erin

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.

dirty laundry

I let my laundry pile up for two weeks before I finally relented and took it to a laundromat, after leaving yet another message for the landlord about the constantly out-of-order machines in the building basement.

I had to look up the nearest laundromat and when I reached the address it wasn’t a laundromat any more, it had been converted to a hat store that still smelled a bit like soap but the hat guy told me how to get to this other laundry place that looks like it’s been here forever even though everything is really bright and shiny.

The machines are all modern and fancy and I can’t figure out where the coin slots are but there’s a lady with bluish-grey hair and cat-eye glasses reading Dostoyevsky behind a counter so I ask her how the machines work and she asks me what it is that I want to wash.

I look down at my bag of laundry and then back up at the lady. Her hair is so grey-blue it’s almost purple.

“Clothes?” I say, and her smile switches to something that looks condescending and pitying at the same time.

“You want the ones behind the blue line,” she says, using Crime and Punishment to gesture in the direction of the line of colored tiles between the rows of machines.

“What do the ones behind the yellow line wash, then?” I ask, pointing at the identical row of machines along the wall.

“Pasts,” she says. “Except for the ones down the end, those are just for sins.”

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

a room of your own

I built you a hideaway.

Well, fixed more than built since it was already there, but it’s for you. I hope you like it.

I suppose it’s like a room of your own only it’s a room in a tree.

I have asked the squirrels not to bother you, but squirrels are not good listeners so I apologize in advance if they prove disruptive. They can be distracted with nuts or pieces of string, I’m not sure why they like string but they do.

There’s also a flag that used to be yellow but has faded in the sun to a color like butter but you can still use it, you just string it up on the roof when you want company.

(The squirrels do not seem to care about the string with the flag for some reason.)

So now you can have your alone-with-squirrels space and leafy quiet to work or read or dream in.

And if you put the butter-colored flag outside and I see it through the trees I shall come to visit you and I shall bring tea.

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