2012

brain

The Brains didn’t bother me, probably because I knew what they were.

But everyone else in town has zombies on the brain—so to speak—so I guess it’s not entirely surprising that everyone’s thoughts went in a brain-eating direction.

Also, it’s October. I think October is prime zombie time. Paranormal creature season in general, even.

So when the word “Brain” appeared scrawled over pavements and doors and walls—some with exclamation points, others eerily lacking punctuation—everyone started yelling about zombies.

Impressively literate zombies.

I keep waiting for someone to figure out that my brother Brian is a self-centered lousy speller prone to defacing public property with paint, but they seem distracted with building barricades and stocking up on ammunition.

I should probably tell them.

I hope they take my word for it, since I can’t find Brian anywhere.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

the last sunflower

They put a fence around the sunflower because it was the last one.

The point, I think, was to protect it so eventually there would be more sunflowers and when there were enough they would remove the fence but it’s been years now and there’s still only the one sunflower.

It blooms every year. It looked up at the sun back when there were still sunny days which I remember but my sister doesn’t and sometimes she says she doesn’t believe me. But she’s skeptical about the sun in general because she’s only seen it in old photographs and it doesn’t really look the same in photographs as it did, or at least not the way I remember it did.

(My sister says the sunflower should have a different name now that there’s no sun even though I’ve explained many, many times that the sun is there somewhere and we just can’t see it.)

She comes with me to keep the sunflower company so it won’t feel too lonely. We watch it through the fence and sing songs to entertain it and once we brought a lamp but the sunflower wouldn’t turn to look at it, I think it knew it wasn’t real sunshine.

The sunflower always just stares straight ahead and sometimes down.

We haven’t figured out how to cheer it up yet.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

watchdragon

At first I thought it was a dog—a Pug, maybe—but now I’m pretty sure it’s a dragon.

I tried asking when it first appeared by the gate but it doesn’t talk, it only growls and coughs.

Every third cough or so results in a puff of dark smoke and once in a while the smoke is accompanied by actual flame, so it’s probably a dragon.

A very small dragon.

I invited it inside but it prefers to stay by the gate. I tried giving it water but it wouldn’t drink it, after a great deal of trial and error I discovered it will only drink dark roast coffee spiked with whiskey. I bring it a bowl full every morning, but I haven’t found anything it will eat yet.

I don’t think it sleeps. It paces all night.

Like it’s waiting for something.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.