#anais writes

[annaizscribbling]

Pt 3 of The Farmer being not quite human. Shane edition

(Pt 1)

Shane remembered the first time he learned to fear the farmer.

Don’t get him wrong, he likes the farmer, she’s a good friend of his. She was there at his lowest point, patient and calm when he was anything but. Shane cared deeply for her, she helped change his life, lots of people’s lives. She was one of his closest friends, a confidant for a time, and an encouragement to get better. She was a godsend.

But he was also terrified of her, and for good reason. Reason nobody else in this damn town seems to understand, but good reason.

She had only been in town a few months at that point. Shane met her a handful of times, scaring her off with mostly bark and not much bite, though she always came back to greet him eventually.

He was drunk at the time, which he usually was then, so it wasn’t anything special. He was not blackout drunk, but he was certainly more than just a little tipsy. He had to work in the morning, which made him miserable, so he drank, which meant he would wake up hungover, which would make work miserable, so he’d drink more the evening after, and so on.

Instead of heading straight home, he went for a clumsy walk. Shane couldn’t handle the idea of going back to his room, which was feeling more and more like a prison of his own making. He staggered past Pierre’s and toward the broken-down community center, clumsily finding the old stone bench in the overgrown garden attached to the center.

Shane looked up at the sky, trying to lose himself in the vastness of the stars stretching out forever. Buh. As much as he hated the valley, he did like being able to see the stars from there. Staring up at so many stars, it made Shane feel small and insignificant, which was almost comforting. The heavens didn’t give a shit about him, neither did he. They had that in common. There wasn’t any side eyes and disappointment to be found in the stars. The valley had good stars. Zuzu city had too much light pollution for that.

Even footsteps slowly approached from the path that led into the mountains. Shane drowsily craned his neck to catch a glimpse.

What he found, he did not like.

A low light was moving down the path, not a streetlight or a lamp, but like a moving ray of light from a setting sun. An illuminated figure moved in the center of the light, always in the middle of the glow, like a ghost or a vengeful spirit. Shane rubbed his eyes, trying to sober up enough to comprehend what he was seeing. He never believed in magic, or spirits, or anything science hadn’t given the stamp of approval. He prayed to Yoba that it was just the alcohol, and that he was dreaming it all up.

Instead, dark hair and suntanned skin began to take shape in Shane’s eyes.

The farmer.

She wasn’t tall compared to most of the villages, Shane included, but gazing at her then, she looked startlingly imposing. The farmer was holding an old sword in one hand, the cruel sharp edge glinting the light she was somehow emitting. It was covered in splashes of slime and what could only be blood. Her dark hair was immaculate, but her clothes were ripped and shredded, revealing more of her toned body. He didn’t remember her looking remotely strong when she first moved to town, but now? now she looked powerful, ruthless, inhuman. Her thick work boots were coated in gunk and dirt. A closer look at her as she approached revealed to Shane that her skin was glossy, not like sweat but like slime. She walked like there wasn’t an earthly force that could so much as hinder her.

Shane stared, petrified.

Not once did she so much as glance in his direction, she just kept walking, heavy footsteps sounding to an assertive beat.

Then just as Shane thought he was clear, she turned to look directly at him, making him jolt in surprise.

She walked over, the light still following her like a fog trying to cling to her. The light made her brown eyes glow like pools of honey with the sun behind them. To Shane, it felt like a wild animal watching his car headlights from the thrush. The farmer stared at him in silence for a few moments, making Shane feel like a curious riddle being pondered over. It made the hairs on his arms stand up.

Shane was still seated, she was standing over him, studying him with unreadable eyes. It was the longest few seconds of his entire life, staring at her. Up close he could see the monster blood staining her skin and clothing, she must have been in the mines. Nobody goes to the mines, at least never far down enough to come back looking like that. The sword was more intimidating up close, its serrated edge caught with pieces of gummy flesh and black dust. She could kill him. She could probably kill anything in the valley.

The farmer tilted her head slightly. “Hello,” she said in a soft voice.

He felt his hackles rise before he could have the sense to stop himself. “Why are you bothering me? I want to be alone,” he snapped, scowling up at her, as if he could possibly scare her off.

A beat of silence passed before she sat on the bench beside him, which Shane shot her a withering glare for. She pulled her backpack into her lap and began to rummage, taking out what Shane was almost positive was a fistful of diamonds and setting them aside. After another precious gem of some sort, she found the bottom of her bag and pulled out an uncovered plate of pepper poppers, still fresh and somehow even steaming slightly.

