The Collector
written by: Christopher Critch
I love old books. It is something of a hobby for me, but not the kind of hobby that one usually associates with book collecting. You see, there are two basic kinds of people interested in old books: those that want to possess them, and those that want to possess what lies within them. The former are far more numerous than the latter. For me, there is also the issue of means. Old books can be terribly expensive. Try Googling a 15th-century Gutenberg Bible, you will be shocked at the asking price. Even eclectic topics like the origin of hockey in 19th-century Upper Canada will set you back a dear sum. Therein lies the principal advantage of seeking what lies within those old pages. One does not need to actually buy the book to add it to one’s collection. On the topic of old books, this is the faraway corner of the subject where my own particular passion lies. I am a collector of information, or more precisely, a collector of thoughts.
If you are now beginning to form an opinion that I am a nutter or some such thing, please wait and hear me out. I know this all sounds well off the beaten track and I will not likely abuse the truth too much when I state that in this selection of a hobby I probably stand absolutely alone. Being so, one can perhaps, also grant me a little more latitude and agree that I am therefore something of a pioneer, with my novel observations thus far having a certain degree of credibility. If my argument is still soundly on level ground with you, then read on, for everything I have tried to impart in this narrative up to now is but a prelude to a story of such improbable proportions that quite simply nobody would ever believe it, lest it come from a recognized expert in the field.
I am the sole person in the entire world in possession of the manner and exact time of the arrival of death.
More precisely, I am on the threshold of such a discovery and, being momentarily faint of heart, have paused by way of the composition of this narrative in the hope that I will gain confidence from the same swirling mists of thought that have brought me to this brink. Quite simply, I hold in my hand a decision regarding forbidden knowledge that will forever change the remainder of my life one way or the other. I cannot shirk the responsibility any more than I can erase the path that brought me here.
It seems so small and slender as I look at it again. Scarcely forty pages in length and dilapidated in proportion to its years. How could this volume contain such power? Have I deluded myself into such a fearful state by some bizarre series of coincidences? I shrink from it. I fear what should remain unknown. I am like a person who inches too close to the precipice of a high cliff overlooking the rocky coastline and endless blue sea. The wind and the sounds lure one closer and closer. The height is intoxicating as one discerns more detail from the rocks far below. A boat over there, a seal upon the rocks, the gulls wheeling and screeching in the gusty air currents rushing up the cliff face. It is all very, very pleasant, unless you slip over the edge, that is. But I am rushing things. I must retrace my steps and look once again for flaws in my logic, elimination of all reasonable explanations. These things I must do before I look again for answers between those fateful covers. In the event that my present suppositions are in fact correct, the only recourse I may have to relate my findings lies within these pages I now compose. If that is so, then you, dear reader, may be the unwitting, even unwilling participant in what may lie ahead. In some way, not known to me, I fear I may also bring you to the edge, and therefore I am providing fair warning right now that the path is strange to be true, but may also contain danger, albeit of a sort I cannot articulate.
This is my story.
My thought collection began seven years ago. I picked up an old book on an ornamental bookshelf in a local restaurant. The bookshelf was adjacent to me while seated with a pleasant collection of friends, and we were enjoying an evening out. The title of the book was “A Manual of Applied Mechanics” by Professor William John Macquorn Rankine. In lower script it said “With Numerous Diagrams” London, Charles Griffin and Company, Exeter Street, Strand, 1885. The crumbling relic contained many pages of complicated mathematics and obviously was a textbook of some sort. Right at the back, inside the over-leaf page was a series of advertisements for other published works available from Griffin and Company. The one that mesmerized me was entitled “Many Thoughts from Many Minds” by Henry Southgate. It was sub-titled “A Treasury of Reference, consisting of Selections from the Writings of the most Celebrated Authors. “FIRST AND SECOND SERIES. Compiled and Analytically Arranged by Henry Southgate.” Just exactly like that, with all manner of peculiar punctuation and capitalization.
Further down the page, there were a few book reviews reproduced from periodicals of the day. One read:
“A treasure to every reader who may be fortunate enough to possess it. Its perusal is like inhaling essences; we have the cream only of the greatest authors quoted. Here all are seeds or gems.” – English Journal of Education
But the one that really caught my attention was:
“This work possesses the merit of being a MAGNIFICENT Gift-Book, appropriate to all times and seasons; a book calculated to be of use to the scholar, the divine, and the public man.” – Freemason’s Magazine
I thought about that last review for a moment.
