Paper-nightlight - 💫

Guess which game I completed recently. For some reason, I decided to finish the very first sketch I made.

happy ask list for when you’re sad:

sunflower: if there was a door that went to a city that was a good representation of you, what city would it be and would you go through the door?

pink: sunsets or sunrises? 

freshly cut grass: are you an early riser? if not, is this because you stay up late? 

journal: would you dye your hair if you had the opportunity? why or why not? 

painting: in what ways are you creative? 

waves: is there one music genre you can’t listen to? 

writing: do you write letters? if not, would you like to be? 

waterfalls: describe your perfect date.

freckles: what’s something that makes you happy? describe the first thing that comes to your head. 

dimples: would you rather be inviting on a hike or a night out? 

blushing: describe a rad person you know. 

watercolour: talk about something someone you are interested in can do that never fails to make you find them attractive? 

pine: if you could only smell one scent for the rest of your life, what would it be? 

pink eyeshadow: pasta or pizza? 

icy: homemade or takeout? 

rosè: what’s your opinion on shyness? 

clouds: list your top 5 songs at the moment and how they make you feel 

silk: list songs you listen to for a jam 

white sheets: where’s somewhere you would love to travel to? why? 

black nail polish: what do you do to pamper yourself? 

hidden beaches: do you prefer to hang out in a big group or one on one? 

crossed fingers: using no negative words, describe your hair. 

mocktails: cold weather or hot weather?

somethings i’ve been able to draw

me: dress how you want!! gender is fake!!! nothing matters!!!!!!

trans person: i like gender tho

me: hell yeah i respect that!!!! i apologize and don’t mean to dismiss your identity with my optimistic nihilism!!!!!!!

Death and grief examined within the pantheon

marco polo. that’s the joke thank you for your time 

Okay, buckle up buckaroos, because today I met an honest-to-goodness cryptid.

I was out running errands and I made a stop at Intimate Books (…for a friend), and on my way out I realized that the bookshop next door was open.

This bookshop has existed for more than a hundred years, and in all my life it has NEVER BEEN OPEN. I mean, I assume it has to be open sometimes, but never at any normal, reasonable hour. Everyone says it’s a front for the mob or something.

So what do you do when the weird mafia bookshop is open? You go the fuck inside.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. You know that smell when you accidentally leave your towel on the bathroom floor all day and you come back to that mildew funk? The shop smelled like that times a thousand. I expected to see stuff growing on the walls, but the books were pristine. We’re talking first editions, rare editions, weird Bibles and books inscribed to really famous dead people. Librarians would weep for the chance to accession this place. In the first two minutes I found a signed copy of The Crucible and what I think was a first edition of Blake’s Book of Thel.

Then a clerk showed up out of nowhere—honestly nowhere. He looked EXACTLY like a bookseller should look, kind of fluffy and bewildered and really, really gay.

“Are you lost?” was the first thing he said to me.

“Nope. Just browsing, thanks.”

“Browsing, I see. Erm. How do you feel about snakes?” he asked. And without waiting for me to answer, he just walked away and vanished around a shelf.

I figured it was a metaphor, or a code phrase for the mafia. Until I turned a corner like ten minutes later and found a little reading nook. It was really pretty, although I feel like that particular window should have been on an interior wall? Anyway, curled up in an armchair in a patch of sunlight was the biggest fuck-off black snake I have ever seen.

Like, I don’t mind snakes in general. But in their normal context, right? Outside. On the ground. Not six feet long and sitting on a threadbare velvet armchair like it owns the place.

I was about to turn around and leave, but I saw a gorgeous first-edition copy of Leaves of Grass on a shelf, a little too close to the snake for comfort. But I had never needed anything so badly in my life.

So I went back to the counter to buy it, but the clerk was nowhere to be found.

While I was waiting, I noticed a collection of pictures hanging on the wall behind the counter, dating back to the very dawn of photography. A couple were of this rock-star looking guy from the 70s that I should probably have recognized, but there were authors and landscapes and stuff, too. There was even an old tintype portrait of Oscar freaking Wilde, sitting in this very shop with a guy that I would ACTUALLY SWEAR was the clerk from before. Like, I know my family all has the same nose, but this guy had the same everything.

After approximately one year of waiting, the clerk came back out to the desk. By now I’ve realized that he’s too bad at his job to be anything but the owner of the shop.

“I saw your snake,” I told him.

“Did you? Was he behaving himself?”

“He was sleeping.”

“Yes, he enjoys that.”

“Does he just stay out in the open like that? What if he gets out?”

He shrugged and smiled. “He always comes home again, the dear boy.”

Right, a homing snake. That’s totally normal.

Then he cleared his throat and asked, in a weirdly reluctant voice, if I was going to buy the Whitman.

“Yes, please,” I told him. “I saw it on a shelf by the snake, and it was just too tempting.”

He sighed. “Oh, yes, I expect it was.”

When I started to hand him my card, he went all fluttery and said that they didn’t take cards.

All right, fine. I had some cash on me, but I told him that he’d sell a lot more books if he got a Square or something.

He got this scandalized look on his face and went, “Why would I want to do that?”

Oookay. I handed over the cash and he popped open the ancient till and started making change.

In shillings. Shillings! I swear to god I saw Queen Anne’s face on one of them. The silver value of the coins was probably as much as I paid for the book.

But I had to have proof that this happened—at that point, all I had was a book in a plain brown wrapper, not appreciably different from what I bought next door. So I asked him for a receipt.

He looked delighted and wrote one up for me.

By hand.

With a fountain pen.

And that’s the story of how I met a bookseller cryptid and his pet snake.

haha im in danger                               ヽ                                     ඞ