#dudster

[heavilyalcoholicvodkadrinker]

hey buddy calm down with the reblogging dudster

How about no 👅👅👅

[brattyratty71-blog]

It’s the Dudster. https://www.instagram.com/p/B1-b_XzH37z/?igshid=ak81ftyejfpb

[mairzymarzipan]

The Magical Mr. Shade

1, 2, 3, 4

So, I’m a gremlin and I could not keep myself from writing this earlier in the day.  Also!  Finally came up with a title.  This actually ended up being fairly long.

I am so stoked about the chapter after this, though.  Does telling you there’s a chapter after this count as a spoiler?  :B

Edited the first entry a bit :B Don’t tell me I’m starting to take this story seriously(it will probs end up on my pillowfort).

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve changed again.”

“Not again!  Now what are you?”

Dudley knocked over the books and came crawling out.  Not even he was sure yet, it was just that he was used to that noise by now.  He stood up and wiped off his body, noticing he couldn’t reach quite as far as he wanted.  He stretched his arms out as far as they would go which, admittedly, wasn’t far.

“Hey D, you’re all stubby,” he was right- Dudley’s legs were shorter too.  He was now more like a babydoll than a child.  His legs were now two thirds the length of his urn, and his hands fell next to his urn when they were limp.

“Isn’t that just the way,” he said, and his light flicked off.  It flicked back on and off again, and the more he noticed it, the more it seemed to flicker without him touching the switch.  Alarmed, he grabbed himself around the neck, which stopped it for now.  So much for having this lousy lamp fixed.

Travis bit his lip.  “We’ve got to stop this,” he said, “blank book, right?”

“Right.”  

“I’ll go get it,” and he was gone in only a few steps.  Very long steps.  

Dudley’s shelves were towering over him now like buildings.  If he was just going to be small forever, how could he ever leave his shop?  The rest of Boston was way too big for him at this size.  There was a certain coldness in the pit of his hollow urn, and a longing.  Upon moving his shop into this space, he had ventured from it only when necessary the health of his business or his body.  It had never been because of any kind of anxiety about the outside world- just laziness, and comfort in the place he was.

But if he could never leave, this shop felt more like a prison than a haven.

Wait- that wasn’t right.  He wasn’t going to be small forever!  Of course- this was just- a lark!

Right?

Curses weren’t usually weekend passes, though.  They usually stayed around until they got broken.  At least, it seemed to Dudley that they did.

And that was the reason Dudley was not going to think of this as a curse.  Just a strange afternoon in May.

He realized that the Agatha Christies were still on the floor, so he set to work putting them back on the shelf.  At least it was the bottom shelf, he thought a bit darkly.  They were heavy, or at least bulky, and he almost fell when he tried to pick up four at a time.  Better to make it one or two.  Dudley was careful, though- he organized books by singular authors not by the title, but by the date of publication.  He didn’t have the latest- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, though.  He couldn’t keep that one on the shelf!

Travis came back with the spellbook.  He got down on the floor, groaning as he did so, and sat with his legs crossed.  He was south of thirty, but still not as spry as he had been in their youth.  He put the tome down in front of his knees.  The space between the shelves was so narrow that there was only an inch on each side between the open book and the closed ones.

Dudley approached from the other side, “Turn it to the page with the spell, will you?”  He was looking at yet another blank page.

“I’m pretty sure this was, Dudster.  Unless the pages got flipped while we were out of the room.”

“‘Was?’”

“Dudster, I told you, the spell disappeared a minute after you slid the book over to me.”

Travis had told him that, hadn’t he?  And Dudley had assumed he had been joking.  It was more evidence though that the spellbook wasn’t just a book- that it had the power to change itself.  

He reached out to turn a page, but one of his electrical prong fingernails caught on the paper, causing a rip.  Dudley gasped.

Travis cringed, and his lack-of-neck became even less of a neck.  He put his hands up in front of his face as if expecting the book to explode.  This elicited unexpected laughter from Dudley, and Travis opened one eye to glare at him.  “If it’s not dangerous, why did you gasp?”

“Because I hate seeing books get destroyed,” he looked at his eight nails.

“D, you’re not planning on trying to sell this one, are you?”

“Hell no.  I’ll burn it.  But after it turns me back.  Woah!”  

The page was moving but just slightly, like a crawling bug, and the rip in it was soothing back together, like it was boot zipper.  In a few seconds, the paper looked like it had never been ripped at all.  

Travis shuddered, “I can’t wait for it to turn you back.  I want to burn that book yesterday.  I’m sorry I ever brought it over the Atlantic.”

Dudley shrugged as if to say c'est la vie, then asked, “Who sold it to you?”

“No one,” Travis rubbed the back of his head, “I found it- in a cave.”

For some reason Dudley was amused by this news, but he cleared his throat hemmed as he was getting impatient, “Travis?  Turn the pages, will you?”

“Oh!  Right!”  

“WAIT!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Put some gloves on you briny seaman!”

“I thought you weren’t going to sell this book?”

Dudley could feel a headache coming on, though he wasn’t sure where it was coming on.  His bulb?

“I don’t want to anger it, either!  If you get your grubby sailor oils on the pages, how much do you think it will want to help me out?”

Travis narrowed one eye and pulled up his lip, “D- you think this book has feelings?”

“I don’t know,” Dudley crossed his arms, feeling sheepish all of a sudden, “I’m a lamp and I have feelings.”

Travis blinked, and glanced back at the book, “Hope it can’t hear us talking about wanting to burn it, then.”

Dudley jumped back from the book.  Travis sighed, got up, and went to the other room.  Dudley paced in front of the tome.  Alright, so he couldn’t read it, couldn’t touch it, and couldn’t even step over it in one stride.  Forget leaving the store- how could he even run it now?  At least now that he was so close to the floors, he could make them absolutely spotless.  If only someone would make him a tiny broom and mop.

Ting!

Dudley’s heart raced, or maybe that was electricity surging through his wiring.  He was even closer to the open book- which was to say he got shorter.  Also, he couldn’t seem to move from the spot he was in.

His legs were gone!  Dudley’s prongs dug into his shade as stared morose at the place where his base sat flat on the floor.  He started to flicker as fast as the taps of an expert tap dancer.

“Oh, no, no, no, no!”  Dudley had really put off panicking for a while and now an overwhelming torrent of the stuff was was tearing down the floodgates.  Dudley cried wordlessly, scratched his shade with his prongs and flapped his arms like he was trying to ward off wasps.  

“You’re flying now?  I wasn’t expecting that!”

Dudley opened his eyes.  He had stopped flickering and his light was off.  Travis was back, his hands powder white because of the gloves.  He wasn’t looming over the lamp quite as much, though.  

