you. You’re a bigger faggot than Millie and Titty Tate both.” Heat fills Milton’s nostrils, and his vision momentarily blurs. He puts his knuckles into the bulk of his thigh and grunts. “Just a couple of little nigger fags,” Abe spits. The light from the fire is distant and inadequate. Milton leans forward to catch Abe by his throat. Abe’s eyes switch to him suddenly, widen, and then go slender with hatred. He smirks, the heft of his shoulders opening up. He’s leaning toward Milton, too. Their fingers brush, but before they can get a solid hold on each other, something hard strikes the back of Abe’s head and he gives a little jerk. The impact is dull, abbreviated. There and gone again, hardly discernible at all. Milton’s gut drops. Tate leaps up, breathing hard. Abe watches him, perfectly still despite having been jarred suddenly into motion. Nolan hangs over him. He’s still holding the rock in his hands. It’s the size of an apple. His face is pale and smooth. Then Milton sees it all happen, as if at once: Tate rushing, Abe tumbling backward, Nolan reaching out to grab him, and that horrible, horrible burst of sound, a guttural roar, and then there is blood running along the edges of Abe’s face. It’s hard to tell where it’s coming from. His scalp? His nose? His eyes? His cheeks? Where, where is the source? It’s warm and slick, sticky as it oozes out of him, gathering into torrents that fill with dirt as he moans and writhes. Milton gets his sweater off and blots the blood the best he can. He tries to get Abe’s face clean. Abe’s eyes dart around quickly, in fear, in flight, in pain. He’s on the ground, laid out, twitching, convulsing, and the three of them are trying their best to get the bleeding under control, but they don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s hard to know, in the dark, with their clumsy hands, where to press to stop the insides from leaking out. Abe fights them, thrashes on the ground. Tate keeps muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” And Nolan’s straddling Abe to try to keep him still, saying, “Abe, please Abe, stop, chill, fuck, chill.”

• From Escape (2007)

  We only lived in Salt Lake City for a year, but it was a happy one. Mother took us to the zoo and to the park, where we’d play on the swings and slides. My father’s business was successful and expanding. But he decided we needed to move back to Colorado City, Arizona—a tiny, nondescript FLDS enclave about 350 miles south of Salt Lake City and a stone’s throw from Hildale, Utah, where I was born. The reason we went back was that he didn’t want my sister Linda attending a regular public school. Even though she would technically be going to a public school in Colorado City, most of the teachers there were FLDS and very conservative. In theory, at least, religion is not to be taught in public schools, but in fact it was an integral part of the curriculum there. When we returned to Colorado City, my father put an addition onto our house. There was more space to live in, but life became more claustrophobic. Mother changed. When we got up in the morning, she would still be sleeping. My father was on the road a lot now, so she was home alone. When we tried to wake her up, she’d tell us to go back to bed. She’d finally surface midmorning and come into the kitchen to make us breakfast and talk about how much she wanted to die. While she made us hot cornmeal cereal, toast, or pancakes she’d complain about having nothing to live for and how she’d rather be dead. Those were the good mornings. The really awful mornings were the ones when she’d talk about how she was going to kill herself that day. I remember how terrified I felt wondering what would happen to us if my mother killed herself. Who’d take care of us? Father was gone nearly all the time. One morning I asked my mother, “Mama, if a mother dies, what will happen to her children? Who will take care of them?” I don’t think Mother noticed my urgency. She had no idea of the impact her words had been having on me. I think she felt my question arose from a general curiosity about dying. Mother was very matter-of-fact in responding to me: “Oh, the children will be all right. The priesthood will give their father a new wife. The new wife will take care of them.” By this time I was about six. I looked at her and said, “Mama, I think that Dad better hurry up and get a new wife.”

