I never thought about it, but, I mean…of course it’s the dwarves.
The elves would never think of it, fading out of Middle Earth with their perfect memories entirely intact, bearing the lore of ages in their own lifetimes. Elrond would never think to write down the story of his life, for all that it stretches back to the Silmarils’ crafting. When they do write things down, they believe in taking the time to inscribe the words with their own hand–no one knows the hard truths of permanence and impermanence like the Firstborn, and if you are going to take the time to make something ephemeral into something lasting, you do it right. And besides, Quenya and Sindarin and forgotten Noldorin, all are made with elaborate curling letters, intended more to be written with a brush tip or a calligrapher’s pen than printed for clarity. A printing press would never capture the fluidity quite right.
The race of men…well, they’re still trying to recover. The great kingdoms of the human race–hard Gondor and broken Arnor, wild Rohan and poor shattered Harad to the South–took the brunt of the Ring War hardest of all. Even the strongest of them is left in fragments. New rulers, damaged walls, burned cities. Not many have time, in those first years–and it does take years–to worry about the lore that might have been lost or muddled by water and fire and falling stone, not when there are still leaderless orcs roving and people starving as they try to stretch the harvests. By the time they do, they’re trying to piece together what they used to have. No one thinks twice about trying to piece it together the way it was, and the way it was, was handwritten. Someday the race of men will be great innovators, reaching toward the stars with sure hands and bright eyes. Now, though, the race of men is enduring, is rebuilding and making alliances, trying to prevent the losses of the war from reappearing ten, twenty, a hundred years down the line. They are doing well, at enduring–pragmatists, grim and tough and determined–but they hardly have the time for mechanical marvels that don’t aid building, speed farmwork, or otherwise smooth the path.
The hobbits persist in being stubbornly hobbitish. Oral history is what they do, and their memories for family ties and dramatic gossip could give the oldest Eldest a run for their money. Who’s going to bother to write down the story of the time Athella Proudfoot–no, not that one, the other one, Odo’s great-great-great aunt–drank half the tavern under the table, got up on the bar, did a jig in nothing but her bloomers, and then settled in to drink the place dry? (And still looked fresh as a daisy, if quite a bit less sober, the next morning.) No one, because anyone you ask knows the story of everyone who ever did anything worth knowing the story of. What do the hobbits care for legends and lore? They know who they are and where they come from, songs and stories and all, and there’s a certain level of strength in that. Strength enough to walk into Mordor, strength enough to reclaim the Shire.
The dwarves…the dwarves are a people who once had libraries, sweeping and beautifully full of knowledge. The libraries in Khazad-dum have rotted, by now, ransacked by orcs and goblins or burned entire by Durin’s Bane. Books and scrolls, illuminated with precious metals and expensive inks by the finest scholars, are worth nothing to a dragon, nothing but fuel for amusement, things to send sparking. The library where Dis learned to read, where Thorin and Thrain before him learned statecraft, are nothing but ash. The Iron Hills, Ered Luin, those places were filled by a people seeking refuge. Few dwarrows snatched tomes as they fled Erebor. Fewer still kept them at the ruin of Azanulbizar. The dwarves escaped their ancestral homes with the clothes on their backs and scraps of bread baked on stones, with the pyres of the burned dwarves still smoldering behind them.
It’s a survivor of that flight who scratches down the first idle plans. She remembers seeing Dain Ironfoot, barely more than a child–but then he seemed such a grown-up to her, at the time, when she was still a beardless babe only just walking–bloodied and limping on a crutch as he stood up to claim the leadership his father had left in his wake. Dain and Thorin, young dwarrows still, but already old with the weight of the world. She remembers that better than the dragon, better than the battle. Her mother died in Ered Luin, but not before writing a poem for the burned ones, a poem for the two dwarves who had surrendered their own youth for the sake of their people. She can’t stand the idea of her mother’s poem being lost, the way so many things were lost in flight after flight.
That dwarrowdam dies, an old dwarf in her bed with her loved ones around her, and it’s her best friend’s daughter who comes across the plans, many years later. Yes, she thinks, looking at the levers, at the vague notes about possible lettering methods, yes, that could work.