Dudley was- higher than he had been before.  His legs were still gone, though.  There was just, quite a lot of space between his base and the floor.  Dudley craned his neck to look down over his body.  He was suspended in the air.  He almost expected to fall from losing his balance somehow, but instead found himself in a forward spin.  

“Gah!  This doesn’t make sense!”

“Your legs are gone!”

Dudley grabbed onto Travis’s arm to steady himself and glared at him, “You’re just now noticing that?”

“I was distracted by the flying.”

Travis sat again, but Dudley kept holding onto his arm.  Travis flipped through the pages of the book quickly, “We gotta find something quick!  If you keep changing, pretty soon you’ll be all-lamp and no-man.”

Dudley flickered like a snowstorm and dug his sharp prongs into Travis’s firm arm.

“Ow!  Did you have to do that?”

“Did you have to say that?”

Travis just frowned.  He looked apologetic, but cringed, “I can’t read with that.  Can you make yourself a steady glow?”

“Um, I think?”  Dudley grabbed his neck and the flickering stopped, replaced with light.

Travis kept flipping the pages, but each one was as blank as the others.  The pages had a suppleness that worn paper had, without being brittle, but they were eggshell white, like new.  There was not a blemish or spot or mark on any page, and the tension in Travis’s arm grew with Dudley’s frustration.

“What about invisible ink?”  Travis asked, “How do you eggheads make that show up?”

“By shining a light bulb really close to it.”

Travis and Dudley exchanged glances.

So carefully, Dudley floated close to the floor and, balancing on one hand, angled his shade so that the light hit the paper brightly.  A few seconds passed and Dudley was pretty sure no message was going to show up, so they turned to the next page and did the same thing.  And over, and over…

“I don’t suppose you remember what page we started on?”  Dudley asked.

Travis shook his head, “I was hoping you knew.”

“Maybe it’s not invisible ink,” Dudley pushed himself up with both arm, and found himself floating up again.  Travis outstretched a hand, which Dudley gladly took.

“Thanks,” Dudley said, “what if we need to say magic words or something, though?”

“Oh,” Travis said, “maybe?  Open sesame!  Alakazam!  Abracadabra!”

Ting!

“Did I do it?”  

“Travis!  Grab me!”

Dudley was floating slowly away from Travis.  He’d let got of his hand because he didn’t have arms anymore.  

The whites of Travis’s eyes got bigger and he grabbed Dudley around the neck, “Gotcha, bud!”

“Thanks,” Dudley said, actually mortified.  He howled, “Oh!  I hate this!  I shoulda just let me take you to the hospital!”

“I don’t think poking you with needles and zapping you in your brain would have helped, buddy.”

“You’re probably right.  We probably need help, though.  But who can help us?  A witch?”

“Didn’t we burn all our witches?”

“Oh yeah.  We did,” he laughed darkly.  

There was a heavy silence between them, so Travis flipped the page again.  “Hey, D, you mind if I-”

“Please do.”

Travis brought Dudley down close to the book, but upside down this time so light spilled from the top of his fitter.  Travis would turn a page and bring Dudley close for a few seconds, then turn again.  For his part, the lamp tried to shine as brightly and as steadily as he could, though he wasn’t sure he could actually control this.  He met Travis’s eyes, “You get the shop, buddy.”

“Excuse me?”  Travis put his hand on the book.

“The shop.  I-I-I-fuck!  I never wrote a will!  But I’m telling you right now: the shop belongs to you.  And-and- Dicie gets my money.  Make sure that happens, OK?  She and Walt need to be taken care of.”

Travis brought Dudley’s shade to his nose, “D!”  He shouted, “Stop talking like that! You’re not dying!”

“I’m gonna be all-lamp and no-man,” Dudley flickered a couple of times, then willed himself to stop.  And he did.  So I can control this, “I’ll be as good as dead.  What am I gonna do with customers come by sit on a table and look good?  Dudley N. Shade is gone forever.  Please don’t tell Dice how I made my exit.  Tell her-” Ting!  

-that I died being heroic or something.  Like- drowning in the Mystic saving someone.  Please?

“Dudley?”  Travis had him by both hands and shook him, causing Dudley’s shade to slip around a little on his bulb, “Dudley???  D!  Talk to me!  Tell Dice what?”

Gah!  Quit it!  I am talking to you.  Wait.  Can you not- I can’t!  Hear myself!  I can’t speak!

“Come on bud, come back to me!”

I’m still here!  I didn’t go anywhere!  How could Dudley possibly tell him that, though?

Ting!

Dudley couldn’t see.  

“D?  The eyes are gone.  Does that mean you’re dead?  No, come on, don’t die on me, pal!”

Ting!

He couldn’t hear.  Dudley became more intensely aware of scents in his shop- the dried paper, the slightly acrid scent of glue, an orange that was still on the counter, rotting.  And of course there was Travis, still shaking him manically.  Dudley really wished he would stop doing that.

Ting!  And there went smells.  Shoot.

Ting!

He couldn’t feel anything.

Dudley was alone in an endless space, spreading to all sides.  His sight was not black, but rather black and white undulating into each other- dancing together and making the most beautiful shapes.  He didn’t hear silence but rather the most serene flowing stream.  He himself stretched in all directions.  He filled up the void, and he also was just a pinpoint in it.  He wasn’t a lamp.  He wasn’t a man.  He was simply, the void.  All things and nothing.   

He felt nothing.

He was nothing.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true.  There was still something to him- thoughts.  Thoughts that cling to to an oh so distance bookshop and a terrified man clutching a lamp.  Dudley still remembered and cared about the man.  But where was he?  There was no sign of him here?

He wondered, was this what it was like to-

Ting!

[omg-casualbeardstudent]

Impaired Disorder by Dudster+ , aka DjDuD http://ift.tt/2inqT3O

[wildlyburningsandwich-blog1]

