Spun from a Sigh

In the darkness that had gathered between late night and early morning, and in the dust that had gathered in the attic over several years’ neglect, slender, gnarled fingers placed their plunder on the floor, and golden-yellow eyes went wide with anticipation.

If there had ever been a name for the things to which these fingers and eyes belonged, that name had long been forgotten, along with the fact of their existence. It hadn’t been by accident or by coincidence, but by design, that they had managed to slip entirely out and away from the collective awareness. These things, three of which were standing now, tittering in that attic, were scavengers of sorts, or, more pointedly, they were thieves. The stolen things were memories, snatched from the sighs of the man who slept in the bedroom just below, then spun, and rolled, and polished until they glittered and caught the light of the moon that crept in through the windows.

The tallest of those three, standing nearly the height of a crow, took one of those silvery beads in his rat-like hand, and he passed it under a pointed nose and between his thin, gray lips. He stretched himself out on the floor, and he placed his hands behind his head. He smiled, then, and his eyes were wistful, as he began to speak.

“A café,” he said, “in a greenhouse. Inside, it was warm and humid, in the middle of February. With the breeze from the fans, and the sound of the water, it felt like San Diego. And there was someone sitting next to him who isn’t here anymore. It was Peaceful. It was still. And for just a couple of hours, everything there was good.”

His smile broadened slightly, and he closed those wistful eyes in quiet satisfaction.

“That’s a good one,” said the smallest of the three, barely the size of a mole, as he looked at the memory in his own hands, and he hoped it would be as good. His face went blank, though, and his shoulders shrugged after he gulped it down.

“His car keys and wallet are up on top of the bookcase.”

There was a chuckle from the tall one, as he thought about what fun it would be to watch the man search for those keys in the morning.

The roundest of the three went last, as had become their custom, all of the three having agreed that he was the best at telling the stories, and neither of the other two being eager to follow him in turn.

The memory he held shone ever so slightly brighter in the moonlight, and it had a notable heft as he held it in his hands. All of them were silent and breathless as he ate, and when he finished, he sat, and he crossed his legs, resting his elbows on his knees, and he folded his hands beneath his chin as he began to speak.

“He’ll miss this one,” was all he said for what seemed like a very long time, but the others didn’t break the silence, and they didn’t look away.

“She was disappointed, or, rather, he thought she was, the first time that she saw him. The first time he saw her.”

All of them knew immediately the ‘she’ of whom he spoke. They’d seen her in other memories, in so many of the good ones, and they’d seen her in the photo in the frame that sat next to the bed.

“He, meanwhile, was captivated. He thought of mid-day, or morning, in a painting by Alphonse Mucha, and he marveled at her casual confidence from the moment that she spoke. She put him at ease immediately, though he never could say how. He wanted to know her, of course. He wanted to know all about her. But what shocked him was the extent to which he wanted her to know him. But he was coy, and he was quiet, likely to a fault, and he hoped that there would be more chances to open himself to her.

They walked through a quiet neighborhood, with no destination in mind, and when she stumbled on the sidewalk, he offered her his hand. When she took it, her hand was soft in his. When she raised her eyes to him, he was lost in them for a moment.”

None of the three were tittering now, and none of them were smiling. All six eyes were pointed down, and all six shoulders slouched.

They were not devoid of conscience, nor were they immune to guilt. They were thieves, and they were scavengers, sure, but they only stole to eat. Now, every one of the three wished that they could give back what they’d taken. The roundest of the three was right. The man would miss this one. Some memories are special, they knew, and this was one of those.

In the morning they watched as the man overslept and eventually woke in a panic, rushing through his morning ritual to try to get out on time. The tall one nudged the small one as the man went to get his keys, finding, as expected, that they weren’t by the door. The tall one chuckled softly as the man rifled through kitchen drawers, and that chuckle became a full guffaw as he checked by the door again. That full guffaw turned to silence, though, when the man looked on the mantle, seeming to forget the keys when he found a dried, pressed peony.

The tallest of the things recognized that flower right away. It was from the café, from the memory that he’d taken the night before. The blank look on the man’s face, and the sadness that soon replaced it, made perfectly clear the fact that he didn’t recognize it at all.

The tall one looked to his left, where the round one stood sullen and silent, then he looked to his right, where the small one had been, but where no one was standing now. He was relieved then that the man at the mantle was sufficiently transfixed, as in that state he failed to notice the mole-sized figure scurrying up the bookcase. The man was startled out of this bewilderment by the sound of keys hitting hardwood, and he shook his head, and he gathered his things before he left for the day.

That night, there was no merriment as the three waited for the man to sleep, each of them hoping secretly that tonight they could eat in silence.

Sleep didn’t come to the man early, and it didn’t come to him easily, as he tossed and grumbled constantly from the moment his head hit the pillow. He settled, eventually, on his back, eyes open and trained on the ceiling, blinking hard to hold back tears.

Those eyes did close eventually, and the three went about their work, each of them relieved that their haul for the evening was light and dull. As they crossed to the edge of the bed, though, the round one stopped, and he turned, and he handed the dull, gray thing that he carried to the tall one, who opened his mouth to protest. That protest never came, though, as the small one reached up, placed a hand on his back, and held a finger to his own lips. The tall one and the small one watched, as the round one sat himself quietly on the empty pillow next to the man. He rested his elbows on his knees, and he folded his hands beneath his chin as he began to speak.

“She was disappointed, or rather, you thought she was, the first time that she saw you. The first time you saw her…”

The man smiled, then, still asleep, and as the round one continued to speak, the man’s breathing slowed, and it steadied, and when the story was finished, he sighed.

The three let that sigh dissipate. This one, he would keep.

***

Derek Alan Jones spends most of his time working in a warehouse in Kansas and the rest of it writing speculative fiction. His work has appeared or is upcoming in Utopia Science Fiction, Orion's Belt, and Penumbric Speculative Fiction, among others.