Because I can't not share this
Jun. 25th, 2012 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impulsereaderThank you to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
221b_hound and pargoletta who contributed wonderful suggestions for the contents of the attic! I must tell you all, though, that the astounding and haunting beauty of the attic is owed entirely to f_m_r_l’s astonishingly wonderful reply to my original request for assistance found here http://impulsereader.livejournal.com/18319.html. I worked almost all of it into this section verbatim, so I actually have to say that a lot of this isn’t actually my work. Thank you, f_m_r_l, so very, very much. This was a precious gift and I hope I’ve treated it well. I cannot even express how very much lesser this would have been if it were not for you. I thank you and my story thanks you!
Oh, weird thing, my uk Word auto-correct wanted wellies to be willies. *boggles*
Edited to add - I totally meant to creditnatsuko1978 because she gave me the great word shufti which I gave John here - I'm so sorry I forgot to add you on! There are also some comma errors toward the end that need cleaning up - I was just so excited about it, I missed few things!
------
“Well surely this place has an attic? My mum had boxes stuffed with old school papers; people save every useless thing and shove it into the attic, so we’re in with a chance.” He stood decisively. “Come on, we’ll have a shufti and maybe we’ll find your lost symphony.”
“It was a sonata,” his friend corrected absently.
John rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine, the lost sonata of ickle Sherlock Holmes. Come on, lead the way.” He tugged his companion up from his seat and propelled him out the door.
He really should have anticipated the attic being both unbelievably large and stuffed with undeniably mad objects. He hadn’t, however, so the stuffed dodo bird startled him terribly.
Sherlock doubled over with laughter. “That sound you just made!”
“Yes, fine, Sherlock.”
“It was the same one you used for Simon!”
“Yes, I realize that, Sherlock, but thank you for pointing it out anyway.”
“But it was – just, you -,” He dissolved into helpless laughter.
“Yes! Thank you, Sherlock, again. I shrieked like a little girl, I realize that. Now shut the bloody hell up about it.” While he waited for the giggles to subside, John had a look around and tried to decide if there was any one point where it might be less daunting to begin their search.
He decided there wasn’t. Generations of Holmeses must have been acquiring and then abandoning objects to this room since time immemorial in order to create the layers of objects which had proven ephemeral and were now on display as if in some sort of insane gothic museum. John could see a hanging medical skeleton with one leg missing, a set of bagpipes, a box of gas masks and another of mining lamps, a harp with no strings, a dress form which was wearing something distinctly Edwardian, an astonishingly ugly coat rack, trunk after trunk lining the walls (each of which he suspected must be stuffed to the gills), a victrola, a golliwog alongside a statue of Vishnu, paintings propped against every available surface, an umbrella stand from which sprouted sword handles, furniture of every possible description which had all been piled high with boxes and stacks of papers, at least two grandfather clocks; and this was all just at first glance.
John realized a couple of things. The first was that since apparently the Holmes clan never threw anything away, the odds were pretty good that the sheet music they were in search of was in here somewhere; the second was that the odds of their finding anything they were actually looking for were slim to none, so he instantly decided that he wasn’t actually trying to find Sherlock’s lost work, he was simply having a look around. He studied the dodo a bit more closely, and it occurred to him to wonder if this was the only example of taxidermy the room housed. The extraordinarily large space was dim and shadowy, and dust motes danced eloquently in the beams of light which fought through the masses of objects before him. The air felt a bit heavy and solemn, and John was reminded of a Cathedral. He waded into the maze, choosing a direction at random.
He stopped in front of a trunk which had on top of it two large boxes. He opened one of them. It was full of wellies. Curiously, John dug down to the bottom to make sure; yep, nothing but wellies, and chock full of them. The mass of dark green and black rubber all seemed to be odd, as well. The sizes ranged from humongous to downright dainty, but not one seemed to match any of the others. It was a boggling thought that this box and its contents existed.
