Sentences

Occasionally, I think about setting it all on fire.

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For over a decade, I’ve lived my life atop the wreckage of the world. I’m unsure precisely what caused it. If I were to take a guess, I’d say a spiteful God with a long white beard. Or my mother. Then again, I’ve always been a collector; I came out of the womb with three nipples. When I was a young boy, I had a rubber band ball, and then I collected matchbooks when I was a young man. 

Eleven years ago, I sat my newspaper on the dining room table, fully intending to put it into the recycling bin later that day, but I didn’t. It’s still in that same spot—well, I can only be so sure because I set the following day’s paper on top of that one. Rinse and repeat. Now, I’m what is commonly referred to as a ‘hoarder.’ 

There is a misconception, that we don’t know we’re hoarders, that we think it’s the most normal thing in the world to have over four thousand newspapers, but we know that our brain has gone sideways.  

My niece, Polly, comes to visit me on Sunday mornings. She brings me home-cooked meals and word about what the family has been up to. Both the food and the news make me feel queasy. All that aside, I like her, and she’s the only person who can tolerate me. 

The rest of them, my brother Keith and sister-in-law Lucy, my neighbors, and the woman who delivers the groceries, all think I’m crazy. But if this apple is sour, then the apple tree is to blame; the goddamn orchard is to blame. 

Occasionally, I think about setting it all on fire. That would solve that! But by doing so, I would put the lives of my neighbors, whom I detest, but not in a murderous way, in jeopardy. Still, I don’t think it would take much for me to risk their lives. 

On Sundays, I leave the back door unlocked for Polly. She says she doesn’t mind climbing over the mountain of newspapers. I have a bivouac in the living room with the essentials: a hotplate, mini-fridge, various toiletries, hand sanitizer, clothing, etc. I have a spot cleared off for Polly. 

Polly is sipping her tea. I saw her wipe the lip of the cup when she thought I wasn’t looking. She’s probably thinking, Where does he wash his dishes? I wash them in the restroom sink, which is directly on the other side of where we sit, and although it takes some planning and effort to get to it, I know each stack of paper intimately—which pile is the most sturdy and which route is most efficient. 

“Have you given any thought to what we talked about last Sunday?” says Polly. She is still wearing her Burberry jacket, beads of water glisten on her sleeve as she raises her cup to her mouth. Her dark hair is frizzy from the stormy weather, and her eye makeup is smudged; it makes her look like she’s been crying, so everything she says seems desperate.

“I have, and no, I will not visit my mother—” I hold up my finger before Polly can interrupt me. “Even if I could bring myself to leave this place, my interest in visiting the woman responsible for creating me, whatever I am, is at an all-time low. If I could leave this—well, whatever it is—do you know where I’d go first?” 

“The newsstand?” says Polly. 

And this is why I welcome her into my home every Sunday; she’s not afraid to upset me; it makes me feel normal, like this whole thing is a terrible curse that could have happened to anyone, and maybe it is. 

“Well, yes, I’d need to know the weather, but after that,” I say. A petite laugh escapes from Polly’s mouth, and I realize just how lonely I am between visits. I continue, “I’d go to the public gardens. Before your grandmother became the thing that she became, we used to go there together. She’d pick me up from school. We’d take the bus. She would sit on the bench and watch me explore. She was lovely back then, with gorgeous brown hair and eyelashes that could scoop up the world. She wore a brooch, passed down from her mother—your great grandmother!—a bedazzled nightingale. I can practically see the sun reflecting off it now. It was that gaudy!” I pause for another one of her little laughs, but Polly only stares at me with soft eyes. “Anyway, I loved standing on the little wooden bridge, looking down into the Koi pond. There was a fish there that I called Mortimer. He was a big, orange fellow with a single black spot on his forehead.” 

“Do fish have foreheads?” says Polly. 

“Sure they do.” 

“Uncle, this story proves my point; your mother wasn’t always the way she is now, just like you didn’t always hoard newspapers.” 

