Ping Cassone

“True to course, he didn’t know the nature of the assignment; true to course, he didn’t ask. That was probably for the best. Preparation for the Iranian hostage extraction had been difficult, and its execution life-threatening, but that was child’s play compared to what was coming.”
― Chad Boudreaux

“The skies were filled with an unreal fire; blue, burnt with amber, red, orange and yellow. This fire was no natural thing. It clawed across the sky, and below it all life shivered and retreated. The land lay scorched, the mountains and glens trembling.
The man stood pale in the false light, a statue, watching. Then he moved, shaking off the stillness, and looked towards the power that shook the world. His clenched fist opened and clean white light leapt to the sky. A huge concussion rocked the mountains. All light was quenched. The sky turned black, then clear and blue. A distant rainbow promised that all was well and God still cared for this lost land.
Alastair Munro fell back, the soft heather a safety net, all power gone, all anger lost. Angus Ferguson was beside him as ever, a reassuring voice, a reminder of why Munro was there, why he must go on, why this was his destiny”
― Robert Reid, White Light Red Fire

“The salt of Elat stored on the deck began to dissolve and the purple colour in the water deepened as it spread out. As the concentration of salt increased around the first transport, the ferocity of the othium fires became more intense. In a few moments the heat and the salt caused the othium to reach critical level, and a huge explosion blew both transports into matchwood. The blasts grew in intensity as rock after rock exploded.”
― Robert Reid, White Light Red Fire

“and sometimes this daily disappointment, this constant agony of hope deferred, would bring me to my knees by that door begging her to open to me, crying to her in every term of passionate endearment and persuasion that tortured heart of man could think to use.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman