A certain man set aside a room in his home for the things that were precious to him. He moved the good furniture into this room, and works of art, antiques, family heirlooms, and special objects he had gathered during the travels of his youth. He spared no expense in the painting, carpeting, and craftsmanship of everything in this room. In truth, it was a remarkably beautiful space in every way.
Because of the preciousness of the room, the man rarely allowed anyone to be in it for fear that these beloved things would be damaged. On special occasions the man would gather his family there and tell stories about the objects and the people to whom they once belonged. He often interrupted himself, telling people to sit still or to quit fingering things. He could never really enjoy those times as much as he wanted to because children are dirty and grimy-fingered and don’t listen to important stories when they are being told.
From time to time, one of the children would sneak into the room to enjoy it on their own. They would pick things up and stand on the furniture to reach other things that were set high up on a shelf so they could not be reached by just anybody. More than once, he noticed that a thing had been moved to the back of a shelf and something different was in the thing’s place as misdirection. This was usually because somebody had broken the thing, and they knew the man was going to have a conniption.
Any time a child was found alone in the room, they were scolded and sent away and asked how would they like it if the parents started breaking all of their toys.
Before too long, the people in his family lost interest in the man’s special room and he found himself sitting alone in it, looking at all the marvelous and precious things. He wanted to tell the stories of these treasured things to someone, but not to himself because he knew it would sound stupid. So, he began taking pictures of the things with his phone and showing them to his family in other parts of the house. They would say, “Cool story, Dad,” or “You told us that already.”
When the man passed away, his children returned to their childhood home and began boxing up the things from the special room. They were preparing the house for sale because their mother was going to move in with one of them, and the money from the sale of the home would help to support her with some level of luxury. Three men from the second hand shop stacked the brown cartons onto dollies and loaded them into the back of a flatbed and drove them downtown to be sorted.