Nothing but rabbits come out of the hat

[sovay]

At the counter of Raven Used Books, I discovered someone else's keys in my pocket.

This is not a euphemism. (And then he ran into my knife! He ran into my knife ten times!) We had taken nineweaving to 9 Tastes for birthday duck and mussel pancakes with a movie to be collected on rain check; we were post-prandially browsing when I reached into my jacket pocket for my wallet, to pay for Rika Lesser's A Child Is Not a Knife: Selected Poems of Gören Sonnevi (1993), and found a surprising handful of metal. I thought somehow I'd underestimated my pocket change. Instead I pulled out first my own keys, all four of them on their Kokopelli key-ring, and then a further eight: four pairs of duplicates, short and silver, on four small rings clipped variously onto a jumbo paperclip. Some of them looked like luggage keys, some like keys to filing cabinets or office drawers. I believe I said cogently, "I have someone else's keys in my pocket. Where did these come from?" The bookstore clerk, who had recently been importuned by Scientologists, gave me a very dubious look.

No one in the store came forward to claim them. I'm dubious it's worth any of my friends' while to gaslight me. When we got back to Eric's, I called and left my name and phone number at both 9 Tastes and Raven, in case anyone comes in looking for a set of lost keys, but I still don't have an explanation how they got into my pocket in the first place. I would have noticed extra keys when we settled the bill at the restaurant. All the time we were in the bookstore, I was wearing my jacket. It's leather. It doesn't have pockets all over the place. So either there was a keychain fumble such as romantic comedies are made on, or someone was practicing their pickpocket skills in reverse, neither of which makes very much sense. I'm left feeling like a character in the first ten minutes of a Hitchcock film—any moment now, shots are going to be fired, mysterious strangers are going to demand information I don't even know where to look for, and by the end of the week I may be halfway across the country and/or handcuffed to Madeleine Carroll. Or this is slipstream, and the keys are something faintly magical, mostly inexplicable, possibly metaphoric. Twenty years from now, they will unlock a suitcase or a drawer that didn't exist in 2008. Or I don't want to know. They only look like keys.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Maybe by the time the lock exists the keys won't?

Nine

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That would be extremely frustrating. I can hear the lock laughing. Watch out, lock! You might end up shattered if you mock us so!

[sovay]

Maybe by the time the lock exists the keys won't?

If only for a subatomic moment, they must superimpose.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

More mundanely speaking, I can tell you from personal experience that it's easy to pick things up without thinking about it: if the previous patron at a place had accidentally left their keys on the counter, it would be all too easy for you to slip them into your pocket on autopilot, your kinesthetic memory doing the thing of making sure to put away your keys (the previous person's kinesthetic memory was obviously on holiday...)--only, they weren't yours.

I like your suggestion, though, that they'll open a drawer that doesn't yet exist.

[sovay]

if the previous patron at a place had accidentally left their keys on the counter, it would be all too easy for you to slip them into your pocket on autopilot, your kinesthetic memory doing the thing of making sure to put away your keys (the previous person's kinesthetic memory was obviously on holiday...)--only, they weren't yours.

We weren't at a counter. We didn't even pass one on the way out. We were at a table toward the back of the restaurant; I had hung my jacket over the back of the chair. At the bookstore, I had my hands mostly full of hat and gloves. I have also never had the experience of absentmindedly picking up something that doesn't belong to me—I'm more likely to leave my keys at home, if I haven't collected them as part of the morning's ritual, or realize my phone is still charging on the windowsill only when I reach for it to check the time. Hence the weirdness. I'm a lot less disturbed by small articles gone missing than ones that suddenly manifest.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was an example of reverse pickpocketing?

Maybe someone was being pursued by others, had to ditch the keys quickly.... I wonder what became of that person, if so...

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

And when you find the left-luggage locker, it will be full of severed head...

Or at the very least a handbag full of baby. Or Miss Prism's novel.

Nine

[ericmvan.livejournal.com]

That was my idea. Whoever had the keys was about to be captured and searched, and killed if they had the keys on them. So they ditched them in sovay's pocket. They are hoping she did exactly what she did (call the stores and give contact info) and will be calling the bookstore or restaurant as soon as they can get free of pursuit and find an untapped phone.

The question is whether this is in the middle of the story and sovay is merely "Woman in Bookstore," or whether that's the first scene and she is a main character. It's probably up to her.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I've wondered about precisely this scenario at other times... I think even if this is the middle of the story, sovay will end up as more than "Woman in Bookstore." I'd guess she'll become either an ally or a foe of the ditcher of the keys. Our instinct says to become an ally, since we tend to sympathize with people who are being pursued. But... we don't have all the information... and yet it's always without full information that we have to make decisions...

[sovay]

The question is whether this is in the middle of the story and sovay is merely "Woman in Bookstore," or whether that's the first scene and she is a main character. It's probably up to her.

No, no. You're both making the same mistake so many contemporary critics did when the novel came out, looking for resolution or rationale in the human storylines. It doesn't matter how many times figures reappear or disappear, that overwhelming sense of an answer if only you could step far enough back to hold all the pieces in your head at once. The second-person narration is a red herring. It's not about the characters: it's about the keys.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Since this was nineweaving's birthday outing, it seems more likely that the keys lead to a gift for her: if you fail to untangle the clew, they will probably resolve to moonbeams...