A book of use to the divine. Wow, full stop. If there is such a thing as a hobby epiphany, then that was mine. I became a collector of thoughts myself that very night.
In the seven years since I found Professor Rankine’s book, I have poked and prodded into just about every field of written material. I make rapid progress now, because I know exactly what I am looking for and I filter out anything else ruthlessly. In the beginning, I would go through old books by reading most of them, seeking the golden thoughts as I read, but this was really slow going. Great thoughts can be in any book, and I was staring at a mountain of classical literature, art, history, and poetry, not even counting the stacks of fiction. I was enjoying myself, but I could see this was not the way to get at the bulk of what was really out there. Then I had a flash of inspiration. There were many smart people through the ages, and most of them were undoubtedly far ahead of anything I could ever hope to achieve on a given topic with only a hobby-level of time to devote to it. So, I became what I now call a “thought vulture.”
Most people are repulsed by the image of a vulture. Generally, they believe them to be lazy, filthy creatures personified with an evil intent. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vulture is a highly evolved bird with an amazing specialty allowing it to be extremely successful. Vultures can literally find the proverbial needle in a haystack. Just the kind of skill I needed.
Vultures exist all over Canada. One species of turkey vulture is even found just outside of Ottawa, but they are perhaps best known and studied in the wilds of Africa. One could write many pages about these birds, and others have. For my purposes, however, I only wish to highlight a particular aspect of their behaviour as it relates to the compilation of the collection.
First off, vultures are not lazy. Secondly, they no more prefer a putrid meal than the rest of us. Typically, vultures spend much of their lives flying over their territory looking for food. Flying is a very energy-intensive activity, and therefore vultures need sufficient calories to keep them aloft. Meat is an extraordinarily rich food, but unfortunately vultures have no ability to kill ground-dwelling animals. Instead, they have evolved an amazing system of watching and waiting highlighted by their possession of outstanding eyesight and an almost unbelievable sense of smell.
On a typical African day, scores of vultures fill the skies at all elevations. Those closer to the ground have the best chance of seeing a dead animal, but it is tiring work. Flying that low requires much more energy than gliding on high-rising air thermals. Various species occupy different elevation bands, with the Bateleur vulture enjoying a 10-kilometer panoramic view from the top. These giants cannot see much at ground level, but that is not their intent. They only need to see the other, smaller vultures.
Eventually, a low-flying bird will discover something and circle around it. This sends a signal for others to come in for a closer look, adding to the attraction. In fact, when an animal dies, virtually every vulture within a 10-kilometer radius will be on the carcass within 30 minutes, such is the efficiency of the flying pyramid formation. Clearly there is not enough time for meat to rot, even in the African heat. So how does any of this fascinating ornithology help me with the collection? It is really very simple; I watch for other thought collectors of the past to see if their work fits my purposes. I have, in fact, learned to look for their signs of a kill.
Some of the signs are noticeably clear. A previous reader may write an observation in the margin adjacent to the potential great thought. Sometimes, the reader’s observation itself exceeds the text in greatness. Others highlight sections with bold markings, highlighters, or very faint underlining. I have had particularly good luck with the latter. It usually means I am on the trail of a thoughtful individual, or subject matter scholar who holds books in extremely high regard. They really do not like marking them up at all, but the previous book owner could just not let such a juicy passage remain hidden within a very substantial text. Perhaps he or she wanted to refer to it from time to time and just needed a little visual roadside assistance. Some others leave no mark at all but have opened and closed the book on a particular passage so many times the bindings have taken on a “memory” of sorts and will easily reveal their secrets just by allowing the book to open naturally upon the time-worn creases. This is why I only work with old used books.
Presently, my hunting grounds are primarily antique bookshops, flea markets, and estate auctions. I could not care less about what topic a book covers, and I can process them rapidly, devouring a 400-page tome for suitable content in under a minute. I am mining them only for thoughts, great thoughts. I collect the thoughts with only one condition. They must resonate with me.
You may now be thinking what could be so discerning about a single man’s opinion on the thoughts of his betters in every field of human endeavour? Why would only those few intellectual morsels that his peculiar taste might fancy make the grade? Well, the short answer is simply that it is my collection, no one else’s. So why should I give a second thought to anyone’s opinion other than my own? I neither share the collection, nor promote it as anything other than what it is. Mine. Not the thoughts, mind you, just the assemblage of them, and any little meaning I derive along the way from their unique interconnections. This last point has caused me much reflective anxiety these past two months as I struggle to understand what manner of credibility to place upon the startling messages emerging from it. Fundamental to my thoughts is the applicability of the old axiom “The mere act of observation, changes that which is being observed.”
