The Collector of Small Sorrows

No one asked me to do this. But if don't hold their sorrow, it spills-- and I've learned how to hold it. Again, and again and again.

The shop is not mine, and yet I live here. It stretches wider than it should, shelves snaking backward into shadow, corridors curling like old ribbon. It rearranges itself when I sleep. Sometimes I wake in the earring room, sometimes among ashtrays. Once, I woke beneath a table covered in baby teeth sealed in glass jars. That was a long day.

No one forced me to start collecting. No one taught me the process. I simply noticed one day that when I touched a cracked porcelain doll-- its eyes stuck open, its smile too wide-- I felt less. AS if something had lifted from the air and settled inside it. As if the sadness in the corner of my lungs had gone quiet for a moment.

So I kept going.

Now the shop is full.

Drawer 112-A holds buttons lost during arguments. Cabinet 9D houses rings that were given too early or too late. On the second-highest shelf of aisle N, there's a wooden spoon from a kitchen where no one ever said thank you. I wrapped it in velvet. Some things deserve comfort, even in containment.

I do not know where the items go when I'm done with them. I never throw them away. I label them, I record them, and then they vanish. I assume the shop digests them. Or maybe the world simply has less sorrow because of me. I find that thought reassuring.

People visit sometimes. They never buy anything.

Last week, a man wandered in with damp shoes and shaking hands. He asked for a clock. I gave him a music box that had belonged to a girl who used it to time her tears. He didn't notice the difference. No one ever does. The sorrow is there, tucked between gears and teeth.

He left lighter, I think I made him better.

Today, I found a thimble humming near the display of wedding favors. It was small, silver, dented. I could feel its story before I picked it up. A seamstress had used it to make a dress for a daughter who never can home. The stitches were perfect. The ending was not.

I wrapped it in black lace. I nearly wept. Nearly.

I don't cry anymore. That's not part of the process. The sorrow has to go somewhere, and if I let it return to me, I'd never stop. So, I press it into objects. Into glass and metal and plastic. It's safer that way. Contained. Managed.

Obsessed? Perhaps.

But isn't obsession just love that's learned how to breathe?

There is one shelf I do not touch. It's near the back, past the room with broken mirrors. The air their smells of violets and vinegar. The objects are simple-- matchbooks, eyeglasses, coins with holes-- but they don't hum. They whisper.

Once, I leaned close to a spoon with a chipped handle. It said my name.

I left that room. I haven't gone back.

I tell myself it's unimportant. That not all sorrow can be held. But lately, the shop has been changing. The labels rearrange themselves. My drawers no longer close. The sorrow is leaking, perhaps. Or perhaps I have made too much room.

This morning, I found my own handwriting on an item I don't remember cataloging: "Glass bead. Found in throat. Final apology unspoken."

I held it in my hand for a long time. It was warm. Familiar.

I think I may have died once. Before the shop. But I cannot be certain.

There are cracks in everything here now. Not just the ceiling. Even the mirror in the music box room has splintered lines running like veins, converging in the center. They make a spiral if I stare too long. I try not to.

The mirror near the entrance stopped reflecting me three weeks ago. I've left notes for myself, but they come back unread. I tried to walk out once. The door opened in another aisle.

Still, I continue. I must. The work is sacred. Who else will contain the aching of the world?

I dream often now, though I don't recall sleeping. In one dream, I am a child burying pennies beneath a tree. In another, I kiss someone whose face is always blurred. In the worst ones, I am alone, but the sorrow has no vessel, and it blooms in the walls like mold.

Sometimes I hear footsteps.

Not mine. Not the visitors.

They pause outside the room I won't enter. The whisper room. I think the shop is waiting.

No. Not the shop. Something in it.

Tonight, I found a cracked locket hanging on my worktable. It was not there before. I did not collect it. Inside was a photo of a woman with a missing face. My handwriting beneath: Donor unknown. Emotion: regret."

I have not felt regret in years. It burned, sharp and sudden, like salt in a wound I had forgotten.

Is this the cost?

Has the sorrow I've taken found a way to take me back? I do not know. But I opened the locket again before bed. And this time, her face was mine.

I returned to the whispering room.

It has changed. The air was thinner. The objects now floated, faintly, as if buoyed by memory alone.

They whispered my secrets. All of them.

The glass marble spoke of the bird I buried as a boy and pretended not to miss. The watch muttered about a moment I chose silence over comfort. The spoon-- still chipped-- said I was never meant to be a collector.

I am simply a container.

And I am nearly full.

I don't know what happens when I reach capacity. Do I shatter? Fade? Return to the world, humming with sorrow?

Or does the shop find a new collector?

There's a girl who visits often. She never speaks. Leaves no footprints. Once, she touched the drawer of mismatched gloves and smiled. I think she understands. I think she's next.

But not yet.

I found a music box tonight that I had not recorded. It played no tune. When I opened it, a slip of paper fluttered out.

It said: "You have been seen."

I think that is the greatest sorrow of all. To be seen and still remain unknown.

I will keep collecting. Until the shop lets me leave.

Or forget.

Or fade.

Or forgive.