BOOKS

[labellementeuse]

This is what I did with my extra fortyfive minutes this morning: unpacked all my books onto the bookshelf in the laundry. (The drier is in the garage, don't panic!)




That's about 170 books in my collection (okay, I stole some of them off my mother, but I know she won't miss them.) I estimate at least another 2-300 still at home. Of the ones here, I haven't read about twenty of them; about the same number is non-fiction (okay, maybe a little less. But The Science of Discworld COMPLETELY counts as non-fiction, right?); about the same number is poetry. Of the remaining 100, probably 60 are fantasy or YA fantasy and the rest is fiction or YA fiction. Man, going through these and unpacking them from the boxes sent me into complete joy spasms; I forgot I bought my Frances Hodgkins Burnett anthology, for example (Secret Garden, Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy; the big pink book centre right on the third shelf up).

Astute readers will notice that they're, um, not terribly sorted. Maybe I'll do that this afternoon- poetry, fantasy, fiction, non-fiction. By author alphabetical or subject alphabetical for the non-fiction, because I am not quite dorky enough to implement the Dewey system at home. (Not that it would make much of a difference: sixth_light mocks me for my nonfiction "selection," which I can only respond to by mocking her fiction selection, because at least I own non-fiction. Anyway, not even she sorts her nonfiction by Dewey. I think.)

TO THE BOOKSHELVES.

ETA: DILEMMA: where do I put my Blackadder scriptbook? :O so much confusion!
ETA2.1: The Screwtape Letters: fact (theology and/or satire), fiction (not actually real letters :p) or fantasy (apprentice devils!)? discuss.
ETA 2.2: The Little Prince/le petit prince: fiction or fantasy? fact (social commentary)?

ETA 3: done and dusted (literally), and may I say, if I never have to decide again whether Tom's Midnight Garden is fantasy or fiction my life will be a lot less complicated. (I picked fiction, in the end.)

Interesting things discovered:
-I have two copies of Anne French's Wild, a poetry collection, and Tessa Duder's Songs for Alex. If you would like a copy, drop me a comment (The closer you live, the more likely you are to get it. :P)
-I have both English and French copies of The Little Prince/Le Petit Prince. I think I stole the French from my school.
-Somehow when packing up my Tessa Duders, I managed to pack only books 1 and 2 of the Tiggie trilogy. *TWITCH* I know exactly where the third is at home, too.
-I am missing the first four Narnia books. *doubletwitch* I know my LWW has long since fallen apart but I know I have the others at home somewhere. Grr.
-I bought Abhorsen a month ago and I've already misplaced it.

Well. I'm going home for the holidays in a week and a half, so I know I can replace some of these. But still. *twitchy* I may start developing a tick.

ETA 1001: now meme-ified! If you recognise a bookcover from my shelves, I will write you a drabble or short fic (in a requested fandom. If I had guts, it would be in the fandom of the book guessed, but I'm worried about some of the selections. :D)

Comments

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

*g* you picked 'em all! Tammy, not Wrede; and the two on the bottom left are actually Shakespeare plays, looks like Hamlet or Henry V and A Midsummer Night's Dream; They're the Oxford editions, so maybe your mythology books are OUP too?

Fandom requested? (and a character request, since I'm running out of bunnies!)

[chattycheese.livejournal.com]

The mythology books are OUP editions. Silly me for forgeting that.

Er, mabye.... Young Wizards? And Tom and/or Carl (any combination thereof, you can choose). *sends a crate of bunnies*

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Okay. Now I actually had most of this already written, but no ending and no motivation to finish it; so I thought, well, I'll finish it for Caitlin and that way I'll have actually finished a real fanfic longer than a piddling 500 words. Also, this is... I guess you could make a case for it not being slash. I mean, there's no sex or kissage, but... anyway. If you feel cheated in any way, let me know. :P Also, this is unbeta'd. I will get it beta'd before posting it elsewhere, of course, but you get it in its raw form, so feel free to point out obvious continuity errors, etc (notice me ignoring the *blatant* continuity error in the story I wrote for bad_mushroom...)

ANYWAY. FIC.

remembrance

“There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember;”
-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 6. Sc 5. l. 173

Now that it’s all over, Tom tries not to remember what it felt like. He laughs, and tells Nita he’s embarrassed, grins at Dairine like there was never anything to worry about at all. Beside him Carl makes a joke about working for the TV station and everyone smiles; it’s a pretty good façade, he thinks.

After all, it was embarrassing. Just not as much as it was terrifying.

Mostly what he remembers, when he can’t forget, is the way he was always looking for something. Fiddling with the switchbox like maybe there was something more in there than just electricity; staring into the fishpond and waiting to hear someone speak to him, and feeling like an idiot when no-one did. Feeling, the whole time, like he was missing something, something that should have been right there like an arm or a leg. Or maybe his lungs, removed from his chest to leave him breathless and hollow, and nothing left but a whisper of an Oath and the faint scent of rosemary.