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Jeudi 25 Mars 2015 – 23h55/07h00 et + si... / REX Club "REX KITCHEN"#10 (French Kitchen A&R Label night) w/ Magda, Daox, Sucré Salé, NOX Chers gastronomes et technophiles, " Il n’est de bonnes mixtures sans douce folie » et nous sommes fiers et heureux de vous convier au sein du prestigieux REX Club à l’occasion de cette nouvelle édition de nos French Kitchen Label Night surnommées bien évidement REX KITCHEN. Pour cette fois il s'agit d'un vendredi, premiers pas dans cette saison 2017 dont nos chers cuisiniers parlent déjà comme d'une année musclée." French Kitchen est un label de musique électronique et de recettes sonores intelligentes né en 2012 et basé à Paris. On lui doit notamment l'organisation des fameuses Cocobeach Party. Voici déjà plusieurs années que son équipe de fins cuistos musicaux, conduite par le duo SuCré SaLé, remplit lespanses auditives des gastronomes technophiles les plus exigeants. Citons Marcelo Cura, Nox, Adolpho & Franky, Jay Call et les autres, les recettes musicales de notre brigade de la House ont déjà fait danser les plus grands clubs, de Paris à Ibiza en passant par Berlin, Zurich, Londres, Bali, l'Australie et même plus loin. On n'en dira pas plus ! Découvrez plutôt ... ▬▬▬▬ LINE UP ▬▬▬▬ * Magda (Items & Things) / PL FB: https://www.facebook.com/unmagda/?fref=ts https://soundcloud.com/magda-official * Daox (Run Tomorow) / MA FB: https://www.facebook.com/daoxuniverse/?fref=ts SOUNDCLOUD : https://soundcloud.com/daox * SUCRÉ SALÉ (French Kitchen) / FR FB: https://www.facebook.com/rawmainmusic SOUNDCLOUD : https://soundcloud.com/rawmain * NOX (French Kitchen/ AÊSmusic ) https://www.facebook.com/noxofficialparis/ ▬▬▬▬ INFOS PRATIQUES ▬▬▬▬ 23h55 – 07h00 et + si affinitées ... DIGITICK 12€ (+loc) : http://bit.ly/2j18pSj SUR PLACE 15€ (dans la limite des places disponibles) REX CLUB : 5 Boulevard Poissonnière, 75002 Paris Métro : Bonne Nouvelle ▬▬▬▬ PARTENAIRES ▬▬▬▬ RAJE >> www.raje.fr/ BEYEAH >> www.beyeah.net/ LE BONBON >> www.lebonbon.fr/ CRAZYJACK >> www.crazyjack.fr/ BEWARE >> www.bewaremag.com/ DELIGHTED >> www.delightedblog.com/ ESSENTIAL NIGHT >> www.essentialnight.fr/ SOUNDGRABBER >> www.soundgrabber.fr/ ITINERAIRE BIS >> www.itinerairebisblog.com/

French Kitchen label night: Magda, Daox, Sucré Salé, Nox

- Deeply Rooted: Call Super, Alex From Tokyo, Sergie Rezza Live, Dj Deep - ▬▬▬▬ LINE UP ▬▬▬▬ Call Super RA: https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/callsuper FB: http://www.facebook.com/callsuper SC: http://www.soundcloud.com/call-super Alex From Tokyo RA: https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/alexfromtokyo FB: https://www.facebook.com/Alex-From-Tokyo-440236945999739/ SC: http://www.soundcloud.com/alexfromtokyo Sergie Rezza FB: https://www.facebook.com/sergierezza/ SC: https://soundcloud.com/sergie-rezza Dj Deep RA: http://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/djdeep FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dj-Deep/110976535585355/ SC: https://soundcloud.com/deeply_rooted ▬▬▬▬ INFOS PRATIQUES ▬▬▬▬ 23H55 – 07h00 SUR PLACE : 15€ DIGITICK : 12€ (+loc) : http://bit.ly/2kkRETh RA: https://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?930623 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Deeply Rooted: Call Super, Alex From Tokyo, Sergie Rezza Live

RANDALL [Mac II Recordings, Reinforced Recordings] Hosted by MC GQ PHASE & VILLEM [Metalheadz] ELISA DO BRASIL [Troubles Fêtes, Forever DNB] BOBBY [Weloveremix, DNB Therapy] YOUTHMAN [Forever DNB]

Forever DNB [Férié] : Randall • Phase & Villem • Elisa Do Brasil

On a pris Rendez vous avec Move D, Flabaire et Dudster pour une nouvelle Session Organic au Rex Club le jeudi 13/04/17. Autant vous dire qu'on bouillonne à l'idée de recevoir Move D que l'on ne présente plus :) Il sera accompagné de Flabaire qui viens de terminer son second EP pour Organic et qui devrai sortir avant l'été... Quand au boss du label, Dudster, il sera la pour faire le warm up de ce plateau qui s'annonce plutot magique !!! MOVE D https://soundcloud.com/move-d https://www.facebook.com/MoveD.official/ https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/moved FLABAIRE https://soundcloud.com/flabaire https://www.facebook.com/Flabaire/ https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/flabaire DUDSTER https://soundcloud.com/dudster https://www.facebook.com/Dudstermusic/ https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/dudster ORGANIC-MUSIC https://soundcloud.com/organic-music https://www.facebook.com/welike.organic/ https://www.residentadvisor.net/record-label.aspx?id=6935

Organic with : Move D / Flabaire / Dudster

- MUSING: Varg (live), Will Bankhead b2b Low Jack, Coni - ▬▬▬▬ LINE UP ▬▬▬▬ Varg RA: https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/varg FB: http://www.facebook.com/vargrav SC: http://www.soundcloud.com/varg WILL BANKHEAD b2b Low Jack RA: https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/willbankhead https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/lowjack FB: http://www.facebook.com/236924036420304 SC: https://soundcloud.com/the-trilogy-tapes https://soundcloud.com/low-jack Coni RA: http://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/coni FB: http://www.facebook.com/conimusic SC: http://www.soundcloud.com/conidj ▬▬▬▬ INFOS PRATIQUES ▬▬▬▬ 23H55 – 07h00 SUR PLACE : 15€ DIGITICK : 12€ (+loc) : http://bit.ly/2mla5Lh ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Musing: Varg (live), Will Bankhead b2b Low Jack, Coni

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[mairzymarzipan]

The Magical Mr. Shade

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 holy shit this is getting too big

Wow I like Betsy a lot

Also my voicecanon for Dudley is Joel McHale which will work eventually when he develops biting sarcasm as a coping mechanism, but atm it just sounds weird.  Like why is the soup guy being so optimistic?

Dudley wiped the ice cream off with a wet rag in front of the mirror.  He could smell it on his face.  It was vanilla.  Hand churned, with fresh vanilla and cream, and made just a few minutes before he got it.  Gregers’s ice cream was the best.  

It smelled so delicious.  The coldness of it threatened to permeate the spaces between the weave of his shade.  Dudley wanted to cry when he thought about the rest of the ice cream cone.  Unable to find a clean dish to put in on, Travis had chucked it in the trash.  

At least his hunger was gone.  Which was odd, because it had gotten more intense after he had changed.  Or, at least, he had thought so at the time.  He had suddenly felt hollow within, but more cavernous than just having a metal urn body.  Like the hollowness inside him was reaching into a very deep, dark, hot place.  It had made Dudley crave something cold.

He felt fine now, though.  Just deeply disappointed.

The sound of a bell- Dudley startled and looked down at himself.  Well, he was still wearing his clothes, and there was flesh on his hands, not coiled thread.  

