Max (brumal)'s Recent Status Updates Showing 1-30 of 1,278

Max is on page 205 of 304 of We

’And happiness. What is it really? Desires are something that torment us, right? So clearly, happiness is the absence of all desires, when there are none left. What an error, what a dumb prejudice that up until now, we had always inserted a plus sign in front of absolute happiness when obviously, it should be minus. The holy minus.’

— 8 hours, 21 min ago Add a comment

Max is on page 204 of 304 of We

I fell to the floor at the foot of her chair, embracing her legs, head thrown back, gazing into to her eyes – one then the other – seeing myself in each one. In each beautiful prison.

— 8 hours, 25 min ago Add a comment

Max is on page 200 of 304 of We

THE LATEST STATE SCIENCE DISCOVERY IS THE SEAT OF THE IMAGINATION – A PATHETIC LITTLE NEURAL NODULE IN THE REGION OF THE PONS VAROLII. WITH A SIMPLE TRIPLE X-RAY CAUTERISATION, YOU WILL BE CURED OF IMAGINATION:

FOR EVER.

YOU WILL BE PERFECT. YOU WILL BE EQUAL TO THE MACHINE. THE PATH TO 100 PER CENT HAPPINESS IS CLEAR. HURRY, ONE AND ALL, YOUNG AND OLD, RUN DON'T WALK TO UNDERGO THE GREAT OPERATION!

— 8 hours, 35 min ago Add a comment

Max is on page 194 of 304 of We

’Say everybody is happy. What happens next?’

"That's silly! What a childish question. Whenever you tell a story to children, even at the very end, they will always still want to know: what happens next? Why?'

’Children are exceptionally brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are always children. We have to be exactly like children, we must always ask: what happens next?’

— 8 hours, 44 min ago Add a comment

Max is on page 193 of 304 of We

’If the number of numbers is infinite, how could there possibly be a final number?'

’Right. Then what final revolution are you talking about? There is no final revolution. Revolutions are infinite. Finality is for children: children are scared of infinity and it's very important that children can sleep at night.’

— 8 hours, 47 min ago Add a comment

Max is starting The Enormous Radio

Jim and Irene Westcott were the kind of people who seem to strike that satisfactory average of income, endeavor, and respectability that is reached by the statistical reports in college alumni bulletins.

— 11 hours, 42 min ago Add a comment

Max is on page 3 of 93 of The Story of an Hour (Penguin Archive)

It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

— Sep 21, 2026 09:43PM Add a comment

Max is on page 2 of 93 of The Story of an Hour (Penguin Archive)

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

— Sep 21, 2026 09:41PM Add a comment

Max is on page 155 of 304 of We

All I want is I. I want her to be with me at any and every minute – always, with me and me only. And what I just wrote about Unanimity – all of that was besides the point, it doesn't matter – I want to cross it all out, tear it up, throw it out. Because I know this may be blasphemy, but it's true): it's only a holiday if she's there, only with her by my side, shoulder to shoulder.

— Sep 20, 2026 07:06AM Add a comment

Max is on page 153 of 304 of We

Through the glass walls of the buildings, a windy, feverishly pink, disturbing sunset. I've turned my chair so the pink won't get in my eyes and leafed through these notes. I see: again, I've forgotten that I'm not writing all this for myself but for you, unknown readers, with love and pity – for you, who are still stumbling through the distant centuries below.

— Sep 20, 2026 07:00AM Add a comment

Max is starting The Story of an Hour (Penguin Archive)

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.

— Sep 20, 2026 06:38AM Add a comment

Max is on page 63 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed—as those who take to the water change—and told me she had never died.

— Sep 17, 2026 12:00AM Add a comment

Max is on page 65 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

I shall plan my cousin's escape from that Canton mad–house, and together we shall go to marvel–shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down ä through black abysses to Cyclopean and many– columned Y'ha–nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.

— Sep 16, 2026 11:58PM Add a comment

Max is on page 64 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

I could not at first understand the
change, but gradually a horrible sort of comparison began to obtrude itself on my unconscious mind despite the steady refusal of my consciousness to admit even the least suspicion of it. It was clear that the typical expression of these faces now suggested something it had not suggested before—something which would bring stark panic if too openly thought of.

— Sep 16, 2026 11:54PM Add a comment

Max is on page 53 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

For at a closer glance I saw that the moonlit waters between the reef and the shore were far from empty. They were alive with a teeming horde of shapes swimming inward toward the town; and even at my vast distance and in my single moment of perception I could tell that the bobbing heads and flailing arms were alien and aberrant in a way scarcely to be expressed or consciously formulated.

