T.J. Klune

“I was eight years old when I realized that my G.I. Joe and Optimus Prime were more than friends,” I told her. “Theirs was a forbidden love that dared not speak its name.”“Optimus Prime is a robot,” Jenny said. “Humans and robots can’t be in love.”“Oh,” Sandy groaned. “You shouldn’t have said that.”“Blasphemy!” I hissed at her.“It’s true!” she insisted.“I hope you never have children,” I snapped.”

“Dammit. I hate it when my crazy is right.”

“How do you say what's in your heart if your heart is something you haven't known for years? How do you give yourself completely when all you've done is bury yourself in grief? How do you come back from the dar when it's all you can remember?”

“He shakes his head miserably. “If only I’d gotten here sooner….”“You got here in plenty of time,” I say with a snort. “We’re okay.”“But the truck!” he says as he turns back to us. “It was so cherry.”

“He said… he said he wants you to know that those we love are never really gone.” Michael closes his eyes. “We may not get to see them like we used to, and we may not even remember what they sound like, but they will always be with us.”

“It’s better, Benji, to have something burn brightly for a short time than to never have it at all.”

“I asked him once why he wanted to see the sun rise every morning, what it was that caused him to be out here at the crack of dawn every day.He watched me for a moment before looking back at the horizon. “Its beauty,” he said. “It reminds me every day that there is beauty in the world. That even though it may feel like we are alone sometimes, we are never truly alone.”

“The measure of a man, she said finally, is not the words that mark his end, but everything he’s done since his beginning.”

“... once something is shattered, it can never be put back together in its original shape. Undoubtedly some pieces are lost or fit into incorrect places. The whole will never be as strong as it was once before.”

“Sometimes I float along the riverFor its surface I am boundAnd there are times stones done fill my pocketsAnd it's into this river I drown”

“When Big Eddie left, I only worried about how it affected me. I didn't worry about the others. I was selfish. Self-centred. I took to the river and let myself float on its waters. I didn't care if I drowned. I didn't care what became of me. I was hurt, I was angry, and I didn't care what that meant for the future. I just wanted everything to stop.”

“I was reading on the computer that you have to keep your man interested, so it's always good to make sure he knows others are." I frown at him. "Angels are not allowed to go on the Internet." He winces. "Probably a good idea. That place has so much porn." I don't want to know. Okay, I do... ...Cal kisses me gently before walking out of our room. "Sure thing," he calls over his shoulder. "I did learn some things on the Intenet that I want to try on you. It's not all bad." I stare after him as his laughter floats back to me.”

“Everyone grieves differently. No one handles the loss of a loved one the same. Some put on a brave face for others, keeping everything internal. Others let it all out at once and shatter, only to pick up the pieces just as quickly as they came apart. Still others don't grieve at all, implying they are incapable of emotion. Then there are the ones like me, where grief is a badge we wear, where it's hard to let go because we don't want to. We probably wouldn't know how even is we wanted to. There's unanswered questions, unresolved feelings. Tere is anger that this person could even conceive of leaving us behind. We are the furious ones, the ones that scream at the injustice and the pain. We are the ones who obsess and slowly lose rational thought, knowing it is happening but unable to find a way to care. We are the ones who drown.”

“Had I known then what I know now, I would have clung to him. I would have looked him in the eyes to see that spark of mischief, that undying intelligence that belied his gruff exterior. If I'd known the inevitable, I would have said everything I felt in my heart and soul. I would have told him thank you for being my father. I would have said that if I'm ever going to be a good man, it's going to be because of the way he'd raised me... ...I would have told him I loved him. But I didn't. I didn't because I didn't know. I didn't even say goodnight. Or goodbye.”

“I've raised you to be honest and kind. I've raised you to be brave and strong. If you become the man I think you'll be, then you and me will always be eye to eye.”

“But he came, when I was at my darkest. I prayed him down from the sky, and he came in a flash of blue fire that lit up the heavens. I know he came by his own choice, but he came because I called him. He came when I could no longer take the weight of the world on my own. He came when I needed him the most. He came and saved me from myself, saved me from the waters that rose up to my chest and over my head.”