“Travis?  Travis!  Shade?  I know at least you’re in here!”

“Oh!”  Dudley walked out into the shop, finding a broad, redheaded woman near his desk, “Hello, Betsy.”  Normally he would not greet a woman by her first name, Dudley had known Betsy since he was a kid.  He didn’t call her by her last name unless he was making some kind of point of it.

Betsy narrowed her eyes.  She was in short sleeves and a big hat, but she also had a parasol with her- closed, of course.  “Shade?  Is that you?  Is Travis here?”

“He’s out back,” Dudley motioned, “want me to go get him?”

“No- I will.  Why are you wearing a lampshade over your head?”

Oh- time to lie, he supposed, “I um- sunburn.  I’m trying to protect it.”

“With a lampshade?”

Dudley shrugged.  

“That’s ridiculous, Shade.  Here,” she pulled a small tin out of her handbag, “I have a lotion for that- come here.”

“What are you doing?”  The answer to the question seemed to be: grabbing your head.

“Stop squirming, Dud.”

Dudley hated being called that.  He tried to swat her arms away, but Betsy would not be fought.  This was pretty normal for Betsy.  She did what she wanted, and rules of etiquette were only minor distractions.  When they were kids she had once stomped Travis’s foot and since that day Travis was smitten.  It took Travis a while to convince her to be smitten back, but now they had been married for nine years.  

What happened next wasn’t normal though.  There was sort of a pop as the lampshade came off the bulb, and Dudley wheeled, disoriented.  He grabbed the counter and hugged his body to it.  At least, he hoped it was the desk.  What Dudley could see was the top of Betsy’s bun, some books on the wall and a corner of his shop that had cobwebs in it.  

“What the fuck?” Betsy said.  Travis’s sailor mouth was not limited to only him in the family, “What is that?”

Dudley was guessing that Betsy was looking at a lightbulb-headed man clutching the desk, disoriented, “Uh, Betsy?”  He said, “Can I have my body back now?”

Betsy lowered the shade and her eyes came into sight, just inches from Dudley.  The bookseller tensed his estranged shoulders and inched backwards because she was way too close.

“Oh my god!” She said, but seconds later that was another pop as she stuck his head back on the bulb.  Dudley shook his head and moved his arms experimentally, finding that they were in the place that they should have been in relation to his body.

He put one hand on his face and another on his gut.  He felt a bit nauseous, “Wow, weird, I wasn’t expecting that to happen!”

“Back!  Get back!”  Betsy was now had her parasol over her shoulder like a baseball bat.

Dudley retreated, “What are you- are you crazy?  You’ll knock something over!”

“You- are you even Dudley Shade?  Are you a monster?”

Dudley scoffed at the suggestion, “Betsy, I’m a lamp.  How can a lamp be monstrous?  Now can you please put that thing down?”

Her fingers tightened on the parasol handle.  “It’s really you, isn’t it?  Only you would care about all these things more than your own hide.  What the hell happened to you?”  She lowered the weapon.

Dudley shrugged, “I think, a spell.”

“You think?”

“Well, I read something out of a magic book, and then I turned into a lamp.  So, there seems to be a chain of events there.”

Betsy stuck out her bottom lip, “Since when are your books magic?”

“Since your husband finds them in caves.”

“Oh no,” Betsy put her hand on her face, “did Travis cause this?”

“Nah.  I did.  I told you- I read the passage.”

“But- Travis brought you the cursed book?”

“Hey,” Dudley put his hands up, “we’re not using the word ‘curse’, OK?”

“Betsy!”  Travis had come around the corner, his jaw slightly askew, “What are you doing here?  Is there something wrong?”

“Yes, there is.  It’s six-o-clock, my husband’s ship has come in and I was told he made the journey alive- and yet he hasn’t shown up at our home.  His favorite dinner was prepared and already eaten, and yet still, he’s nowhere to be found.”

“What?”  Travis looked like he had been singled out in a criminal lineup, “There’s no way it’s-” he glanced at the cuckoo clock above Dudley’s counter.  “Oh, shit, I’m sorry honey.”

“Well,” Betsy sighed, “I am still cross at you.  But I guess you got distracted,” she looked at Dudley.

Travis met his eyes, too, “why didn’t you tell me she was here?”

“Because Betsy yanked my head off,” Dudley said.

“You did what?!”  Travis turned to Betsy.

Betsy put her hands on her hips, “Well I wouldn’t have done it if Shade hadn’t tried to sell me a harebrained lie about a sunburn.”

“Yeah- like you’d believe I was a lamp,” Dudley rolled his eyes.

“Of course I wouldn’t- but I’m not afraid to experiment.  I figured it out without you telling me, didn’t I?”

Dudley put his hands on his face, “So you would have yanked my head off anyway?”

“That’s right!”  Betsy puffed out her chest, “So you should have just come clean in the first place.”

Travis had been following the tennis match of conversation and now looked like a harried referee, “Hold on, hold on, hold on: Dudster, you can survive without your head?”

Dudley shrugged, “I guess?”

He exhaled, “I wish I would have known that when I was changing your bulb.  Ow!”

“You felt it too?”  Dudley had felt a shock, starting from his bulb and emanating throughout his body.

“A big, painful electrical shock?  Yeah, I did.”

Betsy shrugged, “I didn’t feel anything.”

Dudley and Travis exchanged glances.  They weren’t touching.  So why had they both felt that?  What had caused it?  

Dudley tried to recall events.  “Wait a minute, you changed my lightbulb?!  Why?!”  He put his hands on his bulb, trying to feel how different it was.  It had been off since he came in, so no charred fingers, he still couldn’t feel any difference between this bulb and the bulb he had had before.  

“It was burned out,” Travis said sheepishly.

“But it’s my body!”

“Well, you were sleeping, anyway.  I mean you and I both thought you were dead.”

“Oh,” Dudley his his hands on his hips, “so do you always change dead people’s lightbulbs?”

“Erm,” Travis was at some sort of impasse.

“What the fuck,” it was a statement, not a question, from Betsy.  She was so bewildered she couldn’t even raise the inflection of her voice.

Travis just sighed, “Dudley and me had a long day.”

“Apparently,” she took his arm, “come on, honey, there are leftovers in the ice box waiting for you.  I take it you haven’t eaten either, right Shade?  You can join us for late dinner, but I can’t promise the kids won’t try to pour glue in your socket.”

“Oh, wow,” Dudley put his hands on his face, “I wonder how that would feel?  But sure-” he looked up at the ceilings, and the shelves that rose up over his head even at this height.  He remembered the panicked feeling he had had when he was small- the worry that he would be a prisoner in this place.  When was the last time he had left Back Bay?  He honestly didn’t remember, “that sounds great!”