— Sep 14, 2026 09:46PM Add a comment

Max is on page 45 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

Then, after a long, dreary interval, and prefaced by a fresh creaking of stairs and corridor, there came that soft, damnably unmistakable sound which seemed like a malign fulfilment of all my apprehensions. Without the least shadow of a doubt, the lock of my door was being tried—cautiously, furtively, tentatively—with a key.

— Sep 05, 2026 08:05AM Add a comment

Max is on page 39 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

”Right naow Barnabas is abaout changed. Can't shet his eyes no more, an' is all aout o' shape. They say he still wears clothes, but he'll take to the water soon. […]

— Sep 05, 2026 07:45AM Add a comment

Max is on page 32 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

[…] ef they mixed bloods there'd be children as ud look human at fust, but later turn more'n more like the things, till finally they'd take to the water an' jine the main lot o' things daown har. An' this is the important part, young feller—them as turned into fish things an' went into the water wouldn't never die.

— Sep 04, 2026 07:48AM Add a comment

Max is on page 24 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

The sons and their sisters had come to look very queer, especially the elder ones; and it was said that their health was failing. One of the Marsh daughters was a repellent, reptilian–looking woman who wore an excess of weird jewelry clearly of the same exotic tradition as that to which the strange tiara belonged.

— Sep 04, 2026 04:07AM Add a comment

Max is on page 22 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

It was in these slums—along Main Street—that I would find the old Georgian churches, but they were all long abandoned. It would be well not to make oneself too conspicuous in such neighborhoods— especially north of the river since the people were sullen and hostile. Some strangers had even disappeared.

— Sep 03, 2026 02:08PM Add a comment

Max is on page 18 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

And far out at sea, despite a high tide, I glimpsed a long, black line scarcely rising above the water yet carrying a suggestion of odd latent malignancy. This, I knew, must be Devil Reef. As I looked, a subtle, curious sense of beckoning seemed superadded to the grim repulsion; and oddly enough, I found this overtone more disturbing than the primary impression.

— Sep 03, 2026 07:24AM Add a comment

Max is on page 14 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

It was called, she said, "The Esoteric Order of Dagon", and was undoubtedly a debased, quasi–pagan thing imported from the East acentury before, at a time when the Innsmouth fisheries seemed to be going barren. Its persistence among a simple people was quite natural in view of the sudden and permanent return of abundantly fine fishing […]

— Sep 03, 2026 07:06AM Add a comment

Max is on page 2 of 158 of The Shadow over Innsmouth

Only one paper—a tabloid always discounted because of its wild policy—mentioned the deep diving submarine that discharged torpedoes downward in the marine abyss just beyond Devil Reef. That item, gathered by chance in a haunt of sailors, seemed indeed rather far–fetched; since the low, black reef lay a full mile and a half out from Innsmouth Harbor.

— Sep 01, 2026 02:15AM Add a comment

Max is starting The Shadow over Innsmouth

During the winter of 1927–28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth.

— Sep 01, 2026 02:08AM 1 comment

Max is starting The Shadow over Innsmouth

— Sep 01, 2026 02:07AM Add a comment

Max is on page 152 of 304 of We

But why are 'I don't want to and 'I want to so close to each other inside me? That's the horror of it, that all I want is yesterday's rapturous death again. The horror is that even now, when the logical function is integrated, when it's obvious that it implicitly contains death, I still want her – my lips, my hands, my chest, every millimetre.

— Aug 24, 2026 03:14PM Add a comment

Max is on page 148 of 304 of We

She sat in the blooming bowl of the chair like a bee: full of venom and honey.

— Aug 24, 2026 03:01PM Add a comment

Max is on page 148 of 304 of We

’What makes you think that stupidity is a bad thing? If people nurtured and cultivated stupidity for centuries the same way they did reason, perhaps something incredibly precious would grow out of it'

— Aug 24, 2026 02:58PM Add a comment

Max is on page 144 of 304 of We

I could feel myself. But feeling oneself, being conscious of one's individuality is for an eye with something in it, an abscessed finger, an aching tooth. When an eye, finger or tooth is healthy, it's like it's not even there. Isn't it clear that self-awareness is nothing but a symptom of disease?

— Aug 23, 2026 08:33AM Add a comment

Max is on page 132 of 304 of We

The knife is the strongest, most everlasting, most brilliant of all human inventions. The knife was the guillotine, the universal method for cutting all ties, the path of paradox also follows the knife's edge – and it's the only path worthy of the fearless mind.

— Aug 23, 2026 08:16AM Add a comment

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