omg so crazy but actually maybe please do that. please.
Posting a little later than anticipated because I had to get dinner and edit it a little so it makes more sense. I really wasn’t joking about how close to just falling asleep I was, lolll. Maybe I’ll post this on ao3 later? Idk. I still have to finish my first duck tits post.
So anyway,
It was just--- Alberto swallows. It was just really hard, you know, being alone. You watch his throat bob and his eyes glisten before he turns away, rubbing the heel of his palm into his eye socket. It's pathetic.
No, it's not. You squeeze his hand. Alberto, it's not pathetic at all.
He makes a small noise, like an animal that's lost the will to keep fighting the trap around its leg. Except his leg is still bouncing violently, the only part of him you see moving. He still won't look at you. He takes a shaky breath and then says, Sometimes I would-- swallows again -- I would uh, I would sit there and...
You squeeze his hand again.
His voice breaks before he can finish saying, I would sit there and just wish for someone to hug me.
The tears are coming now. Into your neck, into your shirt's collar. Another crack: I'm sorry.
Your feelings instinctively cutting off like cauterized veins as your arms circle his shoulders, cradling him closer. It's okay, you say into his hair. Don't be sorry.
It was just so hard, he says into your skin, his voice thin and choked. I didn't have anyone. He didn't even leave mom's coat. He took it with him.
He took your mom's coat? you ask.
Alberto swallows mucus and pushes himself back up, rubbing again at his eyes, purple streaks like bruises across his face. I used to use it as a blanket, you know, when I was a little kid. And he told me when I was older and could fit into it better that I could have it. But he took it with him. And I know it's dumb to be upset because it's just a coat, but, you know, I wanted it. It was soft. And smelled nice, all vanilla-y.
His eyes flick back up to yours, though you aren’t sure what he’s looking for. You wonder what expression you’re wearing because inside your chest is only a tiny fraction of its normal radio static.
This is how it always goes: you absorb him and then ride and sweat and scrawl it out only after he’s gone to sleep. Right now he needs you to be strong.
You squeeze his hand again, resting it on your knee.
I don't really remember what my mom smelled like, Alberto says. But that's how I knew he wasn't coming back for me. I just kept telling myself that it wasn't true.
He looks to his hand clasped so tenderly in yours and how his sweat is turning your palm green and he sighs and rubs his fingers into his eyes. Sighs again, palm on his still-streaked cheek. Can we talk about something else, please?
Do you want to go get some gelato?
I know this is dumb, Alberto asks, wiping his face with the hem of his shirt, but will you order it for me?
That look in his eyes again, searching, waiting
(bracing for impact)
So you kiss the back of his hand and force on a small smile and say, Absolutely.
About eighteen months to two years ago the thriller writer John Connolly (you may not have read his novels but you will have seen the name as he is rarely out of the bestsellers lists). I like him. Thrillers but with just enough horror to keep me happy. Released his last Novel. If you bought the digital version, it came with a soundtrack to listen to as you were reading it. The hardback also did in limited edition. the TV and radio ads included, all his sources and information gathering included. At the time it was quite new and unusual to do such a thing. Yet i think to myself how many teachers, writers and filmmakers are talking of the great disconnect with teens now. Where everything is done online, digitally and together via the net. Now a novel will rarely be a computer game but kids still read in their droves. Imagine that coupled with their love of 3d, games, music, entertainment, gossip etc.
It is already possible to cheaply produce books of this sort except that the main publishers of e-books do not yet have the apparatus in place for them to be downloaded easily but I think that we are hiding our heads in the sand if we believe this is not coming. The computer companies know that it is (coming) hence the creation of the likes of samsungs Dropbox and Google drive. I suspect that when I pop my clogs my kids will throw my treasured library in the bin, (apart from my copy of Sir Alexander Pope's first translation of the Iliad into English, I have it wrapped in cellophane with a note upon it- "Worth Money") and if they do not then their children will.
Yet the frightening thing is this is not the far future that we can put away until tomorrow but rather something that will happen in the next five to ten years and we had best be prepared for it.
I remember Bob Dylan saying in the seventies. "I see the turnin of the page, curtain, dawnin on a new age. There is another new age dawning and this is one of the steps that authors will be called upon to take..
A Pen that Writes in 3D! This project, already in the works, just launched on kickstarter and it looks amazing! the pen expells a liquid that solidifies almost instantly as it touches air, allowing you to right literally without paper!
I dont know why, I dont know what i would use it for, but I need this!
