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<center>$outline[My Bookshelf]</center>
There's a surprising number of books that are so close to being lost, or were never really digitized... Here's a bit of my personal collection that I've been working on archiving. Consider this landing page an ongoing work in progress. :-)
^^(Some of these might be sort of choppily transcribed- it's really only for my own reference at this point in time, so I'm going to just upload them as I get a moment here or there to jot some words down from their pages. Love, Ariel.)^^
[[Watchdog->w1]]
[[Abbatoir, Atelier->a1]]
[[The Reason Why->t1]](set: $outline to (text-style: "outline"))
<center>$outline[Watchdog]</center>
When Michael's older brother dies on top of the wintry summits, he takes with him the only person who has ever truly seen him. Michael vows to visit the last place on earth Raphael ever saw, and lay his soul to rest. He can't bear the idea of his brother joining the frozen, ceaselessly seeing legion of the mountain's abandoned dead.
//Watchdog// is a deeply intimate character study grappling with death, harrowing psychological trauma, and a deep-seated loneliness that plagues one young man hellbent on honouring [[familial love.->w2]]
^^(I know, it's a bit of a melodramatic pitch, but hey, I'm not the guy who writes the backcover blurbs for these!)^^The air was bitingly cold. That didn’t come as a surprise- up near the summit, it was too thin to breathe, and corpses strewn around acted as both path marking and ominous warning. Even after years of sun bleaching for some, you could still see the bright colours of their jackets, the clunky boots they’d trekked up in, searching for whatever pulled them ever onwards: danger, adventure, conquest. These humanistic goals were of no interest to these heights. They didn’t take kindly to visitors storming into her domain unbidden, having already been warned off several times over: turn back, pass no further. The mountain clawed back her tithes, here. Remorse was in short supply.
He could see puffy little clouds of warmed air in front of him, lingering in the low ceiling of the cave. Here, at least, the howling winds were dampened- even if only a little. He didn’t know how long the storm would last. He hoped it would be sooner, rather than later- but the mountain would take her time, and there was little he could do. Going out now would be an immediate death sentence. Falling asleep here would only draw out the inevitable, same conclusion.
He sat down. He knew better than to place his body directly onto the icy ground- even inside of the cave, it was snowy and cold: it wasn’t deep enough to burrow into anything approximating geothermal warmth. It was a nice enough windbreak for the time being- deceptively nice, dangerously nice. It would be all too easy to get comfortable enough to lie down and never get up again.
No, you had to place something between your body and the ground: even a thin layer of sticks, or some cardboard in urban landscapes would help- to keep the ground from [[leeching off of your body heat->w3]] and wicking it away just as quickly as it was built up. That lesson had come from stints out in the Northern forests: equally as unforgiving, a little less remote: in winter, there was nothing but a blinding brilliance and brewed spruce teas, salt on your tongue and tears in your eyes. Winter was lonely, out on the tundra. Desolation consumed all.
When he had been a little boy, the first winter he’d ever seen something close to the phenomena roaring outside the rock had downed power lines. They had frozen immediately on contact, and snapped- lashing back and forth, writhing like furtively alive animals, sparks showering every which way. He’d been lucky to not be down among the snowbanks, scuffing his boots on the ice and snow, drawing little hearts when he hopped up and down to form them from the prints left behind in his tread. (set: $outline to (text-style: "outline"))
<center>$outline[Abbatoir, Atelier]</center>
The killing room for short stories from luminary Isa Caldwell. Here are the felled darlings cut down for the slaughter, presented for the first time in a collated volume since their initial publication in 1801.
