by Hugh Breakey
It looks like someone walked into a gift shop and grabbed a handful of the first knick-knacks they saw. Julie had said that as she tossed aside the mementoes with a disappointed shrug.
A little bell above the door tinkled as I entered. It sounded crisp in the quiet shop, like a discreet wake-up call. Perfume and spice, the quarrelling smells of too many scented candles and musky weavings. A young woman sat on a stool behind the counter. She smiled up at me in greeting, but I looked past her, to a little carved elephant figurine on a display stand near the entry. It looked African. Moroccan, maybe. If I had to guess.
My heart started to hammer in my chest. I dropped to my knees and fumbled the mementoes out of my backpack. In fact, the comparison was unnecessary. I would have recognised the carving anywhere. But some part of me screamed denial: they couldn’t be the same. I held the memento beside the shop’s version. Identical.
I lifted my gaze. Hundreds of items were arranged on the display counters, resting against the walls, suspended from the ceiling. But I knew what I was looking for—the beaded bracelet, and not far behind it, the thimble-sized crystal vase. I scrabbled over to them, still on my haunches, and fished out their counterparts from the backpack. Exactly the same.
I set mine down alongside the others on their display shelves, starting with the vase and then back to the African figurine. Standing side by side, absolute carbon copies, the mementoes seemed to lose their personality. There could be no denying it. Julie’s throwaway remark had been dead right.
‘Um.’ The shop assistant behind me cleared her throat. ‘Are you buying something, mate?’
‘No.’ I shook my head, unsure if I was answering her or myself. ‘No. I’m not buying any of it.’
There were geodes on a display cabinet just below my eyeline. On this one at least, the match was less than perfect. Still, my little piece of past volcano fitted seamlessly among the ones on display. Not far away, hanging from a ceiling rack, were a group of the copper medallions on thick leather cords. Even the foreign script engraved on it was the same. I raised myself up and deposited my copy on the shelf next to them.
One memento left.
‘Do you sell keys here at all?’ My voice was loud in the quiet little shop.
‘Keys? No.’ The shopkeeper sounded surprised. ‘Are you returning all these?’
‘Yes.’ I nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I am.’
Stuffing the key back into my pocket, I turned on my heel and left. My brain buzzed with impossible questions. The mementoes were junk. No memory, no history: just grabbed at random from a nearby shop.
But why?
The cold, wet wind blew at my face, reminding me that whatever had possessed my past self to pass off a bunch of useless crap as meaningful mementoes, that question would have to wait.
Envelope in hand, I entered the post office. On a rainy Saturday morning, the place was deserted. There was a bright red mailbox on its far wall; beside it, orderly rows of black PO boxes.
If I hadn’t just had the key in my hand only a moment before, I probably would never have noticed. But it struck me that I made regular payments each month to the post office. This post office, presumably. The letter itself had mentioned the payments, along with those for my groceries and electricity.
I tucked the envelope under my arm, and fished the key from my jeans pocket. My fingers pressed against its sharp edges as I plucked it out. Almost unused. The number etched in the key’s bow could just be made out in the glaring fluorescent light. Two-Eight-Nine. Julie had been right about the other mementoes. Pointless collectibles pointlessly collected. Except this one, she’d said, studying the number. A numbered apartment, she’d thought. A locker number.
Or a post office box.
I stood before the wall of boxes, looking them up and down. It made no sense. Why would you put something away in a box, and then give someone the key to it without telling them what it opened? Why would you toss the key in with a bunch of stupid knick-knacks?
But maybe I already knew. Hadn’t I felt the same temptation only last night, when I’d almost let Julie’s ring fall into the dark? The urge to shape the future by retelling the past. There are things, like rings, that cannot be bequeathed to the future without pain and risk. And there are things like rings that the future deserves to know about.
