On 23 September 1779 off Flamborough Head, England, during the Revolutionary War, Continental Navy frigate Bonhomme Richard, under the command of John Paul Jones, captured HMS Serapis. When asked to surrender his ship during the battle, Jones replied “I have not yet begun to fight!” This painting by Anton O. Fischer depicts the battle at sea. NHHC image NH 56467-KN.
All I could think was that the rat had very tiny feet, and that I had not yet examined a rat nor any small warm-blooded creature. I went and caught the rat, rather too easily I think, and looked at its feet. I wanted to see what kind of little toenails it had, and what was the flesh like between its little toes, and I forgot the men entirely.
It was their sudden silence that brought me back to myself. They were both staring dumbfounded at me.
I smiled at them as innocently as I could, let the rat go, and went back to purchasing.
I’m sorry but i’m not sorry this just happened, I’m not to late to the party, right? I had the idea since the announcement but couldn’t find the time to actually do it till today
“How to describe what humans look like to us! … you can’t imagine what it’s like for us to look on living flesh. There are those billions of colors and tiny configurations of movement, yes, that make up a living creature on whom we concentrate.
But the radiance mingles totally with the carnal scent. Beautiful, that’s what any human being is to us, if we stop to consider it, even the old and the diseased, the downtrodden that one doesn’t really "see” in the street. They are all like that, like flowers ever in the process of opening, butterflies ever unfolding out of the cocoon.“
– The Vampire Lestat
I love this quote bc it means that just being alive makes us ALL beautiful.