• From Escape (2007)

  But change came incrementally. First women were told to change the way they wore their hair and the way they dressed. Several years after the raid, the practice of marriage by the prophet’s revelation began. Uncle Roy explained that because they had been so faithful to God, they were ready to receive a more exalted doctrine. Even though the changes were more restrictive, each was seen as a blessing from God. Obedience had saved them during the raid. Uncle Roy would continue to protect them and act in their best interest as long as they trusted him completely. Freedom was swapped for security. Each young girl was instructed to pray that the prophet would receive a revelation identifying the man she belonged to. We were taught that men and women made a covenant to marry each other before coming to earth. Falling in love with someone independently of the prophet’s revelation was absolutely forbidden, even if it was someone within the FLDS, because that would be a violation of the covenant made to God before birth. These new restrictions governing daily lives came from within the FLDS, not from without. After the Short Creek raid, everyone was even more willing to be obedient to the prophet in every area of their lives. People were very scared because they knew polygamy was against the law and that the state could come in at any time and arrest them again. Because it was believed that Uncle Roy had rescued them and saved them from losing their children, there was not a scintilla of doubt about his being a true prophet of God. This was when the unquestionable authority of the prophet really took hold. My grandmother held me in her lap and lovingly told me these stories. It was as if she was handing me maps, charting out the future that she knew I was destined to live. Child’s Play Let’s play apocalypse!” was the cry that set us off and running through the orchard of my uncle Lee’s house. The thrill of playing apocalypse as a six-year-old is unforgettable. It was magic, our version of hide-and-seek. We grew up knowing a lot about the end of the world. It had been drilled into us in Sunday school that we were God’s chosen people. When the end times came, we would be saved, the wicked killed, and the world destroyed. I was too young to question these ideas; they were my spiritual ABCs. Contrary to what most would think, we were not taught that the destruction of the world was a bad thing. Not at all. It was a good thing because it would usher in a thousand years of peace.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  I thought within me: “Haply he strikes only here through custom, and perchance scorneth to bear aught upward from other place in his talons.” Then meseemed that, having wheeled awhile, terrible as lightning, he descended and snatched me up far as the fiery sphere. There it seemed that he and I did burn, and the visionary flame so scorched that needs was my slumber broken. Not otherwise Achilles 4 startled, turning his awakened eyes around, and knowing not where he might be, when his mother carried him away sleeping in her arms from Chiron to Scyros, there whence the Greeks afterwards made him depart, than I startled, soon as sleep fled from my face, and I grew pale even as a man who freezes with terror. Alone beside me was my Comfort, and the sun was already more than two hours high, 5 and mine eyes were turned to the sea. “Have no fear,” said my Lord, “make thee secure, for we are at a good spot: hold not back, but put out all thy strength. Thou art now arrived at Purgatory; see there the rampart that compasseth it around; see the entrance there where it seems cleft. Erewhile, in the dawn which precedes the day, when thy soul was sleeping within thee upon the flowers wherewith down below is adorned, came a lady and said: ‘I am Lucy, 6 let me take this man who sleepeth, so will I prosper him on his way.’ Sordello remained and the other noble forms. She took thee, and as day was bright, came on upward, and I followed in her track. Here she placed thee, and first her fair eyes did show to me that open entrance; then she and sleep together went away.” As doth a man who in dread is reassured, and who changes his fear to comfort after the truth is revealed to him, I changed me; and when my Leader saw me freed from care, he moved up by the rampart, and I following, towards the height. Reader, well thou seest how I exalt my subject, therefore marvel thou not if with greater art I sustain it. We drew nigh, and were at a place, whence there where first appeared to me a break just like a fissure which divides a wall, I espied a gate, and three steps beneath to go to it, of divers colours, and a warder 7 who as yet spake no word. And as more I opened mine eyes there, I saw him seated upon the topmost step, such in his countenance that I endured him not; and in his hand he held a naked sword which reflected the rays so towards us, that I directed mine eyes to it oft in vain. 8 “Tell, there where ye stand, what would ye?” he began to say; “where is the escort?