The next box he opened was full of daggers, some sheathed, others not. Most of the ones he could see were beautiful, works of art in metal meant to draw blood. He hesitated before carefully taking out one of the blades near the top and holding it up for a better view. It was gorgeous, the handle was done in ivory and it was warm in his hand, the grip perfect. He unsheathed it to find the blade itself sadly rusted and pitted and he frowned; such a shame, that. He returned it to the box and closed it up again.
He moved the boxes from the top of the trunk and opened that to find it full of ice skates which mapped the evolution of the object from its very invention up to a pair sporting a cheery-looking Hello Kitty. “This area seems to have been categorized at some point, what are you seeing over there?” he inquired.
Sherlock took in the contents of the trunk he was currently looking through. “This section has not received the same attention. This trunk contains a set of ivory game counters shaped like fish; five pairs of bi-focals; Great Aunt Vivianne's collection of cigarette holders; a matching cigarette case, clock, pen holder without the pen, and the lighter from her desk set; a cigar box filled with costume jewellery, half of the paste gems gone; a scrapbook full of theatre tickets; a hatbox full of small Victorian handbags; a Persian slipper; and a 19th century air rifle of unusual design.”
It just went on and on like that. John opened a wardrobe to find the bottom of it full of mothballs and an assortment of furs ranging from a gorgeous, perfectly preserved silver stole which was the softest thing he had ever felt in his life, to a ratty old brown coat large enough that it would have swallowed a bear alive, and might honestly have once been a bear. Sherlock unearthed, in a box lid slid under a dresser full of stuck drawers, a child's collection of river-smoothed oval stones and later, in a trunk, in a jewellery box, in tissue paper tied with a worn gold ribbon, a pair of unworn baby's shoes. He identified one of John’s finds as a rug beater, and the object it was propped against as a Victorian pump action vacuum cleaner. One trunk contained a pair of old ski boots, the kind that lace on, with all the laces in knots. Also in that one was a book press and a glass display case of native insects, the last of which they confiscated to give to Peter.
Rolled up in a long canister, which had been put on top of a mirror with an elaborately carved frame (the symbols on which seemed to be trying to tell him something, though he knew not what) Sherlock found a set of plane spotting charts. Under a worn out wing chair, which must have proven slightly too wobbly even for the servants (when there were servants), John discovered a fly fishing kit which had turned too brittle with age for anything in it to be of use. Sherlock slipped into his pocket a beautiful antique bottle, mostly opaque, sealed with lead. John frankly admired a glorious, life sized watercolour reclining nude, boxed up to keep her from the light but unprotected from the temperature and her paint sadly cracking because of it; it was not signed and he wondered if it were Claude’s work.
An open area they worked their way into looked to have been used as some artist’s studio for a while during some unknowable time period. An easel stood next to the window and was surrounded by a detritus of paints (dried), paint brushes, palettes, artists papers, charcoal sticks, and once-stretched canvas. The little carved-out space also contained one lone silver and crystal coaster which had been used as an ash tray and was still half full of filters and a razor strop and the wall around the window had been adorned with a matching set of badly done oils.
The third trunk they checked after they had come out the other side of the cleared artist’s space, (they had been forced to shift an old rug full of holes, some burned into it, some eaten into it in order to access this particular trunk) held a racy manuscript which seemed to be a tell-all featuring the Holmes family members circa 1876; a pair of yellowed go-go boots; a creepy crawlers set, all the bottles empty; a bundle of children's writing exercises; an ancient pistol; a Spirograph; a compact encrusted with what John was fairly certain might actually be real diamonds; a View-Master loaded with a Doctor Who slide and; miraculously, Sherlock’s lost sonata.
