Jeff C. Kunins

“One cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error. I propose to take our countrymen’s claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“True story
This morning I jumped on my horse
And went for a ride,
And some wild outlaws chased me
And shot me in the side.
So I crawled into a wildcats cave
To find a place to hide
But some pirates found me sleeping there
And soon they had me tied
To a pole and built a fire
Under me---I almost cried
Till a mermaid came and cut me loose
And begged to be my bride
So I said id come back Wednesday
But I must admit I lied.
Then I ran into a jungle swamp
But I forgot my guide
And I stepped into some quicksand
And no matter how hard I tried
I couldn’t get out, until I met
A watersnake named Clyde
Who pulled me to some cannibals
Who planned to have me fried
But an eagle came and swooped me up
And through the air we flied
But he dropped me in a boiling lake
A thousand miles wide
And you’ll never guess what I did then---
I DIED”
― Shel Silverstein

“She had once met an old man up near Kincardine who’d sworn that the murdered follow their killers to the grave, and she was thinking of this as they walked, the idea of dragging souls across the landscape like cans on a string.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven