erin

penguin investigative services

There’s a penguin in the shrubbery staring at my neighbor’s house.

He’s still there when I go to get the mail, so I walk over to see what he’s up to.

He freezes and looks shifty-eyed for a moment and it seems like he might run away but he doesn’t. I think he snuffs out a cigarette on the ground before I reach him but I can’t tell for sure.

I ask what he’s doing.

Classified, the penguin says, with an apologetic shrug.

When I start to walk away he asks me if I’ve seen anything suspicious, which I haven’t. He seems disappointed but he gives me his card and asks me to contact him if I do and then he warns me not to talk to tigers and leaves.

The card says “P.I.” and contacting him involves leaving a pie to cool in a south-facing window, so I don’t think much of it and make a mental note to ask my neighbor if he knows anything about the penguin next time I see him.

The tiger knocks on my door just after dark but I don’t answer, and as soon as he gives up and stalks off I start baking.

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

worldbuilding assistance

I get nervous when it’s time for a new world, even though I’ve been assisting for more worlds than I can count.

I try to be prepared, though it’s mostly about keeping things organized.

My favorite part is assembling all the colors. Every color I can possibly provide, arranged from deepest darks to lightest lights, as I haven’t yet managed a system to determine which ones will be needed in advance.

I sweep the floor, twice if there’s enough time.

Sometimes I try to scrub the remains of the last world from the walls, but the walls are hard to clean and they never seem to mind, they say it’s nice to have remnants of the worlds that have come before priming the canvas.

I suppose they have a point, but I like to tidy things as much as I can before the messiness starts.

New worlds are always messy at the beginning.

But they usually figure themselves out.

I’ve only needed to use the extinguisher once.

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

lonely ghosts in the machine

I still don’t understand why an antique store needs to be open twenty-four hours a day, but the owner is nice and pays well and since hardly any customers come in during the night shift I have plenty of time to read.

The main distraction is the typewriter.

On my second night, one of several typewriters on a cluttered display started making this dinging sound and the keys kept flipping up and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it so I gave it a piece of paper.

It typed a lot, though not particularly well. It said hello and made a joke about being trapped in an antique store, or at least I think it was a joke.

I asked the owner about it in the morning when he came in for the day shift and he nodded and said that particular typewriter was haunted and suggested I not give it more than one piece of paper a night.

I tried, but there seem to be a lot of voices in there and they have a lot to say so I buy extra reams of paper and let them type all night if they want to.

They send love to different people.

They make jokes and tell stories.

I think they just want someone to talk to.

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