Old Stuff

As the years pile on, so do memories of things one USED to own. Old things, once irreplaceable accouterments of the daily minutia, now lost to the blurry gloom of time. An old pair of shoes that took us miles, an old video cassette (remember them; the thick, heavy black things that nobody EVER rewound) that entertained us, an old videogame that occupied so many hours. So many things bought and used. So many dollars spent on things we can barely remember having.

The boxes those things could fill. Long hours spent looking for them. Rummaging through old closets and niches, exploring darkened corners and remembering moments in time that you thought you would forget. But you never do. You know the one's, those scenes of the past that replay. You can feel the emotion, picture all the little details, and hear all the voices as though it happened only yesterday... even after twelve or fifteen years. Some things you would like to forget, but never will. Some moments that you wish you could reach-back to change. But you can't.

An odd thing, that. The abstraction of time, so loose and so unreal, becomes something like stone once the moment drifts by. There! See it. Now that moment is gone, and you cannot unread what you have just read, nor retract that mumbled "what-the-fuck?" you just uttered in response to this rambling, rolling diatribe.

Screw the memories, WHAT ABOUT THE STUFF!! All that stuff. All the shit that was bought. All those chochkies that they no longer make. Some of it has to have at least SOME collector value. As time rolls-on there's less and less of it still around, what's left out there must get more valuable. What's an old videotape worth? Nobody uses them, but surely someone must want them.

Christ, if only you had saved half-of-it... if only.