It doesn’t work, at first. It doesn’t work a lot, really, but the dwarves are a stoneheaded bunch and not in a rush to be put off by a few petty failings. Or by a total collapse of the base mechanics, the first time she tries to pull the lever. The dwarrowdam unearths herself from a pile of metal and gears and wood, with the help of a few other folks who heard the complicated crash and weary cursing, and starts again.
It takes most of two years and a lot of brainstorming–first with her friends, then with her guild, then with any poor fool careless enough to wander into her workshop–but the scribe-machine works. She shrieks and bursts into tears when the first page comes out crisp and clean and beautiful, and sprints into the great hall waving it triumphantly over her head.
The paper says, in kuzdh runes, plain and clear, We are Mahal’s children, and we are yet unbroken.
The prosecutor who subpoenaed and cross-examined Hitler in 1931 for a murder trial against four brownshirts was a Jewish lawyer named Hans Litten. The three-hour testimony left Hitler so unnerved and humiliated that he forbade anyone speak Litten’s name in his presence, and he was killed in a concentration camp. Today, the German bar association is called the Hans Litten Association, and every year they give out the Hans Litten Award for excellence in the legal profession. That’s how you commemorate history.
re millennial killing stuff post: so at my second job I edited a dissertation on how young consumers are changing luxury brands, like they won't just buy the same identical handbag bc "oh it's $designer!" like they'd rather spend that money on an experience etc, so brands have had to COMPLETELY change how they approach the new generation - I mentioned this to an older friend cause I thought it was neat & she went "yeah it's weird how young people expect companies to bend over backwards for them"
THIS EXACTLY
My (much older) co worker was talking recently about how she wants the new $300 whatever designer bag, and I was talking about how me and the husband might set $300 aside to go up to House on the Rock for a weekend.
That seems to be pretty standard for the older people I know vs. the younger people I know. For $300, we could get a hotel room overnight, a couple good meals, into House on the Rock, and some money to spend on whatever while we’re there.
And she was just like “But it’s a kate spade bag.”
And I was like “And???? My purse has a unicorn on it I paid $5 for it at Goodwill and I can hold things in it to take up to House on the Rock.”
Great now I'm having emotions about the Hork-Bajir
OH BUDDY JUST YOU WAIT, THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE EMOTIONS TO HAVE ABOUT THE HORK-BAJIR
Ha, your tag “way past Romeo and Juliet” I get it now. *sighs* God do I love ships with angst
You have not known angst until you’ve sailed the good ship Rachel/Tobias. Honestly this was super formative in terms of what ships I do and don’t like, and also what kind of ships I write, but even so: I’ve never come close.
Oh geez… I really like Marco and Rachel friendship….
Marco and Rachel have that excellent A-grade “Yeah we hate each other but also I’ll shank you if you so much as look at them crosseyed” banter dynamic and I love it. Also they’re…kind of similar, in terms of terribleness, and I love the kind of unconscious alliance that springs up because they both have that ruthless cold-eyed clarity about What We Have To Do.
Oh no! He had to watch as they blew the ship apart.Oh geez this poor guy... I hope he does get to stab Vissier 3
*anguished keening* Aaaaaax.
My poor blue trash boy, I love him, he had to watch the Dome ship burn and then he thinks he’s going to die alone at the bottom of a foreign ocean and then some aliens come to find him and tell him his hero brother (who Ax adores) is dead and THEN he joins a horrible horrible guerrilla war and tbh I’m dying over it always.
OH GOD It’s the Andalire SOCIEEEEETYYYYY
YEP.
YEP IT IS.
HONESTLY THE DEATH RITUAL IS VERY LOVELY BUT ALSO OH MY GOD AX YOU DON’T HAVE TO DIE IN BATTLE IN ORDER TO BE WORTH SOMETHING PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.
hi!! i absolutely adore your Blue Sword headcanons (why doesn't it have a bigger fandom. why.) and i cried a little when i read the last ones. if i may ask, do you have any headcanons about the children?
(i sent that before i meant to weeps, sorry, feel free to ignore this one if you want) also, luthe is probably their weird uncle who loves them all and tells wild stories that no one quite believes. (i hope you’re having a good day!)
Ummm, let’s see, headcanons about the kidlets. I’m not going to do the headcanon meme because I’m mostly making these up, but I hope these are good!