The collection itself is nothing much to look at. It is a single thin volume of antiquarian origins, probably sold originally as a diary, or a field-recording notebook sometime before 1830. The contents are completely handwritten by me. I found the notebook itself in a box of junk at an estate auction just outside Ottawa. I immediately fell in love with it and paid rather too much in the end, due to a pair of silver candlesticks protruding rather too prominently from the top of the box, causing me to engage in a bidding war with an elderly lady. I wonder now what would have happened if I were only a few dollars short of the bid that day? Would the trail of my life have led me to this terrible place?
My collection is made up of many thoughts, each one a treasure according to the criteria I have previously shared with you. All together they so far make up exactly twenty-six and one-half pages of neat cursive entries in a single-bound volume of exactly forty blank original pages. The pages bear no original markings save a single printed page number exactly centered at the top. The lower corner of page five has a watermark. This watermark is repeated every eight pages thereafter with some subtle variation in prominence upon each repetition. The watermark is of an unknown printer’s origin, with an overall effect like that of a brand stamp.
The binding is thick canvas sailcloth dyed black and held together by white binder’s thread applied in four interconnected stitches entering through the front cover and terminating at the back. The spine is enclosed with a mahogany brown fabric tape of some sort, which acts to cover at once the first quarter of the covers and the stitching proper, the latter of which slightly bulges the tape upwards, revealing its presence. The overleaf is a faded blue flower motif, reminiscent of antique Victorian wallpaper, applied squarely and trimmed neatly to the cover boundaries. No writing of any kind, except mine, can be found within its interior. I can conclude nothing more than it is simply an old notebook, no matter how long I stare at it for deeper, hidden meanings.
The reason I take such pains in describing all this to you is so that if in my ignorance or agitated frame of mind, I have missed something of vital importance, perhaps you, gentle reader will observe it and even if it be too late to save me, perhaps that knowledge could be employed to mitigate a future circumstance, should a similar fate confront you or another coming after me to this place.
The notebook’s physical data is supplemented by the content of the collection proper. At the beginning, I knew that a mere forty pages would likely not suffice for all the material I would find in a hobby spanning a lifetime. I was circumspect in my choice of font and meticulous in the application of my script. I carefully practiced each entry on scrap paper before transcribing it onto the chosen page. My grandfather’s seventy-five-year-old fountain pen is not the most forgiving writing instrument, but I have mastered it perfectly. The work is flawless.
On the issue of placement, I am completely dumbfounded regarding what is now occurring since I used an almost random system. In the beginning, I entered the thoughts one by one in the chronological order of discovery. Then it occurred to me to think deeper before placing the next thought permanently in my little book. Why not try and organize them a little better than just “first come, first served?”
What was done, was done, so thereafter I began adding entries at different portions of the book, trying where I could, to leave space for complementary thoughts, not yet discovered, that might adorn or embellish the emerging themes growing within the pages. Sometimes I did indeed find such a thought suitable to marry for eternity with another. More often, however, my evolving interest would take such an about-face, or the subject matter of the next discovery be so obscure as compared to previous works, that more new pages were brought into service, until eventually something was written on them all. Then I entered a new categorization plan based loosely upon when things had been first published. It seemed out of place to me at that time to have 16th-century thoughts nestled up with those conceived three hundred years later. Later still, I began to see the threads of wisdom common to all ages weaving their way through time and fell to the practice of “threading” as long as a single page could accommodate the latest entry without the slightest compromise in my script. If that were the case, as it often was, the newcomer would get second choice in placement.
As a result, the arrangement of the collection makes no possible sense to anyone except me. The placement of entries is almost as random as any human endeavour can achieve. For primarily this reason, I am quite at a loss to understand how such fearfully accurate messages can be emerging from it. If I believed in specters or other such nonsense, I should conclude the volume to be quite haunted.