^^This is what I'm currently reading, so it'll be a little bit before I get around to transcribing it. Plus, since they're short stories, I think it would be nicer if I managed to get them all down at once. Check out the other novels' sections for some odds and ends from them!^^(set: $outline to (text-style: "outline"))
<center>$outline[The Reason Why]</center>
When the world ends, it does so gently. No catastrophic nuclear cloud, no barrage of tsunamis layered on earthquakes and forest fires, no wintry winds so cold to step outside is to breathe your last. The world dies quietly: in the cessation of cicadas, in <a href="https://arielsanthologies.neocities.org/babybrother.html">the silence </a>[[of songbirds.->t2]] It ekes its way out of existence with a quiet dignity. Left in the aftermath, Saint picks through the remains of civilization, wondering what all the fuss was about.She missed the sounds, most of all. The cicadas has ceased their constant low hums, the songbirds silenced: leaving only the cool winds whipping over the lake. Her hair was gently lifted out of her face by the currents, bringing with them the smell of salt and freezer burn cold, a faint edge of smoke from far over the horizon. The lake was big enough to be more of an inland sea, with its own waves crashing against the shore, dampening the hem of her dress as she walked a meandering path down the beach, gingerly picking out the best trails over the water slick stones, [[trying not to stumble->t3]] and fall into the foam.It was the little things that had surprised him when he retraced his steps. The door bell was still a little rusty, only jangling out to loudly proclaim his arrival at the second shove at ill maintained door joints. The diner still smelt of stale ashes and lemon cleaning spray, a cloying scent that was pushed away by the sizzle of hashbrowns and too strong coffee, left to brew overnight.
The same laminate counter tops, with salt and pepper shakers that seemed to be welded shut with how tightly their lids were wedged on top- the greasy sheen over tiles that never quite seemed to get clean enough, despite the hours of mopping and scrubbing the staff put in through the quieter hours of night. [[So much had changed, and yet- so little at the same time.->w4]]The icecream parlour had still had moths fluttering around, hovering near the buzzing electrical lights and darting down now and then in swooping arcs over the icecream. The thick squares of pastel colours tempted him. He pressed one fingertip to the glass, leaving a white smudge on the frosted surface. There was a twitch, tension settling in around the employee’s shoulders: paid too little to do as much scrubbing as he did, wiping away dirty touches and spit flecks from customers who stood far too close to the display. A muscle jumped in the man’s jaw.
Michael watched with calm eyes, dragging the fingertip to hover over his selection. “Pistachio,” he said in his flat voice- pleasant enough, but without any particular inflection that would betray how he felt. The same order he’d made [[the night that his life had changed irrevocably.->w5]]It was the ferns that she noticed first, curling delicately in on themselves. Without the brushing hems of dresses, the scuff of slacks rubbed up against their shying leaves, the quietest plants splayed their pinned leaves without fretting. Wildflowers had begun taking over the trodden paths, moss and lichen slowly inching across the corrugated expanse of tree bark that bore the scars of pocket knives nicking into their tender flesh.
There were sprays of bluebells and sweet red clover, bright dandelions alongside their puffball cousins, seeds gambolling across the lush grass without a care in the world, whisked away by errant winds going every which way they pleased. The woods had garlanded herself with springtime gems, content to be beautiful in the absence of an observer.There was nothing but him and the long road stretching out for miles around. The stands of tall pines and spruce leaned in, enclosing the road over like clasped hands in the canopy, shivering and rustling as a cold wind whipped through the countryside. The radio had long since lost connection, leaving only static to wash over him as he drove. The window was cracked open slightly, enough to let a little fresh air circulate in through, leaving dark plumes to slip out into the dark, whisked away into the woods and carrying the scent of industry.
It was dangerous country. Michael’s grip on the steering wheel was knuckle white, sweat trickling down the front of his collar, slipping low. The roads were dry, at least. He was glad that the forecast had panned out. These trips were always carefully meted out, every rest stop and gas station carefully notated, where street lamps were strung up and where had been abandoned to the all consuming dark you couldn’t find inside of cities proper. He didn’t normally leave his windows open, preferring to drive in stoic silence, but tonight was a night best to announce his entry and departure, rather than risk the wrath of intruding on land unaccounted for.