#also the foundation they put on him is like 3000% not his shade and its throwing me off to look at his face rn | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mairzymarzipan · 8 years ago

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The Magical Mr. Shade p9

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 , 7, 8

Oh, great, now we have two magical objects that won’t shut up.

After this chapter I think I’ll try to chill a bit. Catch up on blog cleaning, get back into tin!. refill my queue...yanno, stuff like that.

If Dudley thought he were imagining things, he only needed to look away for a moment, gather himself, and look at the words again. And there they were. There was his name, there was a greeting, and there was a follow-up statement that indicated that this was a conversation.

The words didn’t stay for long, though. After a minute they faded back into the page. Dudley flickered to himself.

He shook his pen, his heart pounding, and pressed it to the page.

I can’t believe I’m having a conversation with a book.

The words shifted shape a few times, and then Dudley felt guilty, because wasn’t he being a bit hypocritical- a lamp who was in disbelief over a talking book? But they were gone, now, and Dudley couldn’t retrieve them. The answer came swiftly though, quickly shifting through several languages before appearing to the bookseller.

You think I’m a book? That’s funnier than you know! I am not a book. I am simply speaking to you through this book.

Oh? How was that possible? Did the person on the other side have a book of their own? So this book is like a telephone, then?

That word doesn’t translate well, the book-not-book answered, but you seem to be talking about a machine with a voice trapped inside it? The fire language was very strange indeed- the other writer started their sentences from the right of the page, but somehow they managed to be oriented the right way once they were in English.

I suppose that’s one explanation of what a telephone is, Dudley wrote back, and wondered how this person could not know about telephones. Not that they were ubiquitous, but they were far more common than they had been growing up. Dudley had one, in the office, and so did Travis in his home, and all the other book traders, and just about anyone who did business.

Wait, translate? Dudley watched his words cycle through languages. Oh, of course- that was it! This book wasn’t written in English originally. It wasn’t even written in Arabic originally. It was written in that lovely fire language, and had taught itself new ones.

New words appeared on the page: Well then I suppose this book would be like a telephone, but really not. It would be a book with a person trapped inside.

These words shocked Dudley with their nonchalance, and he quickly wrote back a message, You’re trapped inside this book?

I’m not a book- I’ve already told you, the answer was simple, and maybe slightly annoyed?

I don’t understand, then. Who are you, and how are you conversing with me?

The page remained blank for quite a while after Dudley’s words disappeared, and the lamp wondered if maybe he had offended the person inside the book? Or whoever they were.

Ah, here they came! At this moment, I am sitting inside a cave, looking at the wall that was once the mud at the bottom of the river where the papyrus I made this book from grew. When you write in the book, words appear on the wall, in my language.

Dudley had to read the sentences several times, just to confirm he had read what he thought he had. He wasn’t sure which part to address first, but when it faded away, he felt compelled to reply.

I’m sorry, excuse me- Dudley hesitated, because he didn’t even know if the person he was addressing as a sir a ma’am, but I think there might be a translation error, truly, he was surprised there hadn’t been many more, given how many languages the messages had to pass through both ways. He wondered all of a sudden if the person in the the cave or whatever wasn’t having a different conversation entirely- blithely going on about taxa of flowers or something, and both were unaware of this issue, but you said this book was made from papyrus. But, it’s a book! It’s bound. It’s made of paper.

My book has magic in it to change it with time. The pages may not look like would you expect it to look like, but it was made from papyrus.

Dudley pinched the corner of the page between his fingers. It felt like paper, most definitely. Not particularly high quality- just, good book paper. It was amazing to think that it had changed itself just as it had altered its own language. How long had it had this cover? Had it chosen the howling jackals for itself? Did the book think?

That was if the person in the cave was telling the truth. Dudley wasn’t quite certain he believed them, but he did find it interesting to talk to them, and at this moment he wanted to do this more than anything- more than cleaning or stocking or reading the classics.

Why would a book need to change shape, though?

To fit in. Just enough, though. My book was meant to stand out among the crowd of books like it. To catch the eye of a certain human who vexed me, and cause him misfortune for him and his friends.

Travis?! Dudley wrote before he had completely processed the sentence.

I don’t know what a Travis is and it doesn’t translate into anything in my language.