Tor Mathin
Tor is a lot of things–first sola, horseman, a good tactician, a promising young king–but a swordsman is not among them. He’s passable, technically very good, but he lacks joy. Tor is the first person in his family in the gods only know how long to prefer spears, and dredges up an old design for a Damarian saddle that allows him to strap the poles to his horse’s side for easy access.
Tor takes after his namesakes–both of them, actually, although naturally Tor’s dry humor and stoic sufferance of small children didn’t make history nearly as much as his Just-ness. But what I’m saying here is that, basically, Tor has a very droll sense of humor and is an incredibly excellent big brother who claims dibsies on his youngest sister on the spot and routinely allows himself to be dragged into trouble with her. Mathin is delighted.
Aerin Amelia
Obviously, Aerin Amelia is the next carrier of Gonturan. One of them, at least. She is a talented stateswoman and the beloved first sol of her people, and her mother teaches her swordplay, and Aerin associates it with laughing and joy and the beat of sunlight on her cheeks. She beats the crap out of her brother frequently and Tor puts up with it because he’s a good sport.
She likes to dress up like her godmother–Amelia dotes on her, and for Aerin’s sixteenth birthday the girl shows up in crimson and blue, a dress Amelia sewed for her over the winter, somewhere between a Hill robe and a layered Homeland dress, with pearls woven into her bright red hair.
Aerin and Senay’s baby sister Rilly fall in love and get married and Senay and Harry are both pleased beyond belief. Aerin, much like her namesake, is Tall, and Rilly is kind of Tiny all her life, they’re adorable.
Jack
Jack is a fucking kelar powerhouse. All his siblings are, they take after the old kings, but Jack in particular is juiced. His talents run toward rock and stone, and when his kelar wakes he almost shakes down a wing of the citadel. He and Harry ride out into the Hills and she sets up a camp in a little valley where she once learned how to fight, and they just sort of wait out the worst of it. She kisses his hair and rubs his back and it’s a terrible few weeks, as he tries to get control, but it’s an oddly warm memory, later.
To that effect, Luthe likes Jack very much, he reminds Luthe of the Aerin easily as much as his sister, and although Jack is far from being a full mage, Luthe teaches him a few tricks. One that Jack particularly loves, because of the way it makes his sisters yell at him in mock aggravation, includes turning little posy rings of pimchie flowers into golden birds that sing before flying away into nothingness. Luthe observes Jack’s talent for this particular parlor trick and very scrupulously does not burst out laughing.
Hari
The youngest child of Harry and Corlath is two things above all else: an incredibly skilled rider and the fucking family prankster. Tor adores her from the minute she’s born, a wrathful little thing with jet black hair and tiny clenched fists, and he makes a fantastic babysitter, and she gets on her first horse at two years old because she talked Tor into letting her ride his stallion. It was a terrifying experience for Tor as well as all the sofor who witnessed their teeny baby sol shrieking with delight as she clung to the horse’s mane like a burr. It was also the moment that Tor realized his baby sister could probably ask him to hand over the kingship and he might actually do it.
Hari and Aerin trade custody of Gonturan, sometimes, more just for variety than anything else. Aerin usually carries it because Aerin actually likes swords, whereas Hari likes to fight with a pair of knives. This is considered something of a sneak-thief’s weapon, in Damar, but Hari is very stubborn and Harry isn’t exactly a strong candidate for telling any of her children “No, you can’t, Because Tradition” and Corlath is too thrilled with his life to take a hard line on something so unimportant. So it’s mostly Hari’s tutors kind of moaning through their teeth as she learns to throw knives and Hari young woman is that your brother’s best tunic you’re using for target practice.
Yes, it absolutely is Jack’s best tunic, because Hari, in the fashion of younger siblings everywhere, is, after all, something of a sneak-thief, and she stole it to see how long it would take him to notice.
It has been three weeks and while Aerin and Tor have both noticed, Jack shows no sign of picking up on it.
hi! can you do allura/shiro or matt/shiro for the ship grading? (I hope you're well!)
All right, listen, I am excited to be excited about Matt as a character but thus far he has such negligible onscreen time as to be pretty much a wholecloth creation of the fandom. Thus: Shiro/Allura, my loves.