221b_hound and pargoletta who contributed wonderful suggestions for the contents of the attic! I must tell you all, though, that the astounding and haunting beauty of the attic is owed entirely to f_m_r_l’s astonishingly wonderful reply to my original request for assistance found here http://impulsereader.livejournal.com/18319.html. I worked almost all of it into this section verbatim, so I actually have to say that a lot of this isn’t actually my work. Thank you, f_m_r_l, so very, very much. This was a precious gift and I hope I’ve treated it well. I cannot even express how very much lesser this would have been if it were not for you. I thank you and my story thanks you!Oh, weird thing, my uk Word auto-correct wanted wellies to be willies. *boggles*
Edited to add - I totally meant to credit
natsuko1978 because she gave me the great word shufti which I gave John here - I'm so sorry I forgot to add you on! There are also some comma errors toward the end that need cleaning up - I was just so excited about it, I missed few things!------
“Well surely this place has an attic? My mum had boxes stuffed with old school papers; people save every useless thing and shove it into the attic, so we’re in with a chance.” He stood decisively. “Come on, we’ll have a shufti and maybe we’ll find your lost symphony.”
“It was a sonata,” his friend corrected absently.
John rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine, the lost sonata of ickle Sherlock Holmes. Come on, lead the way.” He tugged his companion up from his seat and propelled him out the door.
He really should have anticipated the attic being both unbelievably large and stuffed with undeniably mad objects. He hadn’t, however, so the stuffed dodo bird startled him terribly.
Sherlock doubled over with laughter. “That sound you just made!”
“Yes, fine, Sherlock.”
“It was the same one you used for Simon!”
“Yes, I realize that, Sherlock, but thank you for pointing it out anyway.”
“But it was – just, you -,” He dissolved into helpless laughter.
“Yes! Thank you, Sherlock, again. I shrieked like a little girl, I realize that. Now shut the bloody hell up about it.” While he waited for the giggles to subside, John had a look around and tried to decide if there was any one point where it might be less daunting to begin their search.
He decided there wasn’t. Generations of Holmeses must have been acquiring and then abandoning objects to this room since time immemorial in order to create the layers of objects which had proven ephemeral and were now on display as if in some sort of insane gothic museum. John could see a hanging medical skeleton with one leg missing, a set of bagpipes, a box of gas masks and another of mining lamps, a harp with no strings, a dress form which was wearing something distinctly Edwardian, an astonishingly ugly coat rack, trunk after trunk lining the walls (each of which he suspected must be stuffed to the gills), a victrola, a golliwog alongside a statue of Vishnu, paintings propped against every available surface, an umbrella stand from which sprouted sword handles, furniture of every possible description which had all been piled high with boxes and stacks of papers, at least two grandfather clocks; and this was all just at first glance.
John realized a couple of things. The first was that since apparently the Holmes clan never threw anything away, the odds were pretty good that the sheet music they were in search of was in here somewhere; the second was that the odds of their finding anything they were actually looking for were slim to none, so he instantly decided that he wasn’t actually trying to find Sherlock’s lost work, he was simply having a look around. He studied the dodo a bit more closely, and it occurred to him to wonder if this was the only example of taxidermy the room housed. The extraordinarily large space was dim and shadowy, and dust motes danced eloquently in the beams of light which fought through the masses of objects before him. The air felt a bit heavy and solemn, and John was reminded of a Cathedral. He waded into the maze, choosing a direction at random.
He stopped in front of a trunk which had on top of it two large boxes. He opened one of them. It was full of wellies. Curiously, John dug down to the bottom to make sure; yep, nothing but wellies, and chock full of them. The mass of dark green and black rubber all seemed to be odd, as well. The sizes ranged from humongous to downright dainty, but not one seemed to match any of the others. It was a boggling thought that this box and its contents existed.
The next box he opened was full of daggers, some sheathed, others not. Most of the ones he could see were beautiful, works of art in metal meant to draw blood. He hesitated before carefully taking out one of the blades near the top and holding it up for a better view. It was gorgeous, the handle was done in ivory and it was warm in his hand, the grip perfect. He unsheathed it to find the blade itself sadly rusted and pitted and he frowned; such a shame, that. He returned it to the box and closed it up again.