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  bottles of wine : therefore my master, not delaying the matter, laded me with a sack and empty bottles, and sat upon my bare back and rode to the town, which was seven miles off. When we came to the honest man’s farm, he entertained and feasted my master exceedingly; and it fortuned while they ate and drank together in great amity, there chanced a strange and dreadful case; for there was a hen which ran cackling about the yard, even as though she would have laid an egg ; the good man of the house, perceiving her, said : ** O good and profitable pullet, that now for so long hast fed us every day with thy fruit, thou seemest as though thou wouldst give us some pittance for our dinner. Oh, boy, put the pannier in the accustomed corner that the hen may lay." Then the boy did as his master com- manded, but the hen, forsaking her accustomed litter, came towards her master, and laid at his feet an offspring too early indeed, and one that should betoken great ill to come; for it was not an egg which every man knoweth, but a chicken, with feathers, claws, and eyes, nay even with a voice, which incontinently ran peeping after his dame. By and by happened a more strange thing which would cause any man to abhor; for under the very table whereon was the rest of their meat, the ground opened, and there appeared a great well and fountain of blood, in so much that the drops thereof sprinkled about the table. At the same time, while they wondered at this dreadful sight, and feared that which the gods should presage thereby, one of the servants came running out of the cellar, and told that all the wine, which had long before been racked off, was boiled out of the vessels, as though there had been some great fire under. By and by without 453 LUCIUS APULEIUS

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  not only be deprived of his lust, but also become gentle, and that we should be delivered from all fear of danger. Moreover, he would be thereby more fat and better in flesh. For I know myself as well many slow asses, as also most fierce horses, that by reason of their wantonness have been most mad and terrible, but (when they were gelded and cut) they have be- come very gentle and tame, and tractable both to bearing burdens and to all other use. Wherefore I would counsel you to geld him; and if you consent thereto, I will by and by, when I have gone to the next market, fetch from my house mine irons and tools for the purpose : and I will thence immediately return, and I assure you that after I have gelded and eut off his stones, I will deliver this fierce and rude lover unto you as tame as a lamb.” When I did perceive that I was delivered from death, but reserved for the pain of gelding, I wept that with the hinder part of my body I should perish altogether, but I sought about to kill myself by some manner of means, whether by fasting con- tinually or by throwing myself down some crag or precipice, to the end if I should die, I would die with unperished members: and while I devised with myself in what manner I might end my life, the rope-ripe boy my destroyer on the next morrow led me to the hill again, and tied me to a bough of a great oak, and in the mean season he took his hatchet and went a little way up and cut wood to load me withal. But behold there crept out of a cave by a marvellous great bear holding out his mighty head; whom when I saw, I was suddenly stricken in fear with the sudden sight and (throwing all the strength of my body into my hinder heels) lifted up my strained head and broke the halter 335 LUCIUS APULEIUS meque protinus pernici fugae committo, perque prona, non tantum pedibus verum etiam toto pro- iecto corpore propere devolutus immitto me campis subpatentibus, ex! summo studio fugiens immanem ursam ursaque peiorem illum puerum.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  They’re here. Milton finds a place under some trees and squats. Around the tree from him, some skinny kid is going at it with a girl. Their wet kissing sounds to him like slugs being peeled apart. Nolan’s standing with Abe and Tate, talking. He’s gesturing broadly with his hands, telling some story or another. Abe’s expression is placid and gentle. Abe used to be good—sweet, even. They were all in Sunday school together, the four of them. But then something had gone wrong in each of them, something turning suddenly hard and cold and malicious. A wildness in them waking up after a long hibernation. Milton hears Nolan’s voice over the music—he’s making a sound like gunfire, spraying all the people around them with bullets made of air. “Keep the change, you filthy animal,” Nolan says, and more gunfire rains down on them. It’s that scene from Home Alone where there’s a movie playing, an old movie, and the man on the screen pulls out a gun and shoots someone who had come to betray him or something like that. Nolan aims his fingergun squarely at Milton’s chest and fires as if he, too, were nothing more than an animal. The gesture’s cruelty jolts him momentarily, and in an instant, an awful transfiguration: Nolan, the hunter, fierce and terrible, come to shoot them all down. Milton digs his fingers into the ground to steady himself. There’s a hand on his shoulder, and Milton jumps. A girl he doesn’t know. “Hey,” she says, “isn’t it your birthday?” “How did you know?” “I saw it online. We’re friends there.” “We are?” Milton strains to remember where he has seen her face before. At school, maybe, or out with everyone like tonight. But she is plainly pretty, pale and blond with delicate features. He’s familiar with the look, everything straightened and cleared, frosted and dyed and perfect. “We are,” she says. Her voice is musical and high. “I’m Edie.” “Milton.” “Oh, I know. Happy birthday, by the way.” “Thanks,” he says. Even though he doesn’t ask her to or make a gesture that’s welcoming or open, she sits next to him. “Shouldn’t you be out celebrating?” “What do you think I’m doing?” he asks, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Some celebration.” “I know, it’s great.” “Then why are you here?” she asks. “Nolan wanted to come, and I couldn’t tell him no.” “That boy,” she says, and it makes Milton lean toward her. “What do you mean?” “Oh, I don’t know. People have a hard time telling him no. Or he has a hard time hearing it, I should say.”