Also, were they 'birthday-duck and mussel-pancakes' or 'birthday duck-and-mussel-pancakes'?

[sovay]

if you fail to untangle the clew, they will probably resolve to moonbeams...

That will be as appropriate a gift to her as any.

Also, were they 'birthday-duck and mussel-pancakes' or 'birthday duck-and-mussel-pancakes'?

The former. The honey roasted duck is nineweaving's traditional dish at 9 Tastes, the mussel pancakes mine (although I have lately gotten ericmvan hooked on them, too).

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

The former

Phew. You had me worried for a moment there (and I wasn't alone, I see).

[sovay]

Phew. You had me worried for a moment there (and I wasn't alone, I see).

It would have been hyphenated!

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

I don't know--I'd initially assumed as you did, and I can imagine that one might be able to do something interesting with that.
(Maybe I've just eaten at Miya's once too often.)

[sovay]

(Maybe I've just eaten at Miya's once too often.)

Nah. I would in fact order a duck-and-mussel pancake just because. But not from 9 Tastes, because they don't make them.

[jtglover.livejournal.com]

Was anyone sitting directly behind you at the restaurant, so close that the back of your chairs could have bumped? If so, and your pockets were both leather and both next to each other...

[sovay]

Was anyone sitting directly behind you at the restaurant, so close that the back of your chairs could have bumped?

I thought we didn't have anyone behind us. I could ask nineweaving and ericmvan.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I saw no one behind us.

Nine

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

And the waiter worked from the narrow end.

Nine

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Keep them in your pocket, and keep a sharp eye out for little doors, lockers, caskets or other mysterious keyholes.

(I carry a curved and curious key
I found in my pocket. It isn't for me
Its keyholes are distant, mysterious, far,
Leading out of this world to the place where you are.)

[sovay]

(I carry a curved and curious key
I found in my pocket. It isn't for me
Its keyholes are distant, mysterious, far,
Leading out of this world to the place where you are.)

Prrrrr.

[sin-agua.livejournal.com]

Everyone else has amusing observations about the keys, and where they might've come from, and to whom they might belong. Since my brain is still too cold this morning to offer witty, imaginative commentary, I'll just say...

Myself, I'm still reeling over the phrase duck and mussel pancakes...??

Is this an actual dish? ("No," I hear you say, "it's a metaphorical one, silly...") Seriously though, I've never heard of it and cannot even begin to picture such a dish. It doesn't sound terribly appetizing, and yet it must hold some innate charm otherwise you wouldn't be ordering it, especially for a birthday celebration. Should I Google for recipe examples? Is it something Asian? I honestly can't imagine...

[sovay]

Should I Google for recipe examples? Is it something Asian? I honestly can't imagine...

See reply to shewhomust: it's two different dishes, the first being duck in ginger and honey and the second mussel pancakes served over beansprouts. They are both extremely tasty.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Clearly, you slipped over into next month's Sirenia Digest. Good luck...

[sovay]

Clearly, you slipped over into next month's Sirenia Digest. Good luck...

Do I get handcuffed to something stranger than Madeleine Carroll?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Do I get handcuffed to something stranger than Madeleine Carroll?

Oh, at least. Let me see....

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Thanks to The Raw Shark Texts I can think of at least half a dozen very good uses for those keys if no one comes to claim them. Storage might be a bit of a problem, since, eventually, the longer you have them, the more they will imprint as yours...

Also, you would need enemies. Honestly, I don't know if the utility of the keys outweighs the problems inherent there, but what interesting life is totally bereft of them?

Mussel pancakes sound very, very good.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

And by enemies, I mostly mean memetic sharks.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Or maybe, as darkpaisley would say, conceptual sharks?

[sovay]

Thanks to The Raw Shark Texts I can think of at least half a dozen very good uses for those keys if no one comes to claim them. Storage might be a bit of a problem, since, eventually, the longer you have them, the more they will imprint as yours...

So I should read this book, huh?

And by enemies, I mostly mean memetic sharks.

I'll take that as a yes.

Mussel pancakes sound very, very good.

They are.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I have some key arrangement like that, its for the keys to all the padalocks when I had my 5 storage units. They migrated all over the place until I finally cleared the units and now I have them stuck in one of the locks itself.

[sovay]

They migrated all over the place until I finally cleared the units and now I have them stuck in one of the locks itself.

So they're not your keys, is what you're saying. Oh, well.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

My, that's certainly... different.

Hmm, I wonder if this ring of keys could be an apport? Could its presence in you pocket be some strange act of Jungian synchronicity?

[sovay]

Could its presence in you pocket be some strange act of Jungian synchronicity?

These are my keys from the shadow side?

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

These are my keys from the shadow side?

That's a possiblity, yes, although I have to admit I was thinking more in terms of quasi-Fortean phenomena.

I suppose it's a good thing that they're not labelled with a variant of your name and address in an parallel derivative of Middle Scots written in a Cyrillic alphabet.

Or perhaps it isn't? ;-)

[sparkwatson.livejournal.com]

That is just so awesome. Obviously you've crossed into the fictional world. Please send us a sign - crows seem to work, or coded messages in newspapers - when your mission is complete and you want us to try to open up the portal back to this world. We'll hunt down your author and get you written back into reality.

[sovay]

We'll hunt down your author and get you written back into reality.

What if I want to stay? They tell different stories on this side.