He moved the boxes from the top of the trunk and opened that to find it full of ice skates which mapped the evolution of the object from its very invention up to a pair sporting a cheery-looking Hello Kitty. “This area seems to have been categorized at some point, what are you seeing over there?” he inquired.
Sherlock took in the contents of the trunk he was currently looking through. “This section has not received the same attention. This trunk contains a set of ivory game counters shaped like fish; five pairs of bi-focals; Great Aunt Vivianne's collection of cigarette holders; a matching cigarette case, clock, pen holder without the pen, and the lighter from her desk set; a cigar box filled with costume jewellery, half of the paste gems gone; a scrapbook full of theatre tickets; a hatbox full of small Victorian handbags; a Persian slipper; and a 19th century air rifle of unusual design.”
It just went on and on like that. John opened a wardrobe to find the bottom of it full of mothballs and an assortment of furs ranging from a gorgeous, perfectly preserved silver stole which was the softest thing he had ever felt in his life, to a ratty old brown coat large enough that it would have swallowed a bear alive, and might honestly have once been a bear. Sherlock unearthed, in a box lid slid under a dresser full of stuck drawers, a child's collection of river-smoothed oval stones and later, in a trunk, in a jewellery box, in tissue paper tied with a worn gold ribbon, a pair of unworn baby's shoes. He identified one of John’s finds as a rug beater, and the object it was propped against as a Victorian pump action vacuum cleaner. One trunk contained a pair of old ski boots, the kind that lace on, with all the laces in knots. Also in that one was a book press and a glass display case of native insects, the last of which they confiscated to give to Peter.
Rolled up in a long canister, which had been put on top of a mirror with an elaborately carved frame (the symbols on which seemed to be trying to tell him something, though he knew not what) Sherlock found a set of plane spotting charts. Under a worn out wing chair, which must have proven slightly too wobbly even for the servants (when there were servants), John discovered a fly fishing kit which had turned too brittle with age for anything in it to be of use. Sherlock slipped into his pocket a beautiful antique bottle, mostly opaque, sealed with lead. John frankly admired a glorious, life sized watercolour reclining nude, boxed up to keep her from the light but unprotected from the temperature and her paint sadly cracking because of it; it was not signed and he wondered if it were Claude’s work.
An open area they worked their way into looked to have been used as some artist’s studio for a while during some unknowable time period. An easel stood next to the window and was surrounded by a detritus of paints (dried), paint brushes, palettes, artists papers, charcoal sticks, and once-stretched canvas. The little carved-out space also contained one lone silver and crystal coaster which had been used as an ash tray and was still half full of filters and a razor strop and the wall around the window had been adorned with a matching set of badly done oils.
The third trunk they checked after they had come out the other side of the cleared artist’s space, (they had been forced to shift an old rug full of holes, some burned into it, some eaten into it in order to access this particular trunk) held a racy manuscript which seemed to be a tell-all featuring the Holmes family members circa 1876; a pair of yellowed go-go boots; a creepy crawlers set, all the bottles empty; a bundle of children's writing exercises; an ancient pistol; a Spirograph; a compact encrusted with what John was fairly certain might actually be real diamonds; a View-Master loaded with a Doctor Who slide and; miraculously, Sherlock’s lost sonata.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-06-25 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 12:08 am (UTC)Tried to edit but couldn't
Date: 2012-06-26 12:11 am (UTC)((Where the *hell* did they get a stuffed dodo, given that they'd died out by about 1680, within a hundred years of their discovery by Europeans? I mean the Natural History museum has one, but even in museums they are usually replicas rather than stuffed... There are a few more skeletons around because, well, skeletons survive, but still.))
The attic sounds like the backrooms of some of the more eccetric museums. :D ((Although if the family is into shooting, I would expect hunting trophies and glass cases of stuffed British Birds and Beasts like in the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge.)
