lurking in your heart

i don't really say that i have a favorite author anymore, but my favorite author for most of middle and high school was lemony snicket. 

of course, i was introduced to his work through a series of unfortunate events. but honestly, i think i was more engrossed by his later series: all the wrong questions. it's snicket's take on the noir genre, for early teen readers. 

most of this series takes place in a town called stain'd-by-the-sea. it's a dying town, with lots of shuttered buildings and few residents. from what i remember, the big ink business that was the focal point of the town's economy hit hard times, and thus the rest of the town did as well, resulting in a sort of exodus. the ink business also drained the area of water, destroying the local environment as well. a few people remain in hopes of revitalizing the place, though there are also a lot of kids, as a result of their parents just. leaving them behind. 

the plot follows lemony running around the town and adjacent areas, solving various mysteries. a theft there, fire here, with a plethora of fellow kids to help him. the adults are of little-- if any-- help at all, which is a common occurrence in his books. 

amongst the kids, there's a girl named ellington feint. she's sort of lemony's rival in this series, in the sense that they're after the same thing for different reasons... sometimes they trust each other, sometimes they don't. there are two kids that provide a taxi service-- one steers and the other manages the pedals. there's a girl-- moxie, i think-- who works on the local newspaper and helps to dig up information. but by the end of the series, all of them separate due to the way things fell apart. or came together. depends on how you look at it, eep.

the overarching plot revolves around a creature called the bombinating beast. originally of myth, it resided in the waters by the town and was known to eat people. a prominent family in town owns a statue that can tame it. a member of said family once defeated the beast, but later on, a scientist recreated it in a lab. i don't recall the exact reasons, but it likely has something to do with the draining of the waters for the ink business-- revenge for the havoc wreaked on the environment, probably. this scientist was also the main antagonist of the series, responsible for almost all of the crimes involved.

but really, the thing i remember most prominently didn't have much to do with the mysteries.

the town had a little café, called black cat coffee. it was a small place, narrow, with a singular long table that stretches across the space, and an attic. there's no staff; instead, behind the table, there's a machine that dispenses black coffee and toast. a third button on the machine opens an attic, which is where ellington liked to hide things. she was a regular, and lemony would go there often when trying to ask her questions. i loved whenever it popped up in a chapter; the idea of such a machine in the steampunk-esque illustration style of most lemony snicket novels was fun for my brain to chew on. 

in fact, i loved thinking about a machine like that would be in a world of my brain's meandering. it would definitely serve milk tea-- i would say boba, but that's more components and thus more prone to errors or failures. and in terms of food, i think waffles would be a good choice. or maybe pancakes. perfectly brewed oolong milk tea, and perfectly crispy vanilla waffles. sweet and comforting in a decaying place.

what about you guys? what two things would you dispense out of a random abandoned machine café open all day and night? i'm curious.

and, a final aside: i had only one photo from this book series on my old ipad. it was from the third book, a scene where lemony and ellington held hands. lemony said he couldn't get his mind off of her, and ellington said she was glad for the dark to hide her blush. 

when i first read it in the sixth grade, i saved it because it felt like such a standout tender moment compared to the rest of... well, the entire series. something i kicked my feet over, lolz. and now, when i was reminded of it while writing this post, i think it also served to remind the readers of the youth of all the characters involved. staring down great crimes, death, and decay of a place they love, at young ages. and being unable to turn to adults, because most of them just can't. in ideal circumstances and homes, perhaps moments like these and others would be more common. 

aside from just being a play on the noir genre, the drama and the mystery, this series is also a tragedy of lost childhoods, just like asoue was. but decisions, specific environments, the characters, are what make the tragedy its unique self.

sotd: little shadow by the yeah yeah yeahs