[mairzymarzipan]

The Magical Mr. Shade

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Ok this one’s kind of boring but eh here’s some more lamp tf buddies doing things

Travis was halfway through his cigarette before he realized he’d been smoking it.  Christ, if Dudster walked in here Travis get a mouthful- the pretty man would probably chase him out onto the street with a broom or something!

Oh.

Oh right.

He turned slowly to his silent companion for his smoke- the old and actually pretty boring looking table lamp right next to him.  It had a metal body, a switch you had to turn, and a carnation pink clip on shade that honestly looked like it belonged to some other light source.  It sure didn’t look like anything other than a lamp.  

Travis honestly did not know how to describe what just happened.  Even if he were to do it perfectly, he’d never believe it.

Travis sighed at first.  What was the point of hoping that Dudster might come back?  He was dead.  Or, a lamp, which, according to Dudley, was the same thing.  Travis noticed the way that the shade was cocked, just slightly, as if Dudley was about to ask a question, Aren’t you going to put that stinking fire stick out already?

“Oh come on, cut me some slack!  I just lost my best friend.  And anyway, it’s customary to smoke to mourn the dead.”

And now he was talking to a lamp.  Not a lamp with a voice and feelings, but a completely unconscious lamp.  A bunch of metal and wires and glass.

He glanced at the lamp again, at the way it had it’s shade tilted.  What if Dudley wasn’t actually gone?  What if he was in there, watching Travis?

Travis cringed and bit down the cigarette as he did so, almost breaking the paper skin and making his mouth very unpleasant.  He ran out of the labyrinth of shelves- seriously why did Dudley have his shelves so annoyingly close and twisty? -and out onto the street.  He ran into the middle of the road, pulled the cigarette from his mouth and threw it on the ground.  He stomped it several times, just as a heard a snort and there was hot hair in his ear.  A horse leading a carriage had stopped just inches from him.

Travis looked up the nose of the animal, and beyond, at the man leading the cart.  

“Travis Eastcott?  What are you doing, son?”

Of course- it was the milkman.  Travis smiled sheepishly, “Hi, Mr. Draper.”

“Back already, huh?  Say, you and your sailors stay out of the road, will you?  You startled Lester.”

Travis offered the horse a pet on the nose before running back into the shop.  His mouth felt weird and raw without something in it, but this was the right thing to do.  He navigated the maze back to the lamp.

“All gone, buddy,” he said, “spat it out onto the street.  Sorry about that,” he crouched down.

The lamp said nothing.  

“No answer, huh?  Can you- can you give me some implication you heard me?”

It didn’t look like it.

“Maybe you could- flicker?”  But of course he couldn’t.  The bulb had sparked brightly, then burned out into nothingness a little after Dudley had stopped talking.  It was blown, or the lamp had finally shit the bed.  He hoped it was former until it occurred to him that his bulb might be Dudley’s brain.  Travis bit his lip.  He really didn’t want Dudley to be dead.

“Oh, jeez, buddy.  This is my fault.  This is all my fault!  I never shoulda brought that book back!”  Travis turned the switch a few times just to be sure that the light didn’t spark back to life.  No, it was broken.  How would it even work now?  It had no electrical cord, and no way to attach one.  

Travis sighed, and picked the lamp up.  If Dudley were an inanimate object, where would he would Travis to set him?  Somehow, this had never been discussed between the two of them.

Dudley would definitely want to be in his store, among his books.  Well, so-far-so-good.  But not on the floor where he couldn’t watch anything.  Nah, he’d want to see the people, if for nothing else than he liked to see folks start reading in his store and get engrossed.  

He took Dudley to the counter at in the center of the store, in a cave where five or size different shelves met.  This was where Dudley usually was during open hours.  Travis put him on the counter, next to a bending desk lamp.  “Is this, OK?” he asked.

He stepped away a little, and felt a little tug at his heartstrings.  Was this is final resting place, then?  Dudley N. Shade, local boy and business owner, jokester, egghead, tall glass of water, and a weirdo, mostly.  He was younger than Travis though, by maybe a month, and he deserved more than this.  His light didn’t even work.

Travis glanced at the other lamp.  He supposed, at this point, it couldn’t hurt to try.  If Dudley got a new bulb and could communicate through it- maybe through morse code, well, that was better than being dead, right?

Travis checked the rival lamp first, switching it on and off.  He unscrewed the working bulb and- he cringed.  Did he really want to do this?  It would be like, beheading his friend.

He shut one eye and took the lampshade off quickly, setting it on the counter.  Now his muscles tensed and he gritted his teeth.  He needed to change these bulbs fast- what if Dudley really was still alive and couldn’t breathe or think or anything because his head was detached?  Then that made Travis some kind of surgeon- somebody so desperate to save his patient he was flirting with death herself- or, more likely, trampling all over her dress.

His hands were shaking though, and the old bulb fell on the floor, and shattered.  “NO!”  Travis shouted, because what if Dudley’s soul or something was in there?  He gasped, breathing deeply.  His hand was shaking so much as he screwed the replacement bulb in.

Whoosh!

There was, kind of, a displacement of air- a feeling that there was suddenly less room in the space.  Travis made sure the bulb wouldn’t go any further, then looked up, meeting a pair of dark brown eyes.

The eyes belonged to sleepy man sitting cross legged on the counter, in a plain button shirt and brown trousers with a rope for a belt so that he didn’t have to wear suspenders.  His hair was black, and fluffy, and long- probably too long but he was too stubborn to cut it.  His nose was straight and narrow and his cheekbones were high and he yawned.  Then he shook his head, and looked back into Travis’s eyes like he was just noticing him there.

“Trav?  Am I hallucinating, or did you die too?”

Travis made an undignified whoop and threw his arms around Dudley, almost knocking him off.  

“I missed you, too!”  Dudley said, “Why am I up here?”

Travis was still on his first questions, though, “You’re not dead!”  He said in a celebratory tone, “You’re not dreaming either!”

“This is real?”  Dudley stretched his neck to see around Travis, “I’m in my shop!  Trav, you brought me back!  I’m alive again!  I’m a man again!  The curse did wear off!”

He threw his arms around Travis, and something else, too.  Something that hit the sailor in the back, hard.  “Owch!  Jeezum buddy, whaddya doing, whacking me with a pipe?”

Travis pulled out of the hug, and Dudley was left sitting on the table with both his arms out- the urn and unlit bulb of the lamp on one hand, and the shade in the other.  Travis scowled, “Let’s throw that thing to the deepest part of the bay, shall we?”

Dudley blinked at the objects he was holding.  “I guess it is time for a new one,” he stuck the lampshade back on the lamp, and smirked, “you know, when your electrical devices suck you inside them, that’s when you know they gotta go.”