Sorry, Dudley wrote an ellipsis, then cringed inwardly, wishing he was writing with a pencil, because he found ellipses to be lazy and uninspiring in text. But there was no erasing it now, and it already translating itself. Dudley thought it a shame it had to filter through so many languages- if only he could tell the book just to translate it into the fire language- that certainly seemed more efficient. Travis is the name of my friend. He found the book- in a cave. Was it your cave? Did you- did you make this book with Travis in mind?

I doubt you were friends with the infuriating human I knew. He was last mortal over three thousand years ago.

Dudley didn’t know how to reply. He just wrote the number: 3000?

That put a lot of things into perspective. If the book was three thousand years old, did that mean that some of the languages it spoke were dead? It must have been made of papyrus because no one had figured out how to make paper yet back then. Had it once been a scroll, then? How long had it been bound? When it had spoken French, had it been made of parchment or vellum? What about the person who claimed to have written the book- how could they be sitting in a cave today, holding a conversation with Dudley? Were they magical too, like the book? They must have been, in order to create it. And they talked about things like mortals and human and-

Yes, three thousand. Are you dim? This conversation is a little bit of a letdown.

Dudley felt hurt. He was enjoying talking to the person in the cave, and it was a shame to know that the other didn’t feel the same way. He tapped his pen on the edge of his face, not sure how to answer. Mostly, he was debating whether he should reply with a pun about his own current brightness, but translations were fatal to puns.

Instead he persisted questioning, Are you human?

Are you?

Well that caught him by surprise.

Well- I guess that depends on your definition of a human.

And what is your definition of a human?

Dudley thought for a while. He set the pen down and messaged his bulb. Well, I own a shop. I read, I negotiate, I clean. I speak, and stand upright, and I can add numbers in my head. These are all things that humans do. But I also don’t eat or sleep or sweat, but humans do these things. And I do some things that humans don’t- like taking off my head with no discomfort, glowing different intensities with my moods, and healing wounds in a matter of seconds. I was human once. I think I still am, in the sense that I still mingle with them and understand their mores and habits. But I know I don’t meet every requirement of being a human… He trailed off, writing more ellipses before he could stop himself. This question was actually a little uncomfortable and prickly.

By that description, you sound like a person who is neither dead nor alive- a walking corpse that had not had the sense to rot in the earth yet.

Dudley shuddered at that assessment. I- I had never thought of myself that way. Though I suppose there is some truth in it. Table lamps aren’t living things. But I don’t believe I belong in the earth. think I should keep on living, and being with people, regardless of whether I’m a lamp or a human.

This is another word that translates poorly, but you’ve used it before. My wall seems to be telling me that you’re a torch made of glass?

Dudley considered that, wondering if his pen pal had been sitting in this cave for all those three thousand years to not understand the concept of a table lamp.

You’re sort of right, he began, you see there is this thing called a lightbulb, and it’s, sort of, a torch that’s trapped inside a glass ball. Only the torch is connected to an electrical current, and if you cut off the current, the torch will extinguish. But you can always alight the torch again by turning the current back on. A lamp is basically a lightbulb but with a base, and some lamps have shades over their bulbs, so that people can have their lights on without being blinded.

So, you’re a torch encased in glass, but you’re also submerged in a river of lightning? But sometimes, you’re not. And you’re attached to a foundation and you have a piece of cloth obscuring your face? You must look very strange and amusing!

Dudley pulled on his collar, because the part about being submerged in a river hit too close to his recent anxieties. He wrote, Even stranger than you think, Bookmaker. The cloth is my face! But I have a man’s body instead of a base!

Dudley was in high spirits again, and all thoughts of returning to his old form were cast away like the wind banishes rain clouds from the city. Truth was, Dudley was quite amused by his own transformation enjoyed people’s expressions of surprise, and sometimes delight or horror.

That’s because you’ve only granted one wish, and it barely qualified as a wish, from what I sensed.

Wish? Dudley wrote the word, flickering, but it didn’t seemed to be noticed as more words started to be written from the right of it. His question was written over while it was still in French.

The new words were scrawled with excitement. Torches- how fitting. Torches are fire harnessed by humans. But you’re a human that’s been harnessed by my magic. And my magic is fire magic.

Your magic? But of course. The book’s magic had made him this way, and it would be silly to think that the book’s magic belonged to itself. So you turned me into a lamp! He tapped his edge with his pen, Wait- have there been other people like me? Living objects who used to be men before they read this book? And what, exactly, do you mean by wish?

#maguffins

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