Ship Grade: A+ (OTP) | A (I love it) | B (It’s really cute) | C (Not a bad ship) | D (I’m neutral on it) | E (I don’t really like it) | F (NOTP) | N/A (Don’t know it well enough)
I love Shiro as a character because I’m an ENORMOUS SUCKER for PTSD-ridden ex-prisoners who are holding it together by the skin of their teeth and on the merits of a core of solid titanium determination. I love Allura as a character because I’m a huge fan of royalty whose nations are half-destroyed (or all destroyed) and who are still fighting the good fight because they believe that nobility is an obligation, not a privilege. I’m enormously in love with them as a couple because they’re mutually the adults in the room most of the time and, A, I love relationships where the people in question can relax around each other more than anyone else, and, B, they’re just so ruthlessly competent and I live and breathe competence porn and I am NOT turning down such a perfectly dovetailed pair of personalities who can ALSO be a solid 10/10 in capability.
Also, that shot of Shiro catching her hand and pulling it down in whichever episode of Season 2 was a more compelling argument for the ship than anything else I’ve seen for any other arrangement. So like. Here I am. Let the alien princess and her right hand man smooch.
…I just realized that between this and Elfangor/Loren I have A Type and it’s half-alien battle couples who bond over learning how to be EVEN MORE COMPETENT with each other.
Ship Grade: A+ (OTP) | A (I love it) | B (It’s really cute) | C (Not a bad ship) | D (I’m neutral on it) | E (I don’t really like it) | F (NOTP) | N/A (Don’t know it well enough)
Where do I even START with my affection for this ship. Like, despite the unremitting horrors of war, this ship has it all. Alien expressions of affection, Battle Couple shenanigans, Loren and everything she chooses to be in the face of not one but three alien abductions, cute flirting, comedy, tragedy, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS. God, Animorphs can fucking deliver on the ships.
But I think the thing I like the most about Loren and Elfangor is how much they learn from each other? Like, okay, Loren learns about the universe, she learns about how big the galaxy is and how much there is to see, about science she could never have dreamed of and what it means to fight. That’s obvious. But Elfangor learns so much from her, too–the Andalites teach courage with a combination of formal education and shame culture, but Loren is the first person as far as I can tell who teaches Elfangor that feeling emotions isn’t in conflict with being brave.
More than that, though, Loren brings a kind of brutally hard-headed, incredibly human pragmatism to combat that Elfangor seems to gravitate toward almost immediately. Like, this is humanity’s Special Thing in Animorphs (in addition to our mastery of the sense of taste), it’s that we’re very clear-sighted about our goals (be they freedom from a Yeerk or victory over an enemy) and we care much more about achieving them than about anything else. Plenty of people in the series talk about how strange humans are in their absolute willingness to fight against hopeless odds–everyone from Temrash 114 to Edriss, Visser One herself, mention it. The Hork-Bajir bring up how much they agree with it, free or dead. Taxxons, Andalites, the Arn, even the Ellimist.
And Loren teaches Elfangor that brutal human practicality from the very first time they meet. He meets her and she doesn’t know what he is or what’s going on, but she’s already eliminated the immediate threat to her safety and she is more than willing to take out this new potential threat as well. Loren wants to get home, sure she does, but saving the universe takes priority, so okay, sure, she’ll go on a potentially life-threatening mission to make sure that happens. Fighting Pre-Visser Three (actual Visser Three at that point? Not sure) in the Time Matrix world, Loren doesn’t mess around with fancy forms, she throws rocks and beats things with a bat and does whatever works no matter how dishonorable or underhanded it might be.
And then Elfangor, after everything, when he’s returned to the timeline, what does he do to win a battle?
He rams a ship with his fighter, in the most graceless, unadorned, pragmatic battle tactic I’ve ever seen.
I love these kids so much, y’all. Does Loren/Legs art even exist, y’all, where is it.
why do superheroes care so much about their cities? its always “i have to protect this city” or “people of this city will die” like chill i mean shit i dont even know who my mayor is
people still dont understand what freedom of speech is, christ
1. Freedom of speech means the government cant prosecute you for shit you say, and it does NOT include threats or incitement 2. Freedom of speech is not the right to be heard. Literally nobody has any obligation to give someone a platform to speak
Being banned from a website for perpetuating Nazi ideology is not a violation of free speech
the most often missed and most important words are “congress shall make no law”
It's little moments like the elevator scene that I remember these guys are teenagers :) and that they will have to live with the trauma of basically being the front line soldiers in an intergalactic war at the age of 13. I'm really liking these books,
I honestly love the weird little moments of party banter where the kids all stand around and talk about whether they’ve seen any good movies lately or anything, because you’re SO RIGHT, they’re babies and it’s so clear in those moments. These poor tiny teens, someone get them a therapist. And then get that therapist a therapist. Honestly this is just a spiraling fractal line of therapists hearing terrible trauma.