What if my past self was brave enough to resist throwing away the real records of my past—but not brave enough to hand them to me directly? You hide them in an easily accessible box, and you lock it with a key. And then you pass the key on down the line, staying silent about what it opens. And then, for good measure, you conceal it among a bunch of meaningless knick-knacks. Where better to hide a tree than in a forest?
I scanned the boxes. The numbers began at the top left, running sideways and down in three columns. 289. The box stood high in the final column, top row, almost in my eye-line. I pushed the key into the lock. It slid in smoothly. Everything turned on the key…
And the key turned.
I swung open the tiny door to reveal the long, rectangular space behind it. Its four sides were gun-metal black, casting the space into shadow. Even so, the little object within caught the light, glinting back at me. A circle of metal, shiny and smooth.
Things like rings.
I slid it out of its hiding place. It was a larger and plainer version of Julie’s ring, which I now pulled out of my backpack. The two rings lay across each other in my palm, making a wonky infinity symbol. Made for each other.
There was no escaping the truth. My past self had hidden the history from me. Julie’s words echoed through my mind: no one can be honest like that. No one can tell the full story of the past without fearing for how it might shape the future. We all hide, protect and forget. I’d believed those words when she said them. I just hadn’t realised they included me too. And my past self. No one can be honest like that. Least of all ourselves.
Anger welled in my gut. My past self hadn’t had the courage to throw away everything he didn’t want me to know. He’d just hidden it.
I swallowed hard, burying the emotion. There were more significant matters pressing. Something else lay further back in the shadows. I shoved the matching rings in my pocket, and reached in, my fingers closed on a tumble of objects and cords. I slid them towards me and they all came out together.
A pair of black shoes loosely wound in a white cable. Dragging behind them, attached to the cable, came a slim object. A music player—I knew what it was for, whether through memory or deduction I couldn’t tell.
What the hell? The ring I understood. My predecessor had feared I wouldn’t choose the path the letter laid out for me, but would instead follow the gleaming white-gold ring to the sparkling green eyes. An unnecessary risk. So he’d sent Julie packing with divorce papers, already signed with my hand. To leave the ring would have been to leave the shiniest of clues behind. But a pair of shoes and a music player?
I disentangled the cord from the shoes which, on first impression, looked quite new. Closer inspection revealed they were just well kept. The size looked right. My shoes, then.
I sat down on the floor, kicked off my grubby old sneakers and pulled on the new shoes. Yes: perfect fit. I laced them up, and bounced to my feet. Standing in the shoes felt weird. Elevated. I seemed to float above the floor.
I snapped one shoe down on the floor and it clacked hard, echoing in the empty room. I felt a smile grow on my face. I snapped the foot down again, faster this time. Clack! The sound reverberated around the room, and the smile broadened. The rush coming over me felt at once alien and personal—and familiar. I’d felt the same on the night of the dance.
This was why my predecessor hadn’t passed the shoes on to me. He feared what I would make of them. And more, he feared what they would make of me. They didn’t fit in the life he had crafted. Better to keep control, not open the possibility that I’d veer in a direction opposite to the one he’d carved out.
He. Not me. Not even ‘my past self’. It
no longer made sense to think of the letter-writer that way. It presumed an alliance of sorts, a harmony of interests. Anger burned inside me, stronger than before. This went beyond hiding the wedding ring. Whether or not such subterfuge could be forgiven, it was at least understandable. But the shoes were another matter. They led back only to my own history. To what I’d achieved and become.
I reached out to the music player and turned it over. When I thumbed the button on its side it flashed to life. I knew how to use it. Of course I did. It was mine, after all.
Flickering fingers brought up the song list. Nothing had proper song names or artists. The song at the top was titled JEZDmnsMxFnl15Apr. All the others followed similarly: unintelligible strings of alphanumeric characters.
Except they weren’t. They weren’t unintelligible at all. Their meaning danced on the tip of my mind. This wasn’t about memory, it was perception. My flawed memory forgot facts, but not skills and not meanings. I could read this. I took a deep breath and reread the title. This time it was as clear as day and the words in the centre set my heart racing: Dominoes mix. Final.