The first chill delivered to my spine came on a Monday afternoon eight weeks ago. I’d had a very nice weekend and had just returned from work when the news hit me. Sharon was killed in a freak accident the previous night. I was shocked and dismayed by the news. I sat down heavily and read the news article more closely. Sharon was someone I had just met through a mutual friend, and we had already enjoyed two dates so far, the second on Saturday afternoon, the day before she was killed. She was a very pleasant person, bright and pretty, and although I was dating other women off and on, I felt we might become good friends if there was also a mutual interest on her part. In fact, I was planning on calling her again this coming weekend. I made a number of calls right then, and in particular I spoke to our mutual friend at length, offering and receiving condolences.
Later that night, while rummaging through my coat, I found Sharon’s lottery ticket. Well, technically it was mine, I guess, but it was Sharon who insisted that I buy it. We had gotten onto the topic of gambling, and I had expressed the view that the activity was just an excuse for throwing one’s money away, the odds being so incredibly against ever winning anything substantial. I went on to say that I had never purchased a lottery ticket in my life, and I guessed that I never would. Sharon agreed that the whole thing was indeed blind luck, but that was the fun of it. She also said people used all sorts of inspiration to choose their numbers and felt it was almost a lottery win in itself to find someone who had never bought a ticket, and that she was going to buy me my first one.
We went into a convenience store to make the purchase. At first, I couldn’t figure out how to colour in the lottery number form. The clerk thought this was pretty funny and suggested I use the random computer generator to pick the numbers for me. I just wanted to get out of there so I agreed, without pointing out that surely using a computer to select the random numbers that another random draw taking place next week would turn up was reducing whatever chance we might have of winning down firmly to zero. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, however, so I just smiled while she pushed the button, and I got my first lottery ticket courtesy of Sharon and her good humour.
I didn’t do anything much for the remainder of the week until I got home after the funeral Thursday afternoon. I got a glass of wine and took out my book of thoughts to browse for a nice passage suitable for the mood I was in. I found a few, and reaching into my pocket, I used the lottery ticket as a bookmark on one page while I searched for another quote, I had remembered that could perhaps go well with the first. When I went back to the first page, my heart skipped a beat, and I felt cold. Some of the numbers on the ticket had bled into the paper and left a clear impression across a beautiful passage from Milton. At first, I was really annoyed. The cheap printing on the ticket must be wet or something, I thought, but it wasn’t. In fact, I could not rub off any lottery ticket ink regardless of the surface it came in contact with. To make matters even stranger, only some of the numbers had transferred. They were all in a line, with reversed digits, and looked a little like one of those old date stamps used at the library. Cold sweat now. Although the spacing was not right, the sequence of numbers was exactly a match for those of last Sunday in this year of our Lord. I looked again at the pattern’s position upon the page and saw it began just under a capital letter “S” on one line and ended some lines below just over the centre of the word “falls.” This cannot be happening, I remember thinking. Sharon had fallen to her death from a fire escape outside her apartment window, where she used to go and smoke. The words “Sharon falls” and the date of her death burned into my retina as I fought a rising feeling of panic and denial all at once. This must be some cruel coincidence. What else could explain it? As if in answer to my question, I noticed the first number on the lottery ticket was a 12. The transferred image staining my collection also had a -12- companion nearby. It was right at the page top where it had always been.
I slept very little that night, and what few minutes of rest I did obtain were punctuated with disturbing ideas and theories. What if the book of thoughts did possess some sort of power? Maybe, I had inadvertently created something fundamentally mathematical linked in some unfathomable way to the life force we are all connected by. Others, great ones, have postulated similar concepts. These theories in various forms centred on the belief of a grand unification theory linking all the forces of nature. Einstein, Newton, Copernicus, and many others have already put together parts of this puzzle. If indeed such a linkage exists, I imagined it would certainly predict the behaviour of heavenly bodies, quantum physics and the like, but what kind of bizarre theory would also predict a single individual’s fate?
Sharon had pointed out to me that the lottery outcome was in fact a certainty, rather than a sum of the impossibility theory I had put forward. Someone will “certainly” win, she explained. “They must, there is no other way for it to end. If you are right, then the sum of millions of impossible chances must also be impossible, and nobody will ever get the cash.” In a crazy way, this now gave me a working theory, and in my opinion, that was much better than believing in ghosts. But I would have to be very, very, careful with this plan because there was still one other possible explanation for what had happened, and I just couldn’t go there yet. Maybe the book was causing these things to happen instead of just predicting them?
My plan was elegantly simple. It was a bit like the strategy kids use when they lose something of value. You know, lose a favourite marble, and then recite the incantation “brother go find brother” as you toss another marble in the general direction of the lost one. The plan is to watch where it rolls, and presto, you should find both together under the refrigerator or something of the sort. Sometimes you end up losing them both, but more often than not it works as advertised.