Re: Tried to edit but couldn't
Date: 2012-06-26 12:17 am (UTC)Re: Tried to edit but couldn't
Date: 2012-06-26 02:11 pm (UTC)Re: Tried to edit but couldn't
Date: 2012-06-26 03:33 pm (UTC)Re: Tried to edit but couldn't
Date: 2012-06-26 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 02:39 am (UTC)If either of you are interested, 'shufti' is actually an Arabic word from the verb 'to see'/to look. That, along with 'bint' (girl) were picked up as British slang, probably by soldiers stationed in Egypt. (WWII maybe? Not sure of the time period)
English has some great words with Arabic roots, including lots of science words from the era of the crusades: algebra & alchemy among them. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 03:07 am (UTC)(One reason I love the OED unreasonably is for its origins and dates of words along with the definitions. And yes, shufti was originally British military slang in the 1940s, another word for reconnaitre, like "reccy". :D)
Are bint and shufti used in Australia?
And you are quite right, milady, it *is* a most marvellous attic. :D The sort of place you could lose me for weeks. Old bric a brac/antique shops, bookshops and libraries are my downfall!
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 03:27 am (UTC)From the older contexts I understood 'bint' as dismissive (like calling a woman a 'bird') but without regular cultural context didn't realise it was more pejorative than that. I didnt know it was still used by anybody at all actually. i havent heard it used in actual speech in years. Good thing I never use it myself.
I want to go and wallow in that attic. I'm totally with you on bookshops, libraries, curio shops and the like. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 11:55 am (UTC)I was playing scrabble the other day and was just getting terrible, terrible letters - 3 Is all at the same time two turns in a row even though I'd used some - and I was playing with my niece who is - oh gosh - going to be 9 next month I think, so has no concept of building the board, and in consequence I was just doing horribly. I put out 'hies' but when everyone was all 'wtf sort of word is that?' I couldn't properly explain it other than by saying, 'you know, he hies off into the distance.' Well, they didn't, in fact, know so I had to look it up to prove it was a word. And all this after I'd let the little one have Peru on her first turn! :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 12:19 pm (UTC)One day you and I will meet up and play an awesome game of Scrabble. I would know what 'hies' was instantly. Though we made need to discuss rules about AUstralian vs US spelling.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 10:09 am (UTC)http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_C8BJcGQv-S0/SckDQgpJqfI/AAAAAAAABGU/JvKFQViMqKg/s1600-h/SANY0047.JPG
They are dolly pegs, used for washing (you stuck your washing in a tub and turned and pummled them with the dolly peg). My mother remembers using one, and we used to play with my grandmother's as children.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 12:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 11:43 am (UTC)More on the racy manuscript, perhaps?
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 12:00 pm (UTC)Hm. Perhaps. I am looking for some more substantive things to put into the glances at Baker Street. Those are growing just like every other aspect of this story has - beyond my wildest dreams!
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 03:40 pm (UTC)Oh! And what about mementoes of the Coronation and the Silver and Golden Jubilees, this being Diamond Jubilee year?!
no subject
Date: 2012-06-28 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-28 07:51 am (UTC)Forging ahead, they were able to leave this artist’s den by climbing a bookcase stuffed with volumes both thick and thin, then dropping gently to the ground on the other side, landing in an old rowboat which sat on a rug full of holes, some clearly burned into it, others eaten. One end of the boat was home to a box filled with mugs, plates, bells, coins, paperweights, various glassware, and bookmarks all celebrating a Coronation, Royal Wedding, or other anniversary (all reigns John could name, and some he couldn’t, were represented); the other housed a mounted water buffalo head.
They found a wardrobe which contained nothing but hundreds of dusty, rusting trophies and a medicine cabinet which held seventeen jars of jam gone solid with age. A turn at a cast-iron mangler (which John swore had reached out and tripped him) seemed to mark the end of their progress, but then Sherlock found he could wriggle through a small window formed by a trunk (full of unboxed Meccano), a chalkboard locked into upright position, and a pair of huge decorative pillars which were too heavy to be shifted. Slithering after him, on his stomach over the trunk and under the board, John got stuck for just a moment, and Sherlock tugged him out by both hands.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-29 10:56 pm (UTC)