Sensing young Wolfram had given up the ghost, the raven glided back down aside the dead artist, whispering a last demand.
Hopes for a Syrian ceasefire faded dramatically yesterday as rebels rejected a last-minute demand from the regime for "written guarantees" that they will lay down their arms after government troops withdraw.
North Korea, several diplomats said, came in with a last-minute demand that the final statement include a reference to its disagreement on fundamental issues with Washington, viewed by the American delegation as a step backward.
In the White House's telling of the story, Obama and Boehner did indeed settle on a rough framework for a deal, but it was all part of a fluid negotiation, and additional revenue was just one of the options on the table -- not a last-minute demand.
The last instruction barked at a team-mate, the last demand for better from those around him, the last persuasive word or two in the direction of a referee.
Malamud, he continues a few lines later, experienced "the need to consider long and seriously every last demand of a conscience torturously exacerbated by the pathos of need unabated".
The last demand got a loud standing ovation.
This last demand is a matter of practice and of the ability to size up the audience on the spot, as it were.
The neighbor remains discontented and has asked for yet more carpets and "quiet hours" when the 2-year-old would be kept from running, perhaps with a powerful sedative, if I understand this last demand, and I do not.
Other countries are furious about this last demand, which they regard as a new kind of protectionism.Europe's farm deal may therefore go only a small way to closing the huge chasm in the agriculture negotiations.