Travis rolled his eyes.  Dudley still had that odd sense of humor.  “I’ll keep that in mind next time I turn into my radio.  Here,” he tried to take the lamp from Dudley, but the bookseller wouldn’t let go, “why not give it to me?”  

Dudley was in a one armed tug of war with Travis- one he was faring surprisingly well in.  His eyebrows came together, “I want to,” he said, “but I can’t let go of it.”

So Travis did.  Dudley was grimacing as he lifted the lamp back into his lap.  He put his left hand on the base next to the right, and lifted the right as he peeling it from flypaper.  Then he tried to remove his left hand, but just ended up lifting the lamp.  His mouth twisted.

“Dudster,” Travis said slowly, “this is how it all started before.  You changing.”

“Yeah?”  Dudley slammed his lamp hand down, “I know that!”  The lamp made a harsh sound on the wooden desk, and Dudley blinked.  Then he brought his hand up, and smashed it down again.  And again, and again, and again.  He brought it up to his hand, “It bent up yet?”

“No- but your desk surface has a hole in it.”

Dudley made a horrified wheeze, jumped up, and ran to a supply closet.  He shuffled around for a while, and picked up a toolbox.  He knelt in front of it and struggled for a second.  Travis realized he was trying to open it with one hand.

He took out a hammer and lifted it up, before Travis shouted, “NO!  D, you’ll break your hand.”

Dudley looked at his hand, and the lamp firmly affixed to it, “I can live with not having a hand.  I can’t- go through all that- again.  It was like I died!”

Well, Dudley had certainly thought so before.  Travis wasn’t to ask him that it had been like after he’d stopped speaking, but Dudley was raising the hammer again.  Travis wrestled it from him, “I’ll do it!  Just, put your hand on the base, or something.”

Dudley did the trick, sticking his other palm to the base and taking his left hand off.  They set the lamp on the floor between them, and Travis started to pound with the hammer.  He managed to impact the urn several times before there was a spark and something went flying back into the shop.  Travis got up and received it.  It was the hammer’s head.

“D, what the fuck is this lamp made of?”

Dudley stared at it, “Not what it was made of an hour ago.”

Travis made an A with his fingers on his lip, “Alright bud, here’s the deal: we got a curse and an indestructible lamp.”

“Trav, please don’t say ’curse’.”

“We’ve got a magic, indestructable lamp, and it’s stuck to your hand,” he shrugged, “I don’t know bud, maybe we gotta amputate before the infection gets in you.”  They should probably hurry before Dudley started changing.  It was a lot better to amputate a hand than a guy’s lampshade head.

“You mean, go to a doctor?”

“Yeah, bud.  I know you don’t like them, but we gotta go,” he extended a hand to help the sitting man up.

Dudley shook his head, though, “Travis!  We just agreed on this.”

“Wha- D!  You can’t be serious.  You knew what just happened!  You seriously would rather go through that again than go see a doctor?”

Dudley cocked his head.  He was considering it.  He actually had to consider it.

“Dudley!”

“Yes,” he said, “I’m not seeing a doctor.  No way; no how.”

Travis groaned and grumbled and swore and berated and threatened, but Dudley refused to go to the doctor, and Travis had sort of wordlessly promised not to manhandle him again.  So they went back to pouring over the book.  This time Dudley sort of pointed the bulb at the pages while holding the shade in his other hand.  The men that found that the shade had to be touching the lamp or in Dudley’s hand.  Travis couldn’t even slip it off the bulb.

It tied up Dudley’s hands up entirely and Travis had to flip the pages for him.  It was tedious, and it went on and on.  Travis could see Dudley’s arm straining from holding it up so long, and his stomach made a piteous sound.  

“You need to eat,” Travis said.  

“You gonna spoonfeed me?”  Dudley was without a smile.  Travis felt bad.  

“I wish you didn’t have to hold that stupid lamp,” the sailor said.

Ting!

It was the sound they were both dreading, and it was a bit anticlimactic after it was over.  Dudley shook out his now free hand, “Great.  Now I can eat.”

He was out the door before Travis realized what was happening.  There was just the jingle of bells and Dudley was on the street.  Travis stuck his head out.

“Wait!  D!  You can’t let people see you like that!”

Travis spotted the lampshade faced man on the corner, at an ice cream cart.  He was just making the exchange of money and dessert and turning around.  His too-large eyes smiled at Travis, and he smeared his shade with his ice cream cone.  Dudley startled and sort of stumbled on the street, and put his hand to his now messy shade.

Travis grabbed him and pulled him back into the shop.

[mairzymarzipan]

1 and 2

Hey wow I finally got some character descriptions for these guys.  Took me long enough...maybe too long for Dudley.

Alright.  So, they were both acknowledging that this was happening.  Dudley supposed it would be kind of impossible to do otherwise- especially for Dudley.  He leaned into the mirror and looked long and hard at his- his shade.  His face.  What his face was, all of a sudden.  He carefully walked his fingers along the bottom rim.  He found he could turn his head with his fingers, and his eyesight went with it.  He turned his head all the way back so he could see Travis non-reflected.

“I see you!”

Travis’s tone was a bit paler, and his brow was glistening, and Dudley felt bad, so he put his head back.  It didn’t hurt or anything.  There was a little but a screech of metal on glass as he turned it, but it wasn’t too grating.  Huh.  Dudley wondered if he could take his shade off but also didn’t want to experiment with Travis here.

A pressure on his arm- Travis was grabbing it, “Hey!” Dudley said.

He was pulled out of the bathroom, through the office, and into the small hall.  Travis was not a particularly fast man, but he was strong- rich in muscle up in his arms, with a nonexistent neck.  When he got so momentum, he was hard to stop.  So really, Dudley couldn’t stop him, only ask, “Where are we going?”

“To the hospital, bud.”

“Wha- wait?”  That word infused Dudley with some kind of burst of strength, because he fought himself from Travis’s grasp and retreated back to the office door frame.  “Hospital?  There’s no need to go there!”

Travis’s lips pinched- he clearly had not been prepared for Dudley just, resisting him, physically.  He sighed, “Dudster, your head is a lampshade.”

“Yes; I noticed.”

“You need to be seen.”

Dudley crossed his arms, “You can see me just fine.”

“By a doctor, D!”

Dudley turned around and calmly walked back into the bathroom.  He turned the hanging light off because there was no need to have both light bulbs on.  He stared at himself in the mirror, earnestly.

Travis appeared in the doorframe, “Dudley!”

Dudley tapped his fingers on the bottom of the sink.  “I’m fine, Trav.  I’m really fine.”

“Dudley!  Look at you!”