Wait
….
They won! Holy smokes THEY ACTUALLY WON A BATTLE! THERE WAS A LITTLE DISMEMBERMENT BUT THEY WON!!!
Aaaaaah, yay, I didn’t actually expect anyone to do this.
Ship Grade: A+ (OTP) | A (I love it) | B (It’s really cute) | C (Not a bad ship) | D (I’m neutral on it) | E (I don’t really like it) | F (NOTP) | N/A (Don’t know it well enough)
I believe I’ve mentioned that, first of all, I’m an absolute sucker for complementary superpowers and Girl On Fire/Fireproof Demon Hero is consequently my exact shit, and, second of all, I really like ships where they click so well in combat, and, third of all, the whole dynamic of “I lit a whole room on fire and killed a thousand demons for you”//”I low-key almost ended the world for you and then probably threatened the angel of death to make it give you back” is MY WHOLE LIFE.
Oh, and of course I’m hilariously into the mutual pining that’s going on there.
JFC TOM!!!! MY BOY!!!! HE DIDN"T THEM TOUCJHING JAKEEEE!
LISTEN I WILL CRY WITH YOU FOREVER ABOUT TOM AND HOW MUCH THE ONLY THING HE WANTS ANYMORE IS FOR THE YEERKS TO LEAVE HIS LITTLE BROTHER ALONE, THAT’S ALL HE WANTS, GOD, I’M GOING TO CRY.
Book 6 was so good! I loved that Yeerk perspective! Tom THO!!!
No one loves the animorphs as much as me is what I’m learning today
You lie, I will fight you for that title.
You actually have a lot of animorphs content on your blog so based on that alone you may win however I am currently hand-writing an spn animorphs au at work soooo
I’ll see you with the fact that I hand wrote this Animorphs/Avengers crossover fic five years ago on a road trip with my best friend, and raise you the fact that I own the entire series hard-copy.
Hi hello I am entering this contest unsolicited with the fact that I have dragged at least three (QUESTIONABLY FOUR but that second anon is elusive, and I don’t know how many people actually took my recommendation outside of those people) adult humans into reading this series within the past eight months and am writing a fifty part series of miscellaneous Animorphs fics from that one prompt list.
I LOVED these books back when they came out. I used to save up all my hard earned babysitting money to buy the newest book as soon as it came out because the library never got it right away and there was always a huge waiting list. I gave up reading them sometime around December 1998 because it seemed like the story was never going to conclude, it was just going to be more and more and more and more books. I actually didn’t realize that it had an end until seeing people talk about Animorphs on my dash. I should see if my mom still has my copies in her basement. Now I want to see how it ends, lol.
A+: OTP A: I love it B: It’s really cute C: Not a bad ship D: I’m neutral on it E: I don’t really like it F: NOTP N/A: I don’t know the ship well enough
No one loves the animorphs as much as me is what I’m learning today
You lie, I will fight you for that title.
You actually have a lot of animorphs content on your blog so based on that alone you may win however I am currently hand-writing an spn animorphs au at work soooo
I’ll see you with the fact that I hand wrote this Animorphs/Avengers crossover fic five years ago on a road trip with my best friend, and raise you the fact that I own the entire series hard-copy.
Hi hello I am entering this contest unsolicited with the fact that I have dragged at least three (QUESTIONABLY FOUR but that second anon is elusive, and I don’t know how many people actually took my recommendation outside of those people) adult humans into reading this series within the past eight months and am writing a fifty part series of miscellaneous Animorphs fics from that one prompt list.
do you think that during the scene where harry and corlath sit at the fountain he was like holy shit holy shit holy shit she's holding my hand holy shit and then later was like sheheldmyhandsheheldmyhandsheHELDmyHAND and one of the riders (probably mathin) was like im gonna tell this story at your wedding
Well, as we all know, the exact order of people who realized that Harry and Corlath were in love* was:
The Riders
The hafor
Bystanders at the laprun trials
Sungold
Corlath, probably immediately after she took his mask at the trials
Gonturan
The City hafor
Random City folk
Various Damarian soldiers, including Senay and Terim at different times
Luthe/Aerin
Jack Dedham
Random Outlanders following mad Harry into battle
Kentarre and her archers
Richard Crewe, probably because Jack tells him
Small animals on the side of the path
Passing birds
Thurra probably????