*

Carl starts worrying when Tom starts having the nightmares, waking them both in the smallest hours gasping like there’s not enough air in the world, sitting bolt-upright with his arms stretched out in front of him like there’s something there he can’t see or touch, something he desperately needs. He calms down quickly enough once he’s woken but Carl sees it tucked behind his eyes even in the day. Sometimes he catches Tom looking out the window at Akagane-sama like she might disappear, talking to the dogs like any moment he might stop understanding what they were saying. And when it does fade from his eyes he still looks tired- old, Carl’s mind supplies unhappily, he looks like he’s getting old. And it’s not like either of them are getting younger but Carl’s still worried, because he always knew Tom would get laugh lines but frown lines are not expected.

Eventually he tackles him. He comes up behind Tom when he’s standing in the kitchen looking out at the garden with that look in his eyes again, puts his hands on his hips and rests his chin on his shoulder.

“You going to tell me what’s up anytime soon or do I need to start guessing?”

Tom turns his head away. “Sorry?”

“Tom. The nightmares, the weird looks… I know I can come up with my own explanations- maybe you’re just thinking about the wiring a lot: I’ve seen the looks you’ve been giving the switchbox- but I’d rather hear it from you. There’s something up.”

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

A sigh, then “… since the Pullulus. You remember what it was like.”

“Sure. Try not to think about it much, but…”

“Me, too. Except I can’t stop thinking about it. What it felt like losing the Speech- towards the end I was looking through my manual, I was reading a sentence and it just fell apart on me. All of a sudden, bang, nothing there. And I knew, I knew there was supposed to be something there. It’s my job to know. I was- it frightened me, Carl. Badly.”

“I know, I-“

“No. You don’t. Because I—you didn’t ever meet my grandfather, but he died a few years back. Kinda young. He had Alzheimer’s. He hadn’t known what day it was for a few years when he went, but towards the end it was worse than that. He didn’t know me, or my Dad, or my Mom. He didn’t recognize himself, who’s that in the doorway, he’d say and he’d be looking at the mirror. He couldn’t feed himself, or take care of himself but that wasn’t even the worst bit; the worst bit was the way he knew, he could feel himself forgetting. Books, his kids’ names, where his wallet was… words.

“And the Pullulus… if that’s what it’s like, if that’s- I don’t ever want to be like that again, Carl.”

*

Tom stops talking, feels Carl’s hands tighten on his hips and turns his head back towards Carl. He didn’t want to frighten Carl any more than he, himself, wants to be afraid; he knows as well as any other wizard that he absolutely cannot afford to pay to much attention to his fear. Because there’s some One out there who will take advantage, and maybe this fear is even a sign that he’s been doing something right lately. But it doesn’t make him feel any better and it sure doesn’t make the possibility go away, and he can’t stop himself remembering.

But Carl doesn’t look frightened, just calm, and Tom frowns a little at that; Carl’s a talented wizard and a good Senior but he can’t hold in his emotions about the Superbowl, never mind anything actually important. But if Carl’s not worried now then he can’t possibly understand-

“I know what you’re thinking,” Carl interrupts. “And you’re right, I’m not worried. But I don’t need to be; I know why you’re upset now and that’s- hell, you think you were the only one the Pullulus terrified? You know you weren’t. But I’m not worried because you have nothing to be worried about, do you understand?”

Tom’s eyebrows shoot up and he’s almost angry now. “No. I don’t!”

“You don’t need to worry because it’ll be okay, Tom. Even if you do lose the Speech. You won’t lose me, you know that. Even if you forget me I’ll be right here. I can remind you.”

Tom wants to believe but he knows Carl can’t promise anything of the sort; it was not, would not be that kind of forgetting, like putting something down and not being able to find it till the next day; this is losing memories for good, not just under the newspapers and cushions in the mind but right down the back of the sofa, leaving empty spaces in the head and the heart where they should be. But he can hear that Carl does believe it, with the intense passion he applies to wizardry, amateur electronics and Tom himself. So he turns around and hugs Carl, hiding his face; he might not be able to forget this, but maybe that’s a good sign; and maybe he can keep Carl from remembering instead. As he buries his head in his shirt, he breathes deeply; and distantly can smell the rosemary.


***

my motif is pastede on yaye!

[chattycheese.livejournal.com]

:D Oh so very awesome! Many thanks! I lvoe the rosemary thing it's an inspired touch.

...and it's just like this idea I had. I was thinking about myriadworlds (don't ask me why, I've absolutely no idea. *has strange, wandering, random mind*) and how there hasn't been a challenge for a while, and how it could possibly have ficlet challenges - like a post-pullus dealing the the tragedy set, or an everday life vignette challenge, or something of the sort.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

:D thank you! I feel like I need to rewrite say the last 300 words on grounds of sloppiness and soppiness, but otherwise I'm quite proud of it... my longest fic to date!! I started it off for a yuletide NYR request and it made the wordcount too. *proud*

The rosemary was totally added in because I needed a) a good ending and b) a good title. *guilt*

As for myriadwords, man I neglect it sooo badly. *worried* I need to post another challenge but people really don't seem to respond to them all that much. Sooo.... well. I'll post another one tonight, probably from the masterlist of challenges- but if you have a good one feel free to prod me to post it next week or something?

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

my motif is pastede on yaye!

Hahahahahahaha

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I just wish it was less funny/accurate :PP