All of the Things He Has Taken from You

You’ll have seen him at night, if you’ve seen him. And you’ll have dismissed him as unremarkable, if you even notice him at all. It’s all right; you’re meant to. He looks like a man from a distance, and the thing he pushes looks like a cart, and you weren’t close enough to see any different.

If you had, you’d know.

You’d be here with me.

He walks the streets, up and down, now here, now there, into and out of the houses. I don’t think he knows what locks are for. They don’t get in his way, at any rate. I think they’re afraid.

Every so often, prompted by the moon or the stars or the weather or some unknowable conjunction of whatever sparks and nameless chemicals flood his bald, gummy head, he selects something to add to his collection.

I’m writing you this letter to let you know. I think it might be a warning.

There’s a pattern to the collecting. I know there is. I can’t see the pattern, but I feel it in the way a shark knows where the blood is, and when. It has a shape. He doesn’t take everything – takes almost nothing, in fact (so little does he want or require that none will know of his passing, and so much the better for him, or for them). He doesn’t take everything, but everything he takes is lost. Lost before he touched it, lost to bring him to it, scenting it in the waters of the night from miles and miles away. His soft-padding feet walk past priceless numismatic glories to filch the penny from tatty couch cushions. He has no care for rare autographed tomes or unique first-edition misprints, but his jointless fingers will deftly slip the bottommost forgettable bodice-ripper from the stack in the bathroom. (You might perhaps wonder where it went for as long as three, even four seconds, but no more. You never did care.) Faded photographs of no one’s relatives; ancient stuffed animals with gory thread where button-eyes once glinted; keys that fit no lock and coupons for products no one has manufactured in years. All of these go into the thing he pushes that is not a cart.

All of these, and me. I wandered the streets after I left, or after you did, and he found me. I was lost. I do not know why. I have forgotten.

It is not bad to be forgotten. I speak with authority. Why should I lie to you? I find it restful. Reassuring, in a way. To know one’s place. To have a place, for whatever reason. No one wanted me, no one kept me, and so I am here. I was lost. I am collected. Now I will wait. These are the things I know about myself, and they are more than I had. I think you knew that about me, once. I think you told it to me.

It is cold here. It is not a cart. It has another shape. The walls are slick with condensation, if they are there. I do not think they always are. When they are, I sometimes pound upon them. Philosophically; idly; to pass the time. My hands bleed and heal and bleed again, but they will not take a scar. They are still soft. Softer even than they were.

I found some paper. I wrote you this letter. It has a pattern. Who are you?

I digress. I lose my way sometimes. It shouldn’t be possible to lose anything here, where everything is already lost. Should it? The metaphysics of my predicament confuse me. But I paw through the wreckage and refuse in my haven and I feel the shape of things I cannot have. I make them a pattern. An emptiness, cupped in my hands. A wooden frame. A tube of lipstick. A ring. These are more than they think they are, or I am less.

I am less all the time.

It has been a long time. I assume it has been a long time. My hair is falling out. Or did I have hair? No food, no drink, no time to think.

Today another fingernail was gone. I am becoming. I am departing. Boneless. Gelid. Soft-fingered. Pad-footed.

Lost, lost, found again, round again, a rounding pounding sound resounds around the town. The walls are coming down and the trumpets... do something. Something is missing. I lost this letter who wrote it to me?

Time is this. Jointed. Put it right, put it write, alas, alas for you. I wrote you this pattern. I found this letter. Pattern is repetition. Repetition is madness.

No walls. No shapes. Only night.

Lost. I will find it. Lost them. I will be home. Home for them.

Lost again. Again. Again.

I will find them. I will find you. Somewhere, I am looking.