“I am!  Look, Travis, have you considered that- it will probably just go away in a few minutes?  I mean, going to the hospital is probably a waste of time.  It’ll snap back when we’re halfway there, and then what?  We’ll be in some dingy subway car heading to nowhere.  No way!  I don’t want to waste my afternoon like that.”

Travis’s eyes narrowed, “D, how do you know it’ll go away?  This has never happened to a person before.”

“Ugh, how do you know?  Listen Trav, I’m a pretty boring guy.  I don’t think things that happen to me are things that never happened to people before.  Just doesn’t make sense.”

“You are making no sense, D.”

“I’m making all the sense.”

“And how are you going to do your business with a lampshade as a face?  How are you going to go to auctions and negotiations and the like?”

Dudley snapped his fingers and turned, “Better, actually!  My old face was too distracting-”

“And this one isn’t?”

“Let me finish!  My old face was too distracting.  Old ladies always wanted to pinch it and people always wanted to kiss it,” he was exaggerating of course, but his face always elicited a certain reaction.  With his straight, thin nose, his dark faraway eyes, his regal cheekbones and his soft fluffy black hair, many people saw in him some sort of ideal.  An ideal husband or an idea son in law or an ideal hero for a painting.  It was a shame, he was told, for such a handsome young man not to be married- especially now that he was doing so well in life.  Dudley chuckled it off, because it was too hard to explain that he just, didn’t want to share his life.  Not like that.

Travis transferred his weight from one foot to another, “My question still stands, D.”

“Well, yanno,” Dudley shrugged, “this is Boston.  There are only a few real lookers, and solid shit-ton of ugly mugs.  What’s another ugly mug?”

Travis opened his mouth, then sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Fuck.  Now I can’t stop picturing you with a coffee cup for a head.”

“If that were the case, I’d be sad, because I couldn’t do this,” he turned his switch, flicking his own light on and off.  Dudley realized how amused he was with this whole thing.  It was ludicrous, and kind of funny.  How was it that he could turn himself on and off?  He wasn’t even plugged in!  Did Dudley have wiring inside his flesh?  Come to think of it, how did his flesh fuse with his lampshade head?  Everything up to his shoulder was still the same- still warm, and still flesh.  But his neck popped out from between his clavicles all stiff and narrow.  Not that stiff, though- he could still turn it.  

“Dudley, how are you going to eat?”

“Eat?”  Dudley blinked a couple of times, and he felt the bottom of his lampshade.  Well, OK, that was a conundrum.  Dudley had eyes but no mouth.  Actually...

“Hey, Trav, how do you think it is I can hear?  And I can still smell, too, now that we’re on the subject.  And how the fuck am I talking?”

Ting!

Hey, there was that noise again!  “Travis, did you hear-”

Travis?

Travis was standing over him.  Travis was only 5’3” to Dudley’s 5’11”, so that wasn’t usual.  But there had been times when Dudley had been sitting in a chair or taking a nap or, most usually, sprawled out across the floor inspecting the text alignment of some rare book.  

Right now, Dudley was still standing, though.  

Travis looked like he wanted to explode.  Not in the sense of being angry, but literally- explode in all directions from terror.  And Dudley’s face only came up to his thigh.  

“Oh, no.  Oh, fuck.  Oh, shit oh shit oh fuck oh fuck,” Travis took his impromptu poetry into another room, and Dudley sort of swayed where he was, a little disoriented with how much the room had changed.  The sink was just a little higher than he was, and the hanging light bulb was impossible to reach.  Dudley turned himself on.  It was like walking into a whole other person’s bathroom- but one that was gut wrenchingly familiar.

He was tyke sized.

He was also naked!

Not quite naked, no.  True, his clothes were gone.  But he seemed to be wearing some kind of armor- a piece of metal fitted over his torso.  Dudley put his hands on this, and two things surprised him.

First was the sensation in the ‘armor’.  Similar the lampshade, it registered that Dudley’s hands were on it, and sent that message to Dudley.  Like, it was his torso.  A metal torso.

Second was his hands- they looked so different.  Flexible, like wire, and instead of having skin, some kind of coiled thread.  Only four digits splayed out from the center, and instead of a palm, he just seemed to have a certain kind of floppy star.  His fingers and arms were the same width, and were a dark blue color striped with white.

...Like the color of the lamp’s electrical cord.

Oh!  

That would explain why his fingertips were tipped with electrical prongs.  That made sense.

Only, it didn’t.  He wasn’t supposed to have to electrical cords, and were supposed to come out of his sides, and they were supposed to have two prongs- not four each!

Erm, that was, the lamp, not him.

That meant that the ‘armor’ was-

He tapped his fingers over his chest- over what felt like it should have been his chest.  It made a hollow ring.  Dudley actually shuddered a little because this meant that he, Dudley, was hollow.  Nothing inside him where organs should have gone.  

He put his hands to the side of his face again.  He had been wondering how his organs would pair with such an electrical head- well now he had an answer.  

His legs, emerging from his base, were similar.   They were very bendy and covered in coiled threads, except a bit wider than his arms.  He bent his knees or- did something with something.  He didn’t seem to have joints and he was worried it would be possible to tie his legs in knots.  He hopped a couple of times.  His legs supported his weight just fine.  They were long- about as long as the rest of his body, and his arms dangled at the halfway of his legs.  Overall, he was still a spindly fellow, just a very short one.  He was probably three feet tall, if he was lucky.

Dudley just paced that way- small, splindly, naked, a lamp, and his hands on the side of his head.  He paced a couple of times in the narrow bathroom the long way.  The bathroom was finally big enough to pace in, but still not big enough to pace in satisfactorily.  After a few times, he stopped and took a breath under the sink.  Or something like breathing.

This wasn’t the end of the world.  As he said before, he’d probably just pop back to normal in a minute.

He turned around.  Travis was in the open doorway, teeth slightly bared in consternation, “OK, Dudster, this time were are definitely going to the hospital.”

Dudley jumped at the word.  Oh, how he hated it.  He shook his shade, “No, Trav, we are not.  I’m telling you, this is just going to wear off.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Right.  Maybe it wouldn’t.  Dudley would have preferred if it did, but if it didn’t-

“Hmm,” he tapped his bottom brim, “well then, I guess I need to get some more step stools around here.  Or just get one with wheels, and roll it around everywhere.  Or!  I know!”  He snapped his fingers, making a little spark, “a library ladder!  You know, with the wheels, and they attach to the bookshelves?  I have always wanted an excuse to get one of those!”

Travis smacked his eyes, “Dudster, you cannot be serious.”

“Well,” Dudley said, “I’ll probably have to redesign the whole place to make the shelves curve, but I have the budget for it, I think.  But that does mean closing the shop for a while.  Shit.”

