Drabble 132 – Aesthete

I’m one of those people who really benefited from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Not because I needed to individually thank all my belongings for their service (you do you, though) but because I have trouble letting go.

This isn’t a surprise to anybody who knows me.

My problem is not an accumulation of what I would call “trash.” It’s an accumulation of sentimentality; things I’ve given others that have since returned to me, things that were given to me that remind me of particular times in my life, report cards, photos, newspaper clippings. I don’t know what to do with them, but I can’t let them go. What if I forget?

I probably don’t need a get-well-soon card I made for my mother when I was eight, but I can’t get rid of it. I’ve tried; I put it in a pile of papers to be tossed, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away. Some of these paper survived a house fire – who am I to toss them in the trash now?

So I keep them, moving them from one place to another, hoping Marie Kondo isn’t cringing somewhere over the way I just can’t throw away these soot-stained papers because of all the memories they contain. Maybe someday they’ll join the ranks of clothes I’ve donated, but for now they take up space, and I’m okay with that.

Anyway, here’s a drabble.

AESTHETE

(n.) From Latin aisthetes, for “one who perceives”

A person who has, or pretends to have, an appreciation for art and beauty.

All the pretty things have already been photographed, so Sam kneels in garbage and waits for a fly to land on the edge of a green bottle. He casts a quick glance over his shoulder at the sound of a passing car; this is someone’s private stinking pile of scraps and junk, presumably because they don’t want to pay for a garbage service. It suits Sam just fine; the actual dump is too clean, too rigid in its disposal. He likes the festering, the way he can find this place by smell, a draw intriguing precisely because of its repulsiveness.