flax-golden

order here

I noticed the neon sign in the kitchen before I went to bed, in that too-tired haze that also leads to mistaking the cat for a dragon. (Though I have seen the cat breathe fire, even in mid-afternoon. I don’t know much about cats and my roommate says it’s just a trait of the breed, whatever breed it is.) So I thought maybe I imagined it.

But in the morning the neon sign was still hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen and while I got my coffee I wondered what “REDRO” meant and then I realized I was looking at the back and it really said “ORDER” in glowing red over a white arrow pointing down accusingly at an unassuming square of linoleum near the sink.

“What’s the sign for?” I asked my roommate when he shuffled in wearing his bunny slippers with the dragoncat draped around his shoulders. The cat sneezed a little puff of smoke.

“It’s for ordering things,” he said, pouring two cups of coffee, one for him and one for the cat. “I thought it might be useful, just stand under it and say what you want and it’ll show up.”

I figured it was for ice cream or pizza, but it works for anything.

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

three small deaths on the back gate

When I found the deaths hanging on the back gate I went back in the house to tell my mother, but once she came outside to see them for herself she didn’t seem very concerned.

Oh, they’re just small deaths, she said, picking up the whispy corner of a tattered robe. It slipped through her fingers like water and returned to its ominous hovering. I think the skeleton-face wearing it frowned, but it was difficult to tell.

What’s a small death? I asked.

Death of a hope or a dream, maybe an opportunity, and that slightly bigger guy on the end could be the death of a relationship, but if he is I doubt it was a particularly long one. 

Three seems a lot of deaths all at once, I said. She nodded.

Life insists on happening all at once, she said. So does death.

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

on the beach in purgatory

The beach was cold and partially covered in lingering snow and completely deserted except for a fluffy black dog near the shoreline, he trotted right up to me when I came near.

The dog wore a collar with tags so I checked them but they were only medallions of silver carved in designs with no discernible words.

“I’m not lost,” the dog said, cocking his head at me. “I’m just waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” I asked. He paused before he answered. I straightened his tags because I’d put them askew trying to read them.

“For things that I have no control over to change,” he said after a moment. “Or maybe pirates.”

“Me too,” I replied, and we waited together after that.

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

love will be there in the morning

I thought that love had finally decided to leave me alone.

It had come and gone before and never stayed for very long or hurt too much, so when it left I was mostly okay, just standard sad and lonely.

Then one day in February there was a heart on my front door.

I figured it was a mistake or an early, meaningless valentine but I left it up anyway because it was pretty.

The next morning it was still there, along with another heart.

The day after that there were more, different sizes and shades of red and pink but all bright and warm and they made me smile.

It took me a while to realize that it wasn’t a mistake, that they were really for me.

It’s been a year now and all the hearts are still on the door, they haven’t faded in the sun or anything.

All the love is still here, too.

There’s more of it every day.

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

dinosaurs on holiday

The dinosaurs showed up near the end of tourist season when we were all starting to get bored but before our welcome smiles had completely worn out, which was good timing. It was something unexpected to break up the routine and the dinosaurs were much nicer than the typical tourists.

They were never really extinct, one of them explained. They went to live on an island and they said it wasn’t anything like that movie island with the dinosaur park, though they all liked that movie anyway (but only the first one).

They were here for a quiet vacation so after the initial surprise everyone in town left them alone unless they needed directions or someone to take Instagram photos for them. They ate at all our best barbecue joints and clam shacks and wandered around sightseeing. It was hot that week, so we mixed them big tubs full of complimentary strawberry limeade.

They all bought souvenir t-shirts that were much too small for them and they claimed were for friends but we think they were just being polite.

Before they left they wrote a thank you note on the one of the blank billboards by the beach and we kept it up all through the off season.

No one wants to say it out loud and jinx it, but we’re all hoping they’ll come back again this year.

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

perfect pairs

I only wanted one but when I got to the address on the piece of paper (after getting lost twice because the handwritten 8s looked like 3s) I was informed, quite politely, that they only were only available in pairs.

The woman at the 8s-not-3s house (who gave me tea in a flowered china cup without asking if I wanted tea) said that it was customary to inform the potential owner about this important detail up front but apparently the guy who writes his 8s so they look like 3s is new and still being trained and it was fine and completely understandable if I would prefer not to continue with the transaction under the circumstances but I should feel free to stay a while regardless and enjoy my tea and I can have the tour and who knows, I might change my mind.

None of them were in cages like I half-expected (she didn’t believe in cages) but all of them, on ottomans and settees and out in the garden, were in pairs. And each pair (of the ones I saw) was almost identical except one was light and the other dark, or warm-toned and its partner cool.

I had told myself I couldn’t manage two but of course when I met a pair I liked I knew I had to take them both, they’re too perfectly matched to separate. They even tilt their heads in unison when I talk to them.

The woman declared them a perfect fit which was strange because she didn’t ask me anything about myself, not even how I took my tea, and she tied red ribbons around their necks while I signed the paperwork but they pulled them off in the car on the way home, each helping the other wriggle free.

I haven’t given them names yet. They have similar personalities, they’re both quite attentive and affectionate and helpful, though one of them particularly likes to fetch things like sticks and seashells and small lizards and things I’d thought I’d lost, while the other prefers reading biographies and watching detective shows and balancing my checkbook.

The woman from the 8s-not-3s house called me after a week to see how we were getting on and asked me a lot of questions about their behavior and sleeping patterns, and then told me I’ll know they’ve really settled in once they’ve mastered mixing a proper martini.

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