The same thing should work here but in reverse. I would just go to the same convenience store again, press the lottery button, and buy my own random ticket. Then, take it home, open the collection to the page number of the first lottery ticket number, and place the ticket inside, close the book, and then get a cup of tea. By the time I get back from the kitchen, the collection will have done its “magic thing,” and I should have a graphic prediction of my demise, hopefully 40 or 50 years from now.
My plan was pretty much foolproof in its ability to debunk the supernatural angle. With a little luck, I would likely never have to get that far into fantasy land to find out my rocker must have just slipped out of joint. The lottery commission uses 49 numbers, and I only had 40 pages in the collection, so I could be on easy street with a lucky draw starting over 40 before I even left the shop. In any event, there was no conceivable way the ink transfer thing would happen again, of that I was pretty sure, or at least I was until I got to the store.
I had a growing sense of dread the closer I got to buying the ticket and started wondering again if there could really be something to the theory of the book causing it all. I know that sounds just stupid, but I was a little scared, nonetheless. Why taunt things you do not understand? All I had to do was press the stupid button and buy a ticket, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was standing outside the store, mentally kicking myself, when a man came from the parking lot and asked me for directions. He introduced himself as Peter Webber and said he was looking for his brother who had just moved to Ottawa. When he opened his wallet to get the scrap of paper, he had written the address on, a lottery ticket fell out and promptly blew away. I grabbed it before it got too far, but Peter said to just throw it away since it was from last week and he had not won. I gave him the directions he needed, and he left. I stared at the ticket in my hand and went home.
Now you must believe me when I say with every fibre of my being that I did not want to hurt that man in any way. I didn’t even know him. The only thing on my mind was to disprove the stupid haunted book theory and get my life back to normal. I really was a wreck at that moment.
Back home, I checked the ticket with trembling hands and saw that the first number was 29. I opened the collection to that page number and saw an old favourite there from Balzac. Gaining confidence, I placed the ticket inside, closed the book, and went to the kitchen for that cup of tea. I was so spooked, however, I poured half a glass full of rye instead and took two quick belts to calm my nerves. The strong liquor had an immediate effect, and I collected myself enough to go back into the living room and pick up the collection. There will not be anything there; this is just utter nonsense, I said to myself as my fingers closed upon the familiar binding.
The book fell from my hand a little slower than the glass of whisky. The former bounced open onto the coffee table, and the latter smashed loudly on the floor. I could not move for over a minute. There was another transfer pattern in there. My plan never included an outcome like this. I had no idea of what to do next.
Later, after consuming significantly more of the rye, I looked boldly at the new pattern. Upon first examination, it was like the other in that the numerals were reversed and slanted from the vertical across the page. Also, like the first time, only some of them had come off the ticket, and ignoring the spacing, they did make a date code for later next month. The welcome difference was that the image direction didn’t begin under the first initial I had feared so greatly to see. I began to relax and study the impression more closely. The top of the line of figures did begin remarkably close to an upper-case letter, but it was a “T.” The trailing edge of the date code ended between two words, “third” and “tier.” Nothing sinister about either, I decided. I put the book away and went to bed.
As the intervening weeks went by leading up to the arrival of the second date code, I had fully embraced a new theory of some strange printer’s chemistry interacting with the old notebook paper being responsible for the entire phenomenon. When the actual day did arrive, I went out of my way to get a copy of, and scan virtually every local newspaper from our region and several national publications. I listened to various radio news broadcasts at noon, and again at 6:00 p.m. on my television, flipping rapidly between several channels at once to make sure I did not miss anything in the way of a freak accident or an unusual death report. Nothing of the sort had happened anywhere in Canada as far as I could tell. That was Tuesday.
Thursday morning, as I was flipping through my morning paper, I saw the listing for Webber, second from last in the Obituaries. The printed box surrounding the short notice swam before my eyes as I saw a familiar face and under it the name Theodore Peter Webber, aged thirty-eight, passed away suddenly as a result of a tragic accident. Loved by all, “Pete” leaves behind, etc, etc…
He didn’t go by his first name. I hadn’t thought of that.