MAUR THE BLACK DRAGON, DEAD THESE MANY CENTURIES
PEOPLE IN SUNSHINE, WHO AREN’T EVEN IN THE SAME UNIVERSE
Harry
*Narknon is not included because, as it has no bearing on her life besides the improvement of her porridge quality, she maintains catlike, disdainful disinterest
So what I’m saying is: yes, yes he does. And at their wedding Mathin, in his capacity as Harry’s stand-in entire family, presents her as the Daughter of the Riders and tells the entire assembled city about how it took a fight, a mutiny, a war, a miracle, and a near-death experience for Harry to see what was right in front of her nose, and in the meantime their noble king was blushing like a teenager after so much as touching her hand.
Honestly, my goal is to build a life, and career, where I’m not constantly waiting for the weekend. I don’t want to live that way, where I hate five days of the week because I hate my life and job so much, that the only relief I get is Saturday and Sunday. I want to enjoy my life, and not wish it away every week. I want each day to matter to me, in some way, even some small way. I want to like my life, all of it, not just my life on the weekend.
Yes to your Jake headcanon. 'Big Jake' to me always meant that he was broad shouldered and tall and just solid (which means Tom was probably even taller if he called him midget but that could have also been a big brother teasing thing). No offense to anyone if they want to headcanon Jake as being chubby, but that's not how I interepreted his nickname at all.
I have read some EXCELLENT chubby Jake headcanons and I’m here for it, tbqh, but yeah, IDK I knew a lot of just…really big dudes when I was younger, the gentle giant types who seem kind of bemused by being the size of a fridge. And Jake always struck me as the type of guy who seems kind of bemused about being so tall. Also, who else is with me that Tom used to call Jake midget because Jake was shorter than him as a kid and then Tom got infested with a Yeerk and the Yeerk never changed the nickname even though by the end of the war Jake is three inches taller than his big brother. Obviously in an AU where Everything Is Okay this means that Tom calls Jake midget as like an ongoing family inside joke that makes people very confused because Jake is Tall.
i love shrikes because they’re horrible little carnivores whose feeding habits are grim enough to earn then the nickname ‘butcherbird’ but they look like this
"Not fat–he’s an athlete" just an fyi that you can be fat and be an athlete :)
You’re absolutely correct, and that was an error in phrasing on my part. I have no idea when I wrote that post but I was probably having a pre-MCAT anxiety fit and therefore pretty fuzzy, mentally speaking, because that’s basically been my last month. My apologies, and thanks for how polite your message is.
i hope you’re all aware of the 300 recently discovered love letters between two gay british soldiers during ww2 that are going to be possibly adapted into a film.
they’re beautiful and poetic and tragic and heart-wrenching and brave. i highly suggest going and reading the excerpts.
here’s the one that broke my heart:
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are.“
this quiz tells you what your homeric epithet would be and well, isn’t this the question that keeps us all up at night? feel free to reblog and put your epithet in the tags, mine is bright-eyed
Today I went to a restaurant, a newer place in town. It filled a building that had stood empty for
three years, and before that, it was a Denny’s.
The tables were clean and the accents were blue, and the waitress’ eyes
were wide and edged with white.
I told my dad, sitting at the new table, that the aura of
the Denny’s lingered. He asked when I had
been to the Denny’s in town—never, I said, but all Dennys’ are the same place, you
know? There are many doors, but they all
open to the same strange otherworld, a place where another plane of existence
opens at the right hours of the night.
The Denny’s was gone and has been for years, but it stuck to
the walls and whispered from the speakers when the music paused. The bar was untended in the middle of Happy
Hour. When we walked in, the hostess
stand was empty. Our waitress had a
sharp note in her voice, strained, and her lips moved strangely around her
words, and her eyes were ringed white, like a startled animal. She was a pretty girl, just a few years older
than me—I might have gone to school with her, but I didn’t recognize her, and
she didn’t seem to know me. When she
walked away, the faint shadow of a red-shirted figure seemed to cling to her
back like mist. Hi, I’ll be your server tonight, she said with a perfect toothy
smile, and I heard the rapid welcome-to-Denny’s-can-I-take-your-order
in my mind before she kept talking, can I
get you anything to drink to start.