“This is my family, and the noise around me is soothing in a way it hasn't been in quite a long time. That's mostly my doing, I know, given my self-imposed exile in the Land of Sorrow. But hearing the overlapping voices and laughter, seeing the bright eyes and smiles, does more for me than I thought it could.”

“Even after two days, I can see that there are so many sides to him...There's times he exudes such strength that it threatens to knock me flat...Those are the times that I do believe he is an angel, that I do believe he guards us as he says he does. Then there are his other sides, most specifically when he seems unsure, hesitant...His wonder is almost childlike in its mien. He sees things I no longer can because it is as if he's experiencing everything for the first time...And then there's the darker part of him. I will send you and yours into the black. I don't want to think about that part. I don't want to know what "the black" is. It's only been two days since he fell from the sky, but those two days have shown just how little I really know about the world.”

“For want of my father, I was lost.”

“Time is a river, I've learned. Always moving forward. But for people like me, people who have loved and lost, the river is something we fight. We swim against the current, trying to get back to the way we once were, trying to hold onto anything to keep us from getting swept away. It's exhausting and eventually we tire. Still we push on.”

“That’s a federal crime,” I told him. “Punishable by three to five years in a minimum-security prison. You’ll get passed around like condiments at a barbeque.” “My hole is already quivering,” he said.”

“I don’t think this is working out between us,” I told him. “You and I want different things. It’s not me, it’s you.”

“Because sometimes it’s about letting go of what your mind tells you and following what your heart shows you instead. That’s how you know it will always be real.”

“He shrugged. “Yeah, but I like riding my bike. It helps with the ozone… and stuff.” “You’re trying to avoid leaving a carbon footprint? And here I thoughtbicycles were just for tree-hugging hippie heterosexuals.” He eyed me seriously. “We all have to do our part to help avoid nocturnal emissions. The planet needs us.” I stared at him. “The planet needs us to avoid nocturnal emissions?” He nodded. “Nocturnal emissions are the number one cause for the hole in the ozone.”

“He was hard lines, chiseled flesh, bronzed skin. I was a marshmallow melting in a cup of cocoa.”

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a unicorn ;)”

“You think I gave you crack?""Maybe."Is there anything about me that screams crack?"He grinned as he swayed. "Your butt crack," he whispered before dissolving into giggles.”

“Ix-nay!" I hissed at him. "Ix-nay!" I didn't know why I resorted to Pig Latin right then. It just seemed like the thing to do.”

“He snorted into his radicchio, which I admired because it was a pretty purple. The radicchio was purple, not his snort. Just in case you got confused there. I don't think it's possible for people to snort colors. We're not unicorns, after all.”

“After all, one does not scream at lesbians in Doc Martens unless one wants to receive a penis kicking.”

“If you're responsible enough to become a parent, then you should be responsible enough to accept your kid no matter how they turn out. It doesn't matter if they're disabled or gay or not as smart as others or green or black or blue or whatever the hell they turn out to be. You have them, you love them. Always. Being a parent isn't about getting to pick and choose what you want you kid to be. Being a parent means protecting your kid from anything that could ever harm him. Being a parent means you shelter, but you also make them stronger so one day they can stand on their own.”

“He squints at the screen. “So, would you call yourself a… hmmm, that doesn’t sound appropriate… a ‘nasty come hungry bottom dumpster bitch’?” I wish life was more like cartoons and a piano would fall on him and his teeth would become the piano keys as stars circled his head.”

“My name is Bear. I am a reluctant homosexual (or, at least, I resemble one). My boyfr—er, life partner (gag!), is apparently like a forty-year-old woman, and his biological clock is exploding all over the place, and we don’t know how to turn off the alarm. We need a woman (ha!) to allow us to put our sperm into her so that we can create the miracle that is life! You, as the surrogate, must not be crazy!!!!!”

