I like it as a story, so I'm glad to share it!
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Self-promotion completed, here's the story! Enjoy!
The Collector
The
kitten paddled her palm with tiny paws, the round bulge of its soft stomach
rubbing her fingers. Her heart ached with a fierce love she’d never felt
before, a glow of heat spread into her throat and stomach.
“I
think she likes you, Gene.”
Imogene
let her gaze linger on the kitten’s thin tuft of a tail, the flat ears and the
pink button nose between unopened eyes, savoring the details like a critic
appreciating the fine nuances of a novel. “It’s a mutual feeling,” she
murmured. “It’s a girl for sure?”
“Well,
it’s hard to tell yet, but we think so. It’s funny, I could have sworn you said
you didn’t like pets.”
With
the utmost care, Imogene placed the little calico kitten back in the basket
with the rest of the litter. The mother cat swept out her paw and pulled her
daughter between her paws and began to bathe her with quick laps from a bright
pink tongue. Imogene straightened up and looked at her neighbor. “What I said
is I’ve never had a pet.”
“Every
person should have at least one pet. It’s a good experience.”
The
experience was what she was after.
The
experience was always what she was after.
Fingers
trembling, Imogene fished a $20 bill out of her wallet and gave it to her
neighbor to have the calico kitten held for her. In seven weeks, the darling
creature would come home with her and she would discover the world through its
newly-open eyes, seeing and learning in ways she knew she couldn’t currently
imagine. Anticipation flowed through her veins, sharpening her senses, filling
her with the urge to shout simply to shout, to expend sudden energy.
The
kittens needed sleep, and the neighbor needed to tend to chores before her husband
came home. Imogene let herself be guided to the door where she said a hasty
farewell. She stepped outside and bounded across the adjacent yards to her own
front door, and leaped inside.
She
rushed through the foyer and down the hall to what might have been a bedroom if
she’d lived with anyone else. Instead, the room was filled with bookshelves,
shelves upon shelves, so many that they protruded out into the hallway and prevented
the door from shutting. It was a library, though the clutter gave it the feel
of a maze.
Each
bookcase held notebooks, ancient journals with yellowing pages, school-issued composition
books, moleskins and pocket diaries with trendy cover designs. The smell of
paper filled the air, light and sharp as a cut.
Imogene
trailed her hand over the shelves as she walked, skimming her fingers over
polished wood and uneven bindings.
She
was a collector. Only blank books would do as vessels, holding the memories and
experiences she poured into them to build the library of her life.
She
closed her eyes, letting her feet carry her through the narrow aisles, walking
a path she’d traveled a thousand times, of which she would never tire.
Sensations tugged at her, mischievous ghosts of recollection, not as strong as
what the books held but enough to turn her thoughts to the times gone past.
Sunlight on her skin and damp grass under her bare feet, the cold of a winter
wind blowing her from behind, making her feel as if she could start running and
lift up in the air.
She
felt, distantly, in her mind, a hand on her knee and a soft-lipped kiss, and
gray ocean waves coiling around her ankles. Bittersweet thoughts of her ex, on
the heels of anger that still stirred the hairs on the back of her neck. The
first sip of coffee at dawn. Taking a wrong turn off the highway, the queer
empty isolation of a forgotten town.
All
these and more, she had stored. When she opened a book, the distant memories
crackled to life like a kindled fire and she experienced all over again the distinct
moments that made up this first half of her life.
Imogene
opened her eyes. She stood next to a bookcase, mostly empty except for a few
thin notebooks on the top shelf. She picked up the newest one and opened the
cover, inhaling the scent of leather. She flipped past the decorative title
page. This part was important. Every aspect of the magic of memory-keeping had
to be exactly right. Nothing could be out of place, and that meant turning to
the right page. The first page, where all stories began.
Her
heart swelled in her chest as she recalled the weight of the kitten in the palm
of her hand, so light and yet so powerful, so full of life and potential. The
experience, uniquely hers, flowed from her in a neutral-toned, subtle light,
filling the pages to brimming with emotion. No bright flashes accompanied the
transfer, no gaudy sparkles or puffs of smoke, none of the usual trappings
people expected from stage magic. This was real, and it could only be caught in
the twisted, acutely-angled corners formed by the meeting of bookshelves. It
was elusive and had to be worked for, chased, pursued.
Her
shoulders slackened as the current of magic slowed, finally stopping when there
was nothing left in her to give. Now, whenever she liked, whenever she wanted
to feel this exact way again, she could come here and open this notebook and
recall it all.
Imogene
moved away from the shelf to a box in the corner, where she picked out another
notebook at random. She set it on the mostly-empty shelf with the others for
the next time.
The
work of a collector was never done, after all.
The
End
© 2019 Emily Blue
