18 10 STAINLESS STEEL COOKWARE

An old man sat in jail, awaiting execution, accomplished and wise, and convicted of corrupting the young with evil thoughts and opinions. Each year the state sent a mission to Delos, and it was the law that during that period the city shall be pure and no-one shall be put to death, so he waited for the ship from Delos to return.

He scrolls through the radio as he watches the tracks, hoping for better music than he knew there would be, this morning, any morning, he'd rather drive at night, with all calm and beautiful like fairgrounds, when the radio was good, but sleeping days and working nights ate his life in chunks, days falling like the sleepers beneath his feet.

The guard was surprised by his mood. His friends could hardly cover their grief, but he seemed at peace, he seemed happy. The guard said.
“I shan't reproach you as I reproach others for being angry with me and cursing, whenever by order of the rulers I direct them to drink the poison. In your time here I have known you to be the most gentlest and generous and best of men who have ever come to this place; and now especially, I feel sure it isn't with me that you're angry, but with others, because you know who are responsible. Well, now that you know the message that I have come to bring: goodbye then,” with this he turned in tears and went away.
“Goodbye to you too, and we'll do as you say” The old man turns to his friends, “What a civil man he is.”

She leans into him at the hotel bar hired for the party after the companies annual convention and she picks a flake of chocolate from his shirt, eats it, smiles and then tries to get him to dance, knowing and hoping that he'll say no, he's older, divorced with two kids, but it's just tonight, just enough to forget the three months since she split with her ex.

“there are many wondrous regions of the earth, and the earth is neither of the region or the size supposed by those who usually describe it, it is of vast size. We who dwell between the Phais river and the pillars of Heracles inhabit only a small part of it, living around the sea like ants or frogs around a marsh.
Now we ourselves are unaware that we live in the hollows, and think we live above the earth- just as if someone living at the bottom of the ocean were to think he lived above the sea, and seeing the sun and the stars through the water, were to imagine that the sea were the heaven, if through slowness and weakness he had never reached the surface, nor emerged, stuck his head out of the sea into this region here; and seen how much purer and fairer it really is than their world”

He enters the hotel room, the size of a double bed with a separate single bed hanging over it against the wall, with sex noises prodding through the walls, with vending machines for food, and automated check out, his head still rings with his spiel from the meeting, promises of user friendly interfaces, improved reports and statistical adjustments, of his companies software updates for industrial checking systems, that measured the effectiveness and efficiency of paint layers applied to the body work of certain planes and cars, he knew he had sold it well, he always did, he hoped a little that they bought it, though there was stiff competition in the industry, and he knew that in as little as three years a new operating system would probably make his updates obsolete and would almost certainly not be backwards compatible.
He lies in his bed like a pebble beneath the ocean.

“if we were to pass through to the summit of the air: for were anyone to go to its surface, or gain wings and fly aloft, he would stick his head up and see, if his nature were able to bear the vision he would realize that that is the genuine light, and the true earth. For this earth of ours, and it's stones and all the regions here are corrupted and eaten away, as are the things in the sea by the brine, and practically nothing is perfect.”

She listens for the babysitters steps as they drop down the stairs into the living room, then she creeps out of the bed and over to the tv set, she switches it on and quickly turns the volume down to the second bar, now all she has to do is wait for the film to finish, then get up out of bed and switch the tv off, before Dad gets back, and no one will ever know. She pulls the sheets over her and blinks her eyes and thinks horrible things about the babysitter and how patronising she had been and within a few minutes she'll be asleep, and gone, and when she wakes up, she'll be the oldest person on the world, by a mile.

“simply drink it” he said “and walk about till a heaviness comes over your legs; then lie down, and it will act of itself.”
Crito said, “you could still go and dine well and drink plenty, wait until the sun came down, even go enjoy yourself with those you fancy.” The prisoner dismissed his friend,
“I'll gain nothing by taking the draught a little later: I'll only earn my own ridicule by clinging to life, and being sparing when there's n

Polyporus squamosus is an basidiomycete bracket fungus, with common names including Dryad's saddle and Pheasant's back mushroom. It has a widespread distribution, being found in North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe, where it causes a white rot in the heartwood of living and dead hardwood trees. The name "Dryad's saddle" refers to creatures in Greek mythology called Dryads who could conceivably fit and ride on this mushroom, whereas the pheasant's back analogy derives from the pattern of colors on the bracket matching that of a pheasant's back.

While P. squamosus is certainly not poisonous, it is generally not recognized as an edible mushroom unless the specimens are very young and tender. Cookery books dealing with preparation generally recommend gathering these while young, slicing them into small pieces, and cooking them over a low heat. Some people value the thick, stiff paper that can be made from this and many other mushrooms of the genus Polyporus. The mushroom's smell resembles watermelon rind