My legs gave way as that hit home, and I dropped to sit cross-legged on the floor. I held in my hand the soundtrack to the show Julie had talked about. The one-off performance with the dominoes that I’d been working on. For all I knew, I’d been listening to it as the forgetting struck. Maybe I’d been working on the dance itself at that very moment.
The thought at once chilled and excited me. I snaked the little cables up to my ears and inserted them.
Not here.
The urge to tear off the blindfold and learn what had been hidden from me was fierce—but I didn’t want to hear a single note without the freedom to respond. I wanted to be moved.
I swept up all my goods into my backpack, including the divorce papers. Best not to take any irreversible actions until all the relevant information was in. And I was increasingly sure that all the relevant information was not in.
The key stayed behind in its place, its work done, the PO box door swinging wide to the world.
The wind whipped at my shirt as I strode off, every step feeling sharp and strong in my new shoes. Halfway down the block, I tossed my old sneakers into a bin: they didn’t fit me anymore. They never had, really.
Rain dusted my cheeks as I hurried on. Home seemed too far away. My feet—the shoes—itched for something more than walking, and I wanted to see what they might do for me. Almost out of sight, in the far corner of the park across the road, I spotted a basketball court. Perfect.
When I reached the court, its surface felt smooth beneath my steps. I parked my backpack down on a bench and made my way to the centre circle, and the little coloured lines seemed to coalesce around me: so many footlights marking centre stage.
The music player sprang to life at the touch of my fingers. The screen displayed the last song—the Dominoes Mix—as if it was poised for this moment.
My finger hovered over the play button. I had the same sense of stepping off a cliff that had gripped me two evenings ago. But this wasn’t like the dance, Julie playing my history like a puppeteer with dozens of eyes looking on. This time I stood alone. No one in the world knew or cared. I was beyond Julie, beyond even the letter-writer.
My eyes closed and I stood tall, feeling myself in the centre of the space. House lights down. Breath coursed in, filling my chest and diaphragm. My eyes flicked open. I punched play and clipped the music player on to my jeans.
The merest hint of noise hummed in my ears. A pulse started; the pitch sharpened. From noise, music. From clamour, rhythm. The music moved through me as if at my command. I could breathe the beat into my lungs. My mouth tasted the guitar, rolling over my tongue and across my teeth. The boundary between where the music ended and I began trembled and disappeared and without consciousness or intention, I stepped forward.
The basketball court was slick with rain, almost slippery. My smooth soles slid across it; my arms and wrists and hips mirrored my steps. I spun, and water splashed. Every rotation, every angle, snapped into its new home. No muscle could be moved in isolation, the entire body carried with it. This was mine. I owned it.
Until I didn’t, and momentum faltered and everything stumbled to a halt. The music ploughed on irrespective. One tiny mistake multiplying uncorrected until the whole thing came crashing down.
Again.
I returned to the centre, reset the music and stepped forward into the dance.
This time I got it right…
Almost.
Again the music barrelled on, leaving me lurching in its wake. I returned to the centre. The dance could not be expected to arrive all at once. It would take time.
Step by step, I worked my way forward, sometimes sure and flowing with ease into the unknown, sometimes lost and returning to centre to begin again. Each time I progressed further, flowing from one move to the next.
Slowly a new force started coursing through my movements. Intention and desire uniting with instinct, gathering behind each move and driving it forward. With every sweep of my arms, the world gave way before me, as if I’d tapped into harmony with it, gliding along its ley lines with the smooth momentum of inevitability. My mouth tingled from the tip of my tongue to the back of my throat, a taste like nothing I’d experienced before.
The taste of power.