Shane looked at the food then back at her, “Uh, how—”

She cut him off by pushing the plate toward him, jutting her chin out as if to encourage him into taking it. As she did so, Shane found the source of the light in the form of a blinding gold ring she was wearing, which was somehow a flashlight?

Shane squinted at it.

The farmer was still holding out the food.

“Oh. Um … for me?” Shane asked dumbly, obviously they were for him. Yoba, he was too drunk for this.

She nodded, almost smiling.

Slowly, he took the plate of perfect pepper poppers, eyeing her suspiciously over the salivating smell. Cautiously, Shane took one and bit into it. It was delicious. Perfect, even. Hot, cheesy, spicy, fresh. What the hell.

Slightly manically, he laughed. Maybe it was the beer talking. Maybe he was finally losing his mind. But the pepper poppers sure looked real, and so did the farmer. He couldn’t believe what was happening.

“These are my favorite. How?” Shane said, shaking his head, staring at the plate of food.

The farmer rubbed was was presumably (and very hopefully) monster blood from her arm. “I heard you liked them.”

Shane blinked. “Is Marnie going around talking about me? I hate when she does that, buh. What has she been saying?”

“No,” the farmer said quietly, calmly. “Not her.”

“Oh. Then who told you?”

The farmer stared up at the sky instead of looking at Shane. She looked peaceful, ethereal, and terrifying. She looked down at her sword, which she had propped against the bench. “I killed a ghost. The ghost dropped a note. It told me what gifts you would like, so I listened.”

Shane stared at her in silent horror for what was at least two full minutes.

“Goodnight,” the farmer said after awhile of stargazing. She stood, gathered her gemstones and slung her backpack over her shoulder. She retrieved her sword and began to trek back to her farm. It was nearly 1:30AM.

Shane never quite saw her like he did the rest of the town after that. He questioned himself over it for two years now, wondering if it really happened just like that, but every time he began to doubt himself, she’d do something just strange enough to remind him.

She’d turn around, knowing exactly where he is despite her back being to him, and Shane standing 20 feet away. She’d lug massive, intricate artifacts to the museum that she seemed to know a little too much about. He’d see her trekking up to the old, abandoned tower on the edge of Cindersap forest, carrying strange gifts of some sort. He’ll visit her and Sebastian at the farm and take note of the strange plants, the old statues and souvenirs, the unnatural animals.

Shane loved the farmer, but he was smart enough to fear her too.

[mournfulroses]

Anaïs Nin, from a novel titled "A Spy in the House of Love," published in 1954

[thehopefulquotes]

Love never dies of a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness, errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds. It dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings, but never of a natural death.

Anais Nin

[surqrised]

Love never dies of a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness, errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds. It dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings, but never of a natural death.

Anais Nin

[andersonfilms]

ARCANE SPOILERS, EIGHTEEN+

vi being a confirmed munch! she would literally give the best, the sloppiest, nastiest, most beautifully divined head ever received. you’re telling me she wouldn’t get on her knees for her girl at any moment. vi is the type to insist, even when you’re desperate to get your hands on her, she aims to please and that’s exactly what she’s doing to do. doesn’t matter where you are or really when it happens, she’ll see it through. practically doing tricks on your pussy, her tongue fucking in and out of your coveted hole, splitting your split open with her tongue, slurping at every drop, coating her gorgeous face with your cum. powder blue eyes so dilated, they’re almost too dark to function. she looks at you through her eyelashes, needing to see the look on your face when you cum, greedy hands digging into the roots of her hair, pulling you even further, the tip of her nose teasing your clit until you’re coming undone for her as her mouth pushes you through the best euphoric orgasm you’ve ever had just to be met with “ready for another, cupcake?”

[ardent-reflections]

"I can only connect deeply or not at all."

Anais Nin

[metamorphesque]

musings on writing

Heaven Is Not Verbose: A Notebook by Vera Pavlova (tr. Steven Seymour), Letters Home by Sylvia Plath, MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood, A Breath of Life by Clarice Lispector, Isak Dinesen quoted by Raymond Carver, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath, from a letter to Max Brod by Franz Kafka, Conversations with Kafka by Gustav Janouch, The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

[thoughtkick]

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Anais Nin

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Advice from Anaïs Nin

The following are excerpts from a letter of advice she sent to a 17-year-old aspiring author by the name of Leonard W., whom she had taken under her wing as creative mentor.

I like to live always at the beginnings of life, not at their end. We all lose some of our faith under the oppression of mad leaders, insane history, pathologic cruelties of daily life.

Older people fall into rigid patterns. Curiosity, risk, exploration are forgotten by them. You have not yet discovered that you have a lot to give, and that the more you give the more riches you will find in yourself. It amazed me that you felt that each time you write a story you gave away one of your dreams and you felt the poorer for it.

You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings.

It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing.

Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications.

Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.

If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.

[shisasan]

August , 1935 Journals of Anais Nin 1923-1927 [volume 2]

[quotefeeling]

I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, some people fill the gaps but other people emphasize my loneliness.

Anais Nin

[annaizscribbling]

In which the farmer is not quite human. Pt 2: Willy

Willy pulled his old wool coat a little closer to his chest. That battered old flannel had seen more years than some of the younger folk in town. They just didn’t make coats like that anymore.  The ocean air was bitingly cold. The fish weren’t really biting today, but he’d stay out until dinner time. He wasn’t the type of man to mix up his routine; even when the fish were being stubborn. The ocean never claimed to be predictable, or even kind. It owed him nothing. Willy simply knew how to withstand the tide.

He doesn’t notice the sound of rhythmic footsteps over the crashing waves. The farmer approaches.

“Ahoy there, Lass,” Willy says gruffly, nodding at her as she walks up.

The farmer smiled at him. She wasn’t much of a talker, that girl. Usually, she just nods or shakes her head, unless she’s really got something to say. Her tanned skin and calloused hands echoed her occupation. Through sheer willpower she managed to jumpstart the local economy through her farming, mining, foraging, and of course her fishing. The farmer was a good fisherman. Well. Fisherwoman, he supposed. She recently got hitched to Robin’s son, the sickly lad. They seemed happy though.

 “It’s late,” Willy says, rebaiting his hook for the umpteenth time, “don’t you farmer have to get up early?”

With another smile, the farmer just shrugged. Young people. Never stop long enough to hear themselves think, Willy supposed. Though perhaps the farmer girl wasn’t quite the same.

Another cold breeze swept over the waters. Willy bit back a shiver.

The farmer did not react to the cold. In fact, she was in a thin knit shirt, not equipped with sleeves, and decorated with a pattern reminiscent of a ribcage. That and a pair of baggy cargo pants. It was hardly winter attire. She didn’t have on so much as a hat or a pair of gloves, yet here she was, fishing beside him.

She threw her line in the water, without even baiting it. She just cast her line. Granted, it was excellent cast, going an impressive number of yards out. But still, it was a plain hook. She wouldn’t catch a damn thing.

“Come on, Lass. No bait?” Willy said with a raised an eyebrow.

The farmer stretched her neck, keeping a careful watch on her line. “Forgot it,” she said simply.

Willy shook his head; he’d taught her better than that. Maybe the cold was getting to her head. She was never going to catch any—

The farmer began to get a sharp pull on her line, carefully, masterfully even, she began reeling in a fish with precision. In less than a minute she held aloft an albacore. A massive one.

Willy stared at her.

“… good catch,” Willy said after a long pause.

She just nodded once, before throwing another baitless hook into the water. Willy just watched her, not exactly paying much attention to his own line anymore. Sure, the farmer was an odd little duck, and he was fond of her, but sometimes …

Sometimes he wasn’t so sure what she was. He can only chalk up so many things to the fact she used to be a city girl. City girls don’t spend six hours digging up clay on the beach for no apparent reason. They don’t fell half a forest in an afternoon, or remain forever untouched by the elements or fatigue. Harvey once told him at Gus’s that occasionally she’ll collapse in the mines, covered in slime and monster blood. She’ll return in the morning more often than not. It’s the only time either of them had ever seen her anything other than wide awake and energized,

Willy snaps out of his thoughts when he sees her rummaging in her bag out of the corner of his eyes. The farmer pulls out an uncovered bowl of soup and a raw leek. She quickly devours both things. Willy doesn’t ask any questions. If there are answers to be given, it isn’t his business.

They fish in silence, with Willy scoring a catch and the farmer catching six more fish of her own.

He’s done asking questions. She’s a great fishing companion. She respects the water. Willy’s leaving it there.

Part one

[mournfulroses]

Anaïs Nin, from a letter to Henry Miller written c. August 1932, featured in A Literate Passion

[asoftepiloguemylove]

in the crooks of your body, i find my religion

Charles Bukowski Raw With Love / unknown / @ruhlare / unknown / Anaïs Mitchell from Hadestown; Doubt Comes In / @violentfemmme / Florence + the Machine I'm Not Calling You a Liar

[saturn-metaphors]

A nameless feeling and inexpressible pain,

I used to like blue for calmness,

But now it shows me gloominess and my heart in cage.

Saturn.metaphors

@saturn-metaphors

[thehopefulquotes]

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Anais Nin