“Collect,” I say with a wink.

“Yes, okay, collect newspapers,” Polly smiles back. A small piece of skin is dangling from her bottom lip. I want to reach over and pull it off—an urge that is powerful—so I look down at my tea and continue speaking. 

“Well, maybe that’s why I don’t want to see your grandmother. Did your father ever tell you why I don’t want anything to do with her? No? I didn’t think so. Well, one day, she didn’t pick me up from school, and after waiting for what must have been hours, I took the bus home by myself. I was twelve. When I came through that front door, there she was, standing on a chair with a noose around her neck, mascara-cheeked, apologizing. She wasn’t going to do it, this was the first of many times of her standing on that chair with a rope around her neck, but I didn’t know that. I tried to fix it, being the older son—dad was already gone by this point—but I couldn’t. I couldn’t fix it. I tried to shelter your dad from it. As best I could. Oh, sometimes it was shallow cuts or sleeping pills spilled out to look like she’d taken a bunch, but it was never real. But did it mess me up a little?” I wave my hands around in a look-at-this motion. “So, you see, we can’t return to that garden together, and we can never return to the way things were, but I can return to that garden alone, and is that really so terrible?”

“Yes, it is. Humans are social animals. You know this. It’s why you let me visit you on Sunday mornings for tea. I think that, in some ways, this is the garden that you’re speaking of. It’s solitude—but Jesus Christ—confronting her now, while you can, might help you process things.” 

As much as I detest my mother, I like seeing her reflected in Polly’s features. When she’s passionate, her nostrils flare, and then I’m a boy again on that wooden bridge with my fish Mortimer, the shine from the nightingale brooch darting back and forth across my chest. We used to call that light ‘Tinker Bell.’ Mother would shout to me from where she sat on the bench, “Tinker Bell is on you! Think of a magical thought!” 

Polly unconsciously picks up a paper and flips through it. “Sometimes, before starting my day, I look at myself in the mirror—dead in the eyes—and I say, ‘Polly, there is nothing to fear, whatever happens, today, this is your world, they’re all just living in it.’ After that, I have my coffee, and the combination of self-affirmation and caffeine is a wonderful elixir. You should try it!” 

“Polly, it’s easy for you to say this is your world because it is.” 

The person in the mirror doesn’t look well, but apparently, this is their world, and everyone else just lives in it. Maybe I should charge them rent? I’m a little out of breath from climbing over mounds of words to get here, trying desperately not to spill my instant coffee, all the while singing, ‘The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.’ I don’t feel especially empowered. 

Having finished my coffee and affirmations, I make my way to the front door, a 15-minute expedition that leaves me feeling less fresh but more awake. The paper is waiting for me on the stoop. The morning is crisp, but the sun has already burned away the clouds. A neighbor is looking through their blinds at me; they wave, and I wave back. Then I’m back inside with the door shut and locked. “Today is the day,” I say to myself. 

It takes some time, but it’s just where I thought it would be. Towers of paper surround me, a city built of captured world events, comics, worthless opinions, predictions, and obituaries. Inside the unearthed cabinet is the familiar cache, a prediction of eventual demise, hundreds of matchbooks from all over the world, made up of mostly dive bars. The sulfurous scent overwhelms me, and nostalgia takes hold of my soul and shakes it like a rag-doll. I pick up one of the matchbooks: Pony’s Pizza. I put it in my pocket, then plunge my hands into the matchbook collection, all the way up to my elbows, and I feel around until I find the silk pouch. I put it up to my nose, it smells like fire and my mother. 

It slides out of the pouch with ease; it’s been waiting for this day; at night, in the dark, I could hear its wings beat, and now it’s free. All of its tiny jewels are accounted for, but the gold frame of the nightingale is tarnished. I pin it to the lapel of my blazer. “This is my world. They’re all living in it,” I say. 

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I’ve been sitting on this story for a long time, and I’m happy to set it free like a chubby lil bird full of regurgitated worms. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Sentences as much as I did writing it.