• From Escape (2007)

  As soon as Merril left, I went into his office and called my teachers at school. I was desperate to reschedule my finals and relieved when I found out I could still get credit for my classes if I took my exams that week, which I could—the community college was in town and used the same building as the regular school. I finished all my finals by Friday, came home, and collapsed. The last two weeks had severed me from the only life I’d ever known. I knew Merril would never let me go to medical school, and it was pushing it to even get to be a teacher. I’d heard he needed a new secretary in Page. Barbara was his traveling secretary. Margaret, Merril’s oldest daughter, had been the other secretary who worked in the office, but she’d gotten married and was now living in Salt Lake City. Merril needed help, and fast. I was afraid he might force me to take her job and quit school. Merril had said something about it to me on his way out the door with Barbara earlier in the week. The next morning I went for a bike ride with Audrey, who was twenty and Merril’s oldest unmarried daughter—the nuss princess who had held up graduation. Audrey was graceful and quite pretty. I’d always liked her, even though she was a nuss, because she didn’t put on airs and pretend to be superior to her sisters. I asked her if she thought Merril might force me to become his secretary. “Barbara has been his traveling secretary. But she has nine children she never sees. It makes more sense for him to start using you since you’re a young wife with no children,” she said. “This would give Barbara a chance to be with her kids.” “Audrey, do you really think she wants to be home with her children while I’m away with Merril? Your father called her constantly on the trip and spent ten times more time comforting her than he did doing anything else. I can’t see how she’d be happy with me taking her place.” Audrey was quiet for a moment, carefully considering her words before she spoke. “Well, maybe she needs to learn what it is like to be the one who has to stay home rather than be the one who gets all the rewards and abuses everyone else.” I didn’t know much about the family yet, but I knew I did not want to be involved with teaching someone else a painful lesson. It seemed that if Barbara had really wanted to be home with her children, she could have split the travel time with Merril’s other wives.

• From Escape (2007)

  “I don’t see any concern in this situation,” Merril said in the strange and stilted way he had of speaking. James would not quit. “If you don’t take her home tonight, will you stay with her?” Merril said he would. “Do you have a gun?” James asked. “Of course not.” “If you don’t have a gun, you better take a hammer to bed with you. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here. Jason is the kind of person who’s likely to put gasoline in a bottle with a rag, light it, and throw it through the window.” Merril assured James there was nothing to worry about. James and the police left. A few moments later, Merril did, too. He took a key to a room he planned to stay in with Barbara that was out of Jason’s reach. I was almost too terrified to move, but I had to do something. I couldn’t stay in my room because Jason knew exactly where that was. My sister, little Rosie, was sleeping in the office, and I decided to stay with her. She was asleep when I got there. I knew she’d be frightened if I woke her up and told her what was going on, so I didn’t. I had sent my children back to Colorado City three weeks after Jason started working at the motel because I felt he was dangerous. I think that was another reason Merril wanted Jason at the motel: he knew that if I felt threatened, I’d leave my children at home and not bring them to Caliente. I locked all the doors but left the bathroom door open so I could see the lights on the shed. They were on sensors and turned on in response to movement. For the next two hours, I lay in bed, watching the lights flip on and off. Someone was out there. At 1 A.M. the motel phone rang. A voice I didn’t recognize asked to be transferred to Jason’s room. I said we didn’t put calls through that late. I was paralyzed by fear. I was sure the caller was checking to see if I was still awake. I was so exhausted that I finally dropped off to sleep. But at 2 A.M. I was jolted awake by a scraping sound on top of the roof. I could hear what sounded like footsteps and something being dragged across the motel roof. Then came more footsteps. It wasn’t just one person. I tried to wake Rosie, but then the footsteps stopped. I called James. In less than a minute he and his son Jimmy were in front of the motel with flashlights and guns. They called me to say they didn’t see anyone. James was firm on the phone. “But just because we didn’t find anything doesn’t mean that everything is all right. Stay awake. If he’s going to do something, it will probably be around now.”