I had no doubt this was the dance Julie had spoken of, to be done on a stage filled with dominoes and stepping stones. Each foot anchored in a specific location, and as the dance progressed, each new step returned to the same set of points on the surface. I tried to mark the relevant locations on the ground, to keep the pattern clear in my mind’s eye. But the smooth wet floor of the court defied my attempts to scuff its surface.
Still, I carried on. With each repetition the last stumble would be smoothed over, and my limbs would find their way forward. Moment by moment, beat by beat, history yielded its buried secrets.
All of it felt deserved. Maybe Julie would disagree; maybe she’d say this was all someone else’s art, someone else’s work. But I had discovered it. It had been hidden from me, and now it lay in my hands. Finders keepers.
Halfway through a glorious spin, the music stopped, and for the first time I was the one continuing on while the accompaniment faltered. I peered at the music player, and a blank screen stared back at me. Dead battery—and no wonder. The thing had probably been leaching charge over the months it had spent hidden away.
A band of pressure tightened about my chest. What if I couldn’t recharge it? The player looked like the same brand as the phone Julie had given me. I flipped it over—same charge port. With luck, the charger Julie had given me would work for this as well, and…
Duh.
It had nothing to do with luck. Julie hadn’t given me her old phone. She’d given me my old phone. She’d told me as much. Relief washed over me as I scooped up my backpack and headed home.
I quickstepped through the building’s main doors and took the fire escape steps two at a time. Inside the apartment, I almost sprinted across the dominoes room and into the kitchen to get to the phone charger. Success! The cord plugged neatly into the new device and its screen hummed to life. I looked around. Cleared of furniture, the kitchen should be big enough. This would work.
I lugged the table to the bedroom doorway, tipped it on to its side, and angled it through the gap, my damp shirt clinging to my shoulders. I stripped it off, and my sodden shoes as well. I towel-dried the shoes as best I could and then jury-rigged a little platform in the bathroom/laundry so the clothes dryer would blast warm air on to them.
A hot shower drove the chill out of my skin and soon enough I was dressed in my exercise gear and back in the kitchen, where the music player seemed to be charging at a slow trickle with no regard for my rapidly diminishing minutes.
An unfamiliar sight tugged the corner of my eye. Across the apartment, the front door was hanging open. I’d neglected not only to lock the door behind me, but even to close
it properly. I went over and shut the door, turned the locks and fastened the chain—for the last time in current memory. Then I did something I’d never done before.
I pulled the deadlock key from the door. Now the key would lie beside my journal.
My predecessor had placed the apartment keys in the same envelope as the letter, ensuring I didn’t wander off without first getting my bearings. I looked down at the key in my hand. It had never really struck me before. The locks on the door were not only to keep others out. More fundamentally, they were to keep me in.
I looked at the room around me with new eyes. Bridges, platforms and dominoes surrounded me, their filigree beauty smeared in the shadows. If Julie had been telling the truth—and I had no reason to doubt her on this matter—the dance should take place not on a deserted basketball court or a kitchen floor but here, in the midst of all this fragility. This was the setting envisaged by my former self, the one before the letter-writer—the dancer: the Robbie of Julie’s heart. He’d planned to build these very dominoes into a platform to launch something alive and beautiful.
But what was I building? A memento, nothing more. A cage, nothing less.
I’d been managed. Controlled by keys and letters. That was the truth of it. My predecessor had hidden the past to seize the future. In the face of his anger at Julie, and the horror of being left on his own for those first frightening days, he’d built a small, secluded life that prioritised safety. But how could he make that choice rule over an unknown future?
I clenched my fists. His reasons were not so different from Julie’s—but her sin was only of omission. My predecessor’s was deliberate. Proactive. Calculated. Hell, it was strategic. Maybe the anger surging through me was unfair. Maybe Julie was right, and no one could do what I demanded, not even my own self. I’d raged against her for falling short of standards I myself had failed, but this time my fury had no target: my predecessor was long gone. Only I remained, still clinging to the life he’d fashioned for me and fuming in useless anger.