I wonder what she’ll dream about tonight, our waitress with
the white-ringed eyes and the unfamiliar face.
If she dreams about her job, but decked out in another primary color and
filled with the transient souls who end up there at odd hours. No one goes to Denny’s, someone told me once,
you just end up there, usually at
late hours and with a mild degree of confusion about what brought you to their
door. If she dreams about the
red-shirted shadow, and about how that stranger arrived for work one day—another day, another dollar, a waitstaff
lackey of the boss but also a keeper of the door to an elsewhere—to find their
job simply closed, the sign gone overnight like it had never been. We don’t know what happened to the Denny’s in
town. It didn’t even go out of business,
it just stopped, like a hand had
flicked a light switch and taken the whole building with it.
I wonder if she’ll dream about doorways and dark lots.
The walls were decked with black and white photographs, of
serious faces and beautiful landscapes, so neatly tiled that there was never
more than a hand’s breadth of clear wall in some places. Their eyes didn’t follow you, and the water
didn’t ripple out of the corner of the eye, but there was something…close about them, I told my mom. Like you might pass your hand over the front
and then reach through, past the paper and ink to the otherplace just
beyond. Not a trap, if you were clever,
but a gateway, which is almost the
same thing. Cut off from the other Denny’s
doors, I told her with a smile, the restaurant had to find new ones.
Ginger ale and a burger.
The food wasn’t a binding contract—the terms of the deal are set out at
the beginning, at a restaurant, even at a Denny’s. You come and they serve you, you pay and they
allow you to leave. Our waitress brought
us the check without a fuss, not so much as a wheedling don’t you want dessert to keep us there. Deal observed. I looked out the window as my mom pulled out
a credit card, overheard part of a conversation about checks. No, we
don’t take checks, cash or credit.
Checks aren’t signed in blood, I mused, but then neither is credit. Digital lifeblood, maybe, a new bond for a
new age, modern contracts to match a modern elsewhere. Deal kept.
I don’t think I would want to dine and dash, at that
restaurant, in those walls.
Two crows spent almost forty minutes on the grass outside,
idly strutting through the all-day dew that still clung. They chattered at each other, and eyed the
window where I watched them, black eyes like drops of intelligent ink. I looked outside every few minutes, and every
time I expected to see another view, something new, something other than the
shoe store and the vast expanse of pine trees.
It was the feeling of lying on my back on the ground with my eyes closed
and feeling the planet spin beneath me, but the stars being the same when I
looked again.
When we walked outside, the pearly grey
sunlight-behind-clouds had faded to a sulky, dull twilight, and there was fog
wrapping thick around the restaurant.
The parking lot was empty save for our car and two others, even though
there had been several more families inside.
We laughed about the old Denny’s in town, about how it had lost its hold
on this reality, and didn’t talk about the empty bar or the wide-eyed waitress
or the way the kitchen was so quiet, even though every staff member was
supposed to be behind the swinging doors.
The Denny’s in town is gone, died quietly in the night
without so much as a flatline. But I
think it might be haunting its replacement.
SO TODAY I was walking to college down a main road, it was really windy (as you might imagine with all the cars) and I was preocupied with keeping a grip on my beanie when I saw these two women walking a little way ahead of me on the other side of the road. One of these ladies was a bit taller than the other and they were holding hands (aww), the taller kinda butch lady had a flannel shirt on
(double aww)
and her partner/friend was wearing a cute cream and beige hijab. Now I swear to God this is relevant, wait for it.
A massive gust of wind suddenly comes tearing along the main road. I nearly lose my backpack, to give an idea of how bad it was. I look up and see the wind rip off this poor girls hijab and send it spiriling away down the street. (She had an undercap on so no major crisis but still, right.)
Before. You. Can. Blink. Our taller flannel-wearing girlfriend of the year TEARS off her flannel like lesbian Clark f***** Kent, throws her shirt over her partners head, and BAM she sprints off LIKE A SHOT after the hijab.
like 10/10, damn son, holy cheesits burrito, that is the very definition of chivalry and romance right there.