It took me a while to find the small news article about him, but when I did, the hair on my neck bristled. It said a lone male occupant plunged to his death when his car broke through a guardrail of an outdoor parking garage. The accident occurred on the third-level off-ramp where the guardrail failed to retain the vehicle within the structure. An investigation had been launched into the cause of the accident, and the parking facility would be closed until further notice.
“Theodore, third tier” plus the exact date of his death. The collection had predicted again with the same grisly accuracy as for Sharon. Or worse, maybe they weren’t predictions at all. I felt sick and needed time to think this situation through. I had to find a way of understanding what manner of thing I was up against. Failing would undoubtedly leave me exposed upon the threshold of my own mortality. Of that at least, I was certain. It could all end very badly.
In each person’s life, they will have a defining moment. A time at which one must decide upon a course of action from which there can be no real retreat. A choice, that once made, must be carried through for all time without regret. Doubt is ever present while certainty is seldom one’s companion at such a time as this.
As I looked across the room to where the collection lay, I understood at once that this was my time.
On the one hand, I could vow to try and understand the collection’s secret at any cost, and not shrink from the task even if the last entry made within its pages would be my own date with destiny. At a minimum, this improbable tale would survive me in these pages and be preserved, documenting observations made up to my penultimate moment. It could be a guide for you, dear reader, after I am gone, to study the collection’s mystery more safely.
On the other hand, I could, as many before me have done, act to destroy that which I cannot fully comprehend.
I was exhausted, and it was still morning. I picked up the collection and retired to my bedroom. I felt strangely calm now that I was at that place of decision. I lay on my bed and opened the collection to the very first entry. Ironically, it was also the perfect segue I needed to make that final choice. I read this passage composed nearly 2,400 years ago, looking all the while for answers or clues to the secret I had unlocked from all those many minds.
***
Aristotle On Dreams
“Thus then, it is quite conceivable that some dreams may be tokens and causes [of future events]. On the whole, forasmuch as certain of the lower animals also dream, it may be concluded that dreams are not sent by God, nor are they designed for this purpose [to reveal the future]. They have a divine aspect, however, for Nature [their cause] is divinely planned, though not itself divine.”
Then I slept.
***
Epilogue
The notebook of thoughts sat by my side and offered no more insight than a rope lowered into a dungeon by a victim’s captors. The rope could signal a change of heart designed to set him free, or merely be a cruel joke played by the oppressor in selecting the easiest way to bring the condemned from the pit to the gallows.
My decision made, I placed a blank lottery form written with the following inscription into the centre of the book and closed it for the last time.
“Fear prevents action. Action requires courage. Courage sleeps with fear.”
I had finally joined the other minds of the collection by composing something of worth myself.
Squatting on my haunches in front of the fireplace, I carefully placed the volume horizontally upon two red-hot mounds of coals, faintly resembling the shape of hard Maple logs put there forty minutes earlier. The heat radiated out from the hearth with a strong uniform force. The fire proper had gone out a minute before, and now only the dead, scorching heat, of the coals remained. At first nothing happened, and I felt a faint flutter of fear rising within me much like one expecting a very loud noise that is momentarily late in arriving. Then I saw the first wisps of smoke curling around the edges of the back cover. First faintly, near the top edge, and then more, much more. Rising in intensity and volume, until it filled the narrow hearth and some smoke started to back up into the room. I smelled it then, acrid, tar-like, as the old sailcloth lining the book’s cover blistered and bubbled with the long dormant resin of construction melting away underneath. I recoiled violently as I heard the “whoomf” of ignition and saw flames erupt in every direction around the collection. I hit my shoulder painfully on the corner of the coffee table as I leaped back, and I cried out in pain.
The fireplace was now a roaring ball of flames, the yellow light brightly reflecting on everything inside the darkened room. Just when I thought it might catch the house alight, it began to subside. The upper cover was heavily curled by now and light as a feather. It swayed to and fro in the strong draught racing up the chimney flue and then suddenly rolled over into the ashes below the grate, exposing the remaining portion of the interior to the flames. This shift also caused a puff of black cinders to rise up from the book, clearing a small space from one of the last unburned pages. There was only a single instant available, but the handwritten image I saw registered firmly home. My last glimpse of the collection was an entry from the epic “The Divine Comedy;” more specifically, it was a passage from “Dante’s Inferno.”
Then, in an eerie finale that made my skin crawl, that last paper fragment was lifted by the hot gases, up from the ashes and soot, swirling in ever-widening circles until it too blackened and disappeared up the chimney.
- The Collector - July 26, 2026
