flax-golden

not that kind of letter

I wrote you a letter, on paper. It seemed more significant than an e-mail.

And this way you can’t forward it to all of your friends.

I needed to say goodbye.

You might have been content to fade away, but I needed… I don’t know, closure or something.

Even if you never read it.

I had to send it anyway.

I went to post it this afternoon, to let you go, finally.

There were hearts painted on the mailbox.

I sometimes think the universe is mocking me.

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

advice for the sixth task

There are only seven Tasks.

Not that many, really.

And they do not necessarily need to be accomplished in numerical order.

Truly, it would be easier to obtain the Copper Chalice (Task three) if you already possess the Cloak of Sorrow (procured in Task five, if you do it properly).

If you succeed, wonders beyond your wildest dreams shall be yours.

That is, if you manage to get past the flamingos in order to complete the sixth Task.

The flamingos defeated so many who have gone before you.

I’ll give you a hint.

They’re not really asleep.

And they’re not really flamingos.

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

risk & reward

A game is not really a game unless it has proper stakes, she says.

If I lose, she gets my heart.

I ask her what I get if I win, because I don’t particularly want her heart.

She laughs.

What do you want? she asks. More than anything in the world?

I tell her.

She considers my request for quite awhile, but then she says it can be done, should I win.

So I agree to her terms.

I don’t tell her that I never lose, but she figures that out within the first few moves.

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

preamble to an unwritten fairy tale

She buys the rose from a traveling merchant selling all manner of wares, likely plundered from pirates or stolen from other more reputable merchants. A twitchy sort of man, glancing nervously over his shoulders and ready to pack up his cart at any moment.

Normally, she would not do business with such a seller, but the rose itself is irresistible.

Not a real rose. A contraption of softest fabric and gears that blooms with a twirl of the hand and closes back in on itself with another twirl, moving from bud to blossom and back again.

But its scent is that of a perfect, garden-fresh rose, real and rich and deep.

She spends her last coins on it, though it is a foolish, unnecessary purchase.

She twirls it as she walks, smiling as the petals close and unfurl.

Not yet knowing that the rose’s proper owner wants it back, and has the means to track it down.

Eventually, there will be a love story, but that is a tale for another time.

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

technicolor enlightenment

We always drive without a destination. Destinations are overrated.

The most interesting places are never found on purpose.

Or they don’t seem interesting unless they’re unexpected.

Decaying mini-golf courses. Laundromats. 24-hour diners that consent to grilling bagels.

Mundanities in daytime made mystical by moonlight and neon.

As we search for technicolor enlightenment at 3am.

Wondering if we’ll remember it in the morning should we find it.

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

maxfield parrish sky

She asked me if you could take the train to heaven, because that’s where it looked like the tracks were going. Disappearing into the horizon below a Maxfield Parrish sky.

When I was her age, I thought you could reach the sky if you walked far enough.

That somewhere there was an edge to step off, into the clouds.

I think I tried, once or twice, walking until I was too tired or bored to continue.

Those Maxfield Parrish skies were always the most tempting, the ones that caught the light just right so they looked like so much more than clouds and sky and sun.

No, I told her. The train stays on the tracks.

How do you get to heaven, then? she asked, staring at the clouds.

I didn’t know what to say.

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