• From Escape (2007)

  I made it to the top of the ridge without skidding. Then I hit black ice. The van started spinning out of control. I could feel it moving in a clockwise direction. It hit something and then began spinning the opposite way. The steering wheel was spinning, too, and I grabbed it, thinking I could get some kind of control, but that was impossible. I could see the road coming up against me in the windshield and knew that the van was about to roll. I also knew there wasn’t enough protection to keep the van from rolling over the cliff and onto the northbound highway. Oh, I thought in slow motion, I will probably not survive. This is not the way I thought I would die. But then the van hit something and changed direction, spinning backward and out of control until it crashed into the opposite side of the road and the side of the mountain. The back end of the van absorbed most of the impact of the crash. When I opened my eyes, I could see snow, rocks, and dirt out the window on my side of the van. Every other window in the van was broken except mine. Frozen air rushed in. My teeth started chattering. I was not dead. I was freezing to death. The blurry image of the spinning van took hold in my mind. I tried to focus. The van was on its side. My book bag had come undone and books were everywhere. I thought I should gather up my books and make sure I had everything I needed for my classes. I maneuvered my way around inside the van and found all of my books. After neatly repacking my book bag, I realized I was trapped inside the van. By using the seat on the passenger’s side as a foothold, I boosted myself up and managed to open the door by pushing it straight out. I walked along the cliff I’d almost hurtled over, looked at the northbound highway below, and realized what I had been spared. But now what? The van was totaled, every side smashed in except the driver’s. I’d been driving Merril’s luxury van because the other car was in the shop being repaired. I was afraid Merril would be furious.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “No,” he said, but his mouth was dry. Her lips were on his, her tongue parting, sinking. She kissed him again on the corner of his mouth, and then on his cheek. She bit his lip, and the sharpness was a jolt. “Are you a good boy, Lionel?” “No.” He tried to lean away from her. She swayed. She didn’t need him to stay upright. She withdrew as if she’d made up her mind about him. And she climbed back onto the sofa. “I think you’re right about that,” she said. She shrugged, sighed. “I don’t think you’re good at all.” The words crackled in the dim apartment like blue static. He saw them flare to life and then vanish. Charles returned, his wrists still soapy from the dishes. He leaned over the back of the couch, looking down at them. “I was trying to get Lionel to tell me what he’s thinking,” Sophie said. “But he won’t.” “What are you thinking?” Charles asked. Lionel stood up and cleared his throat. He wanted to be anywhere but there. They were both watching him very closely, so much so that their eyes felt like a single organ through which every one of his actions, no matter how small, was being categorized and stored away. “I should go,” he said. “Why?” Sophie asked. “It’s cold out.” “It’s fine.” “You’ll freeze,” Charles said. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” “You don’t mind freezing?” Charles asked with a bewildered smile. “Are you crazy? Sit down, Lionel.” “I should be going,” he said. “Sit down, Lionel,” Charles said again, firmer this time. Something in Lionel responded to that firmness, used it as a guide as he let himself settle back on the floor. Charles smiled at him and came around the couch. He sat next to Lionel and put his arm across Lionel’s shoulders. He drew him closer, inspecting the bruise. Lionel was awash in Charles’s body heat, in the proximity of his touch. He felt he’d come undone under the insistent stroking of Charles’s finger back and forth across the bruise on his cheek, back and forth across that place that had been marked with a promise of violence. Lionel tried to get away from Charles’s hand, but he couldn’t. Charles gripped the back of his neck tightly. Lionel thought of Sophie. Looked to her. Casually, she lay on her side, watching them. “Why are you always trying to get away? You don’t like me anymore?” “I’m not,” Lionel said. “Maybe it’s because you bit him,” Sophie said. “Oh? I’m sorry,” Charles murmured, and there was a soft, brushing kiss against Lionel’s neck. He shivered from both the softness of the touch and the breath, the closeness of it. “It’s all right.”