The Collector

Grief is like glitter, it gets everywhere and even when you think you’ve cleaned it all up, you find it in the strangest places. This is the story of how I actually cleaned every last speck of my grief. However, it came at a cost.

I think I used to be quite the “daddy’s girl” growing up but to be honest I’d never be able to tell you for certain. I was thirteen when he died. As expected of an emotional adolescent in the throes of puberty, I was beside myself with grief. My father was struck by a drunk driver on his way home from work one evening. One second here, the next gone.

You may be saying to yourself right now “Geez, Lainey you’re being a bit cold, aren’t you?” to which I’d respond, give the first paragraph another read. My glitter is all cleaned up, but I’ll try to add a little more compassion moving forward.

With that said, this story begins the night following my father’s funeral. I was unconsolably crying my eyes out, hyperventilating and I remember I couldn’t stand to be touched. It was like my skin was hypersensitive, so hugs and being held were out of the question. I was also a teenage girl, so if my demands weren’t met, then seeing anything but the closed door of my bedroom was unlikely. And grieving adults like to hold grieving children. So, I was in my room, by myself.

It wasn’t late, maybe 6:30, but it being winter it was already dark outside. That was fine with me because like I said, angsty teen girl, I loved the dark. That is of course, before the events of that night took place.

I managed to calm myself enough to slip out of my funeral dress and into my pajamas. I climbed into bed, having sobbed myself to exhaustion I hoped maybe I could just go to sleep, and when I woke up, I wouldn’t feel the hurt so deeply. The thought that I would have given anything not to feel this way no more left my brain before I heard what sounded like a giggle turned hiccup. “Seeheheheyup”.

I froze. Was that me? I didn’t think it was but maybe one of my sobs hit my ears wrong. That could happen right? Maybe it was my imagination. That is what I ended up deciding because I definitely had an overactive imagination growing up and I knew it. Putting the weird noise behind me, I took solace in a moment of respite from my ever-flowing tears.

“Seeheheheyup” the squeaky laugh again. This time it was accompanied by a form that stood in the shadowed corner of the room.

An overactive imagination comes with growing up frightening myself regularly. However, it also comes with little tricks. Such as, under the blanket is my safe space. So, I threw the blanket over my head and squeezed my eyes tight in order to hide from the apparition I imagined in my room.

Once I deemed it safe, I peeked open my eyes. “You can’t hide under here,” resting on my chest, underneath the sheet there was a face cropped in ratty black hair, a too big smile and eyes that have been sewn shut with large X’s.

I opened my mouth to scream when the creature inhaled sharply, stealing my voice. Nothing came out but a helpless squeak. My eyes widened and started leaking tears again, my body began to convulse with fear. The creature stood to an impossible height, taking my safety blanket with it. It was a tall lanky, bone thin woman with claw tipped arms that nearly scraped the floor as it stood at the foot of my bed. She was pasty white with sickly black veins pulsing visible just under her pale skin. Gazing down at me, I whimpered. It tilted its head as if confused. A gesture that might be cute on a puppy but terrifying on this monster.

“I think I could be of service to you.” the things voice sounded like a snarling lion that merged into shrill giddiness. “I am The Collector, seeheheheyup,” it hissed its laughter. It was at that moment I noticed its mouth did not open while it talked, and it occurred to me that this thing was exclusively communicating to me by way of telepathy. The Collector also made no noise with her physical movements. In fact, my room was eerily silent throughout this entire ordeal.

The Collector puppy tilted her heard again; it leaned forward into an improvised all fours stance, but her black claw-like hands were resting on the foot of the mattress. Up until that point the thing moved slowly and meticulously but as I attempted to scramble up my bed, away from it, its hand shot out lightning fast, grabbed me by my ankle and turned me upside down.

“There are consequences to summoning me,” it snarled “do you want the deal I offer or not?”

“You haven’t offered me a deal.” I cursed myself for letting my teenager come out and back talk this obviously dangerous entity.

“Oh, seeheheheyup, how silly of me,” The Collector said while it dropped me in a heap on the bed, “well it’s quite simple, isn’t it?” I assumed the question as a rhetorical one as it continued, “I collect grief, you summoned me by wishing you could not feel the grief for your father any longer. Is that true?"

“Yes, I would give anything.” I eagerly answered.

“Good.” It snarled ominously.

That was when I came to my senses a little, “but wait, what would I have to give you? What is the deal you’re offering.” Not wanting to get the raw end of the deal, I was weary and sure that this creature wasn’t telling me everything. However, as I know now there was no winning in deals made with The Collector.

“It’s actually quite simple, you see, I take the grief you bare towards your father and then you are free of it.”

“Ok but what do I have to give you?” I said still unsure of the catch.

“You don’t understand,” The Collectors impatience could be heard in her voice now, “I would collect the grief, that is what I do.”

“And if I refuse?” I asked, just to cover all my bases.

“Well,” she snapped in with a lioness’ roar, “someone else would begin the grieving as I’d unburden your soul from your body.”

Not having much choice and with all the preposterous courage I might have had to that point draining out of me like the actual urine I stained my sheets with, I agreed to The Collector’s deal.

She raised her hand with the blackened razor-sharp claws and placed it on my head. I couldn’t help but think that if she’d wanted to, she could crush my skull with the slightest of squeezes. This thought gained me another tilt of The Collector’s head, its X’d eyes boring into my soul. That’s when I remembered, we haven’t been talking out loud this entire time. If I thought it, she heard it.

The feeling I felt next I can only describe as if someone poured a bucket of warm water on your head but in reverse. The warmth drained from me upward motion and I even shivered as the cold seemed to rush from the depths of my brain and out through my eyes, into her hungry claw. I withstood all I could until finally I fell limp back onto the bed and drifted off, exhaustion winning over my consciousness.

I woke up the next morning, no sign of the nightmare I suffered the night before but also with no tearful memories of dad flooded in either. In fact, that was when I realized I couldn’t recall any memory of my dad. I knew I had a dad, that I loved him very much and that he had passed away in a car crash, but facts aren’t memories. I grabbed my phone and scrolled through pictures of my father, trying to generate some sort of emotion. None. It didn’t work. It was at that moment I realized the full extent of what I had done. All memories, good, bad, happy or sad, can contribute to grief. That bastard Collector robbed me of the love that I endured for my father. Leaving me an empty shell. Even now I’m only mad at the concept of what The Collector has done because I physically or mentally simply can’t feel anything when it comes to dad.

Which brings us too today, almost forty years removed from my meeting with The Collector, and I’ve been waiting patiently to meet her again. Revenge is a dish best served cold and tonight is freezing.

The entire time I’ve been writing this I’ve had a mixture of happy tears and sad ones streaming down my face. Partially because this might be the last time I write to you but also because I’ve just come from burying my mother next to my father and I’d do anything not to feel this way any longer.

“Seeheheheyup….”