Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
A love story. A haunting. A story of survival against all odds.
How do you steal something when you don’t even know where it is?
He doesn’t know yet, but he’s certain of one thing: there’s no harm in trying.
One thing’s for sure — he knows it’s here someplace. He can feel its presence as acutely as he can feel his powers burning beneath his fingernails; waiting to be released, waiting to be set free.
The closed space around him groans with his weight, and he wedges his knees into the corners a fraction of a second too late. The duct buckles, giving way beneath him to bright, fluorescent light flooding him from below.
He hears startled voices.
Smiling, and seeming as if he’s becoming resigned to dramatic entrances, he drops from the vent, the duct behind him catching a charge like a wildfire consumes a forest. It balloons out in an unintentional explosion, licking his shoulders as he rushes downwards: a fiery angel falling from heaven, wearing the grin of the devil himself.
Anonymous asked: first: I LOVE YOUR WRITING. fiction, drabbles on this tumblr - basically anything you type up is kickass and has me swooning. also, less importantly, the links on your ff profile no longer work - just a heads up in case you didn't know!
Thanks, dude. And thanks, dude.
God knows what they’re doing over at the Pit. The last round of “improvements” took out all my scene breaks. There’s nothing like editing three hundred thousand some-odd words trying to find the missing —- in between chunks to break up the action.
Anonymous asked: what is your biggest regret?
I was too sincere. And too drunk. And I meant every word. And I could have said more. And I could have said it better.
I could have offered a clearer view of the whys and wherefores; I could have told him that I thought he was special, and wonderful, and beautiful, and a good friend. I could have told him I found him charming and sweet, and unquestionably attractive in that make-you-nervous way that leaves you stunned and feeling like you’re fifteen again and unsure where to put your hands. I could have told him that talking to him made me smile in that unfazed way, even if we were talking bullshit all afternoon and sending animated gifs to each other, and that the context never really mattered anyway. I could have told him I was terrified of the implications of all these thoughts; terrified that it would never amount to anything, and terrified that it would.
I didn’t say any of that.
(Could have. Should have. Would have.)
The past should stay dead.
…Spectres of our once and former selves that haunt the old places of the heart — those deep chambers that echo — resonant with things left unfulfilled.
I wanted to reach out and grip the sleeve of that worn hoodie he wore on the days when his mood matched the colour, but I hung back, thinking it’d be an invasion of his space. I wanted to say goodbye in case the plane crashed; in case I never saw fit to come back to Montreal, deciding that hiding was preferable to facing him again.
Instead, I left him in silence — the clink of cutlery being washed in the sink punctuating my escape.
Eyes downcast, maybe lost in his task, or lost elsewhere in the places where melancholy thoughts sometimes carry a person, he was still beautiful.
I hated saying goodbye anyway.
Who needs closure.
Terry Pratchett, Sourcery
Anonymous asked: Are you still rewriting "The Ante"? If yes, are you posting the re-edited drafts on FF?
I am and I have been, yes. I’m half-editing the old stuff, half-working on the third part of the Mistigris chapter.
Edits are live up to Chapter 16 or so at the Pit. (So somewhere around the graveyard scene at Lafayette no. 1, if you’re familiar with the chronology.)
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: The Wake
“My point,” he says, smirking, “is that there is an innate connectedness between all things. The utmost perfection found in nature, replicated through our most basal molecular structures. It’s beautiful.”
“Snowflakes.”
“Exactly,” he agrees. “And not.”
No one’s ever picked me up by discussing quantum mechanics.
“Divinity?” I try again.
He waves it off.
“Trying to discuss God and science are like mixing oil and water.”
“Trying to discuss god period —“
“— Is bad politics, I agree; so I’ll avoid that altogether.” He grins, bearing the teeth of a wolf in an immaculately manicured smile that must have set his parents back a few grand when he was in high school. “To the point: I was thinking it’s more to the extent that there are many more possibilities that we can account for than just by knowing alone — more than perception or science etcetera.” He touches the back of my hand with just one finger, like he’s trying to hold my attention. He needn’t get touchy feeley; he’s already got me.
“To that point, think of reality as a diamond with many facets: We’re all composed of the same matter. Particles. Eternally moving, bounding about within the restrictions of our structures, inevitably bound to one another by the very things that set us apart and at a distance.”
I’ve heard this before, but I don’t comment.
“The problem, as it stands, is that we’re talking about the movement of these particles on opposing sides of a seesaw.”
“When one goes up —“
“One goes down. They’re tied together, but constantly at opposition.”
“What’s your point?”
He sucks his lower lip into his mouth. Draws his hand back. There’s a spot of fading warmth between my metatarsals, and vaguely, I realize that this has not only made me uncomfortable, but left me feeling strangely bereft. Something is afoot. I can smell it beneath the vague impressions of cologne and cigarette smoke filtering in through the damp back room where I lost Lisa hours ago.
“I’d love to test that theory with you — prove it false…”
The world grinds to a halt — all jittery particles suspended at the precise moment where the proposition drops. I want to ask him if that line’s worked for him before, but then again, how many women have been picked up discussing metaphysics in a grim hole in the wall of a bar reserved almost exclusively for sad seedy loners? I don’t know, but for a moment when my moral centre slips to the left, I wonder if I’m one of them. I wonder if I fit right into the caustic scenery; it’s soaking into me through my pores.
This has caught Carl’s attention; slovenly, his head rolls to the front, eyes alight with the prospect of something more interesting to analyze:
The mating rituals of sad seedy loners discussing the critical points of entanglement. Clever metaphor. Clever boy.
“…But I’ve got a girlfriend.”
Stupid girl. I need another drink.