Travis lowered his hand, “Alright.  That’s it,” he picked up Dudley gingerly, like a child, and swung him over his shoulder, “You’re going whether you like it or not.”

[mairzymarzipan]

So I am in love with the book I’m currently reading, and it inspired me to write about some turn-of-the-century 1920s guys messing around with magic

Please note that I’m not certain that this is Dudley’s canon backstory; just the one I felt like writing tonight.

I might continue this tomorrow or something in like, a part two that’s in a reblog.

It was a quiet business being a bookseller even if it wasn’t always lucrative, but Dudley kept himself clothed and fed and always paid his rent on time.  More- he could have supported a family on it.  Of course, he had no desire for one.

He enjoyed his friends.  Like Travis, the sailor, who was standing in his store at the moment.  Dudley grinned and threw his arms around the stocky fellow.  Travis and Dudley had grown up together- had almost been born on the same day.  They had been inseparable until Travis decided to travel so many miles away, and Dudley did not want to be parted with his beloved Boston.

Dudley patted Travis on the back and brought him to his office, and made him some tea as he told his story.  There was an urn lamp on the table that flickered on and off with the vibrations, so Travis took it by the neck as he spoke.  The sailor had a plain box in front of him that caught Dudley’s eye, but the bookseller was patient and waited until Travis was done talking.  The tea whistled and Dudley brought two cups to the table.

Travis had traveled to the Mediterranean, and they had seen the cities on the hills, the bizarres, the mosques.  Travis told Dudley several stories, like the one about the stolen camels.  Dudley almost choking with laughter.

“Did you bring me any books, though?”  Dudley asked.

Travis rolled his eyes, “A one track mind with you, isn’t it?”

“Oh come on- I missed your face too, a little, I guess.”

Travis popped open the box, “Just this one got my attention, though, it might be a fluke.  It’s just- really weird!”

It was a simple leather bound book, though thick.  There was a striking design pressed into the cover of the book- a jackal opening it’s mouth and howling out two snakes.  What an odd image!  What did it mean?

Dudley started flipping though, though he forgot his gloves, “It’s a blank book?” 

“Not entirely.  Keep flipping.”

Dudley did, and sensed some annoyance to his side.  The lamp was flickering still, as Travis had let go of the neck.  Dudley reached for it, and flipped through the pages with one hand, which he could do because the pages were narrow.

“Maybe you should change the light bulb?”  Travis said.

“It’s not an issue with the bulb- the wiring in the neck’s shot.”

“Take it to an electrician, then.”

“Eh, it works fine enough.”

“You’re burning your fingers, Dudster.”

Dudley had to admit that his fingers were a little toasty so close to the hot bulb.  The body of the lamp was metal too, so the whole thing was hot.

Travis rolled his eyes, “Jeezum Dudley, you’ll spend a c-note on a rare book, but you can’t shill out a few dimes to get it fixed?”

“This one works fine though!”  Dudley said again.  In truth, getting it fixed just hadn’t occurred to him.  Tasks that required going too far from his book shop usually didn’t occur to him, “Oh, hey, here were go.”

“Ah, yes,” Travis got up to pour himself some more tea, “see?  Someone made this entire book- a very pretty book!  And only wrote one note in it.  I mean, what is this, a rich guy’s notebook?  I don’t have a translation for you- I bought it on my last day in Syria and didn’t get anyone to translate it.”

“What are you talking about, Travis?”

“The note.  It’s in Arabic.”

“No it’s not.”

Travis brought the steaming cup to his lips, but thought better of it, “OK, didn’t realize you were an expert on non-Latin languages.”

Dudley’s mouth twisted a little- was Travis playing a joke on him?  “Trav, it’s written in English,” he picked up the book with both hands, and the lamp flickered out entirely.  Dudley rolled his eyes, sighed, and strangled the lamp again.  Travis was probably right about getting a new one, though Dudley was loath to admit it.  Dudley balanced the book on it’s spine and read from the page.

“To turn this empty tome into a spellbook, just hold the spine and read this passage,” Dudley didn’t hold the spine because he was holding the lamp and he didn’t want to cast a shadow on the book, but he did read the following passage, which was not in English, but also didn’t sound like Arabic to his ears.  Nor did it sound like any of the languages he heard on the regular basis- not words of Gaelic that were furtively spoken in the pubs, or flowy French, or the complex language of the Chinese people who walked the streets.

The lamp was finally giving off a solid glow.  Travis was still holding his tea cup just under his face, “There’s no way it says that, Dudster.”

Dudley rolled his eyes, and slid the book across the table, “You take a look, then!”  

Travis sat down and glanced at the page, “Wanna give me some light?”

“Sure,” Dudley moved his hand to adjust the shade on the lamp, or at least, tried to.  His hand didn’t seem to want to move from the neck, “What the-” he said put his other hand on the base.  How like right hand came off, and he was able to turn the shade in Travis’s direction.  

“What the heck?”  Travis said.

“What?”  

“The writing is gone.”

“It probably got turned to another page while I was sliding it across the table,” and speaking of, the lamp bottom went sliding across the table as Dudley attempted to pull his hand away from the shade.  The lamp just sort of went with his hand instead, like it was glued.  Dudley looked at it and blinked.

“No I just saw it a minute ago.  It disappeared while I was looking at it.”

Travis was playing the strangest jokes today.  Must have been all that sea air and and avoiding scurvy getting to his brain.  Dudley shrugged, making a conscious decision not to be bothered by it.  He stood up, “Do you need a place to-” his words dried up.  He was looking at his hand.

“To stay?  Jeez that’s nice, but my cous- Dudster?  What’s wrong?  You throwing that lamp away?”

Dudley waved his right hand a couple of times.  Though he wasn’t gripping it, the lampshade stayed firm in his hand, almost like it was attached to it.  Said shade was not attached and Dudley realized that the lamp would probably fall and the bulb would shatter, so he grabbed the base.  Suddenly, his right hand came off the shade.

He screwed up his mouth, grabbed the lamp around the neck.  His left hand came off, and he set it on the table.  Only, the lamp would not stay on the table.

“I don’t get it.  Are you trying to break it?”  Travis asked.

“Trav,” Dudley was a bit lack of breath, “I can’t let go of it!”

“What?”

Dudley breathed unsteadily, “I can transfer it to my other hand, but I can’t let go of the stupid thing!  Unplug it, will you?”

“Unplug?”

Dudley realized that the lamp was not plugged into the wall.  It didn’t even have a power cord trailing from it.  But- it was a working electric lamp.  It had an electrical cord.  “What the heck?”

At this time, Dudley first heard the sound that would define his existence for the next eighty years.  It was a soft, slightly metallic and kind of musical ting!