“Hey, remember when you didn’t know that you wanted Otter to spray his man babies all over your face and we didn’t have to talk about our feelings all the time?” “Yeah, those were the good old days.”

“We’ll count it, even if it’s so incredibly gay that it should come with its own packet of fairy dust that you could sprinkle in the air when you say it.”

“If God is real, I think he might be some kind of masochist. I imagine he sits there up on his cloud, long white robes flowing, drinking a forty of Mickey’s and smoking a Winston as he flips me the bird and plans what he’ll do next to piss me off.”

“I wanted to tell her how that praise had made me feel, how starved I’d felt for any kind of attention, that I’d begun to think of my teacher Mrs. Terrance like she was my friend, like she was my mother, like she would take me home with her one day to her big house that would be warm and smell of fresh bread, and there would be gold stars all over the floors and ceilings, and she would look down at me as we walked through the door and tell me that this was my home too, that I would get to stay with her forever because she loved me too. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say that to my mother. Even then, I knew the power words had. To heal. To hurt.So I held my mother while she cried, and eventually the tears subsided, and she began to hiccup softly, and this made me giggle, and she almost looked like she was going to smile at me, and I forgot about the house filled with gold stars because one smile from my mother was worth a billion gold stars and a billion Mrs. Terrances and a billion houses that smelled like fresh bread.”

“Bear. It’s always been you. It will always be you. I love you, and that’s why it will always be enough.”

“Don't do it. I swear to god I will break your fingers off... Okay, do it.”

“You can't just wipe away your history.”

“If someone can care about me that deeply, despite all my faults, despite all my refutations, despite all my everythings, then that makes all the storms and all the oceans worth it.”

“I’ll wait for you,” he said as his hand dropped to his side, as his eyes began to dim. “I think I could wait for you forever.”

“Me and Seven, I thought as I arched my back. Me and Seven, that’s all there is. That’s all there needs to be. He kissed me sweetly as his hips rolled forward, and his breath became fire in my mouth.”

“Then it hit me and I grinned at him. “You want to suck my dick!”His face grew redder. “You don’t have to say it like that,” he grumbled.I almost felt contrite. “I’m sorry. How about you want to make love to my member with your oral cavity? Or how about you want to fellate me until I let loose my love juice? Is that better?”

“Felix’s beauty devastates him, annihilates every fiber of his being, and the voices shout in his head, they sing to him until he thinks his head will split.”

“I struggled not to laugh at the brand-new bottle of lube in his left hand and the unopened box of condoms in his right. He watched me, his expression dark.“Just buy those?” I asked lightly.He nodded once.“Had it all worked out in your mind, did you?”He nodded again.“Have you ever fucked a man, Seven?”He shook his head, his right hand squishing the box of condoms as he tightened his grip.“And… this is what you want?” I looked at his face then, watching for any signs of doubt. There were none as he nodded again.I opened my arms. “Come here,” I said softly.”

“This is your home.” He reached up his other hand and gripped my face, pressing down hard against my cheeks. I nodded. “Say it!” “I won’t run,” I whispered as I watched an angry tear trickling from his eye. I leaned forward and licked it away.”

“You don’t ever doubt me again,” he said hoarsely before his mouth grazed my nipples, first the left and then the right. His scruffy beard scraped the skin beneath raw as he went back and forth. “I will fucking kill you if you ever doubt me again!” he snarled. My eyes rolled back into their sockets at the weight of his words, the desperation in his voice matching the desperation in my movements. I moaned as he bit my nipple harder, almost chewing it between his teeth. I was trapped underneath him, and even though I knew I could push him away, I also knew I wouldn’t. “You answer me when I’m talking to you! ” he roared.“I won’t,” I breathed, my hands in his short hair. “Oh, God, I won’t.”“You won’t what! ”“I will never doubt you again!”“You’re damn right you won’t.”

“We crashed and collided in ways I didn’t think were possible between two people. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to be in over my head before I realized what was happening.”

“I’m not jealous,” he said jealously.”