The Man Behind the Shelf Collects Memories Have you ever…
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The Man Behind the Shelf Collects Memories
Have you ever felt like you forgot something important? A diamond ring, a birthday, or even a person? As if these things were part of your everyday life, and no matter how hard you tried, the memory wouldn't return? The memory washed away in the River Lethe to soothe the mind of its torment, or the final strand being plucked by something already aware it would soon break? Plucked by long slender fingers reaching into the recesses of your brain?
My Dad passed away when I turned 8 years old, and for 4 years after that my mum worked 6 days a week, 13 hours a day to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. For the first two years I missed my dad a lot. I’d often sit in the corner of the employee lounge, staring at the empty room, building him brick by brick in my mind, standing there at the kettle, raising a mug at me. It was hard for my Mum especially. Working in that store where masculinity is judged by the thickness of one’s watch strap, which they couldn’t even afford. Instead, they brushed my mum aside, told her that they’d be her “new man”, and looked with a glare that said “man up” whenever they saw me in the corner of that lounge. They used to call me “young Joe” as if they already saw a future where I replaced the space that was my Mum all the way into my old age.
I tried to stay out of the way a lot of the time. School only lasted so long, and there were never any sleepovers or friends to go to the park with. There were just the store and the cold, cramped apartment we couldn’t afford to heat. My mum with tired eyes and messy hair would kiss me on the forehead and tell me not to get into any trouble. I'd wander around the aisles of films I'd never be able to see and toys I could never take home. Clicking the “press me” button on the T Rex over and over again until the raw crackled and the batteries died. I’d throw on oversized jackets and sunglasses and run up and down the aisles dancing to Uptown Funk on the overhead speakers.
Sometimes I'd like to hide in the middle of clothes racks watching couples bicker over dress prices, old men trying on new hats to hide their bald spots, and kids my age squeezing into new shoes, running to the end of the aisle and back to see how they fit. Watching a world that wasn’t lit by the harsh hum of white light.
One night when my Mum was working overtime, I had already completed my usual routine. I tried the new stock of toys, looked at the DVD covers, and had already danced until my face was red and my knees sweaty.
Assuming my position behind a row of leather jackets, I crouched, peering through gaps of sleeves, waiting for anyone to come by. I waited for 10 minutes before creeping out and trying the shoe section. No one. As my final attempt, I shuffled through the empty store to the film and romance novels where the shelves were so tightly packed, I could only fit by holding my breath and inching down the dark sliver of space. Squeezed between the shelves of that space for 20 minutes, still no one came.
“It’s quiet tonight, isn’t it?”
The voice was soft, soothing, and finished with a gurgled ring that sent a shiver down my spine. My chest swelled with air, cramming me tighter between the shelves as my eyes darted to an end I could not see.
“What’s the matter, Joe? Aren’t we friends?”
The voice vibrated through my ears and into my body, relaxing my heartbeat and loosening my muscles, so I slumped against the back shelf like an old rolled-up rug on sale.
“I don’t even know you,” I managed to say with numbed lips that strained to move.
“Of course you do. I was there when you first learnt to swim.”
The slits of light began to dim as the smell of chlorine crept out of the dark space and invaded my nostrils.
“Your Dad was so happy, and you were laughing all the time, splashing your little feet around. Your Mum was at your grandma’s funeral that day. Dad was so worried about you screaming during the procession, and he was so protective he didn’t trust anyone else to take care of you. You punctured your armband, and it slipped straight off. Remember how your eyes stung when you bobbed beneath the water? “
My eyes began to buzz with dull pain.
“No, I don’t remember any of that. I should really go; my Mum will be worried about me.”
“Oh……Don’t you want to take this before you leave? It’s yours anyway.”
Long slender fingers reached out of the dark void, pale and gaunt with each knuckle threatening to pierce up and out of that tight skin. Snagged between the yellow and green talons was a small, deflated armband with a clown fish cracked and faded.
I whimpered a “no thank you” and, holding my breath, slowly began to inch sideways through the shelves, staring unblinking at the crumpled armband dripping with water. The smell of chlorine never faded, and the lights never brightened. Unmoving without so much as a twitch, the fingers remained outstretched in a macabre fashion of rigor mortis. My feet scraped against the metal bracket as the smell grew stronger. I chanced a look away, and within a second the sound of rapid successions of creaking bones echoed in my left ear as my foot breached the threshold. It seized my arm with a loose grip like that of a mannequin as I forced my way crashing through the remaining gap and into a beam of heavenly light.
I sprinted over to the registers, hyperventilating with tears streaming down my face and dived headfirst into a bear hug around my Mum’s leg. She asked me over and over again, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember the man behind the shelf. Not even when my eyes followed the quizzical look of my mother to the soaked and deflated clownfish wrapped around my wrist.
A year had passed since this first incident, and the armband had been thrown away along with our memories of my hysterical cries. My 11^(th) birthday was exactly the same as the previous 3 years, in which my banners were those of the category signs and my disco lights the flickering of white above me. My Mum handed me a sliver of thickly frosted birthday cake on a napkin and then a piece to Nick who brushed her hand as he took it. She tried to hide the smile, but he saw it and so did I. I hated the thought that my Mum had forgotten my dad while he still occupied every space left unfilled around me. Nick was nicer than the rest of them, at least. He’d give me his phone sometimes to play games, and I single-handedly pushed him all the way to level 50 on Candy Crush. He got a bit cagey after I accidentally clicked on one of the messages my Mum sent him. Snatched it straight out of my hand, chuckling, and never offered it after that unless I asked him.
Cake was over and with it the birthday treatment from all the employees as they regarded me as a mobile mannequin to dodge when making their rounds. Same as before, I had already completed all of my routines and visited all of my usual spots before settling on the cramped space between film and romance. Maybe it had been a year since the first time I saw him. Maybe it’d been only a day.
“Happy Birthday Joe!”
My whole body stiffened, trapping me between the shelves as I stared wide-eyed at the dark void.
“I got you something”
The smell of gasoline wafted through the air as its fingers stretched out of the dark and elongated all the way to my hand with an almost invisible envelope hidden between its giant nails, as sharp as knives.
“It’s from your dad!” It said as it let out a chuckle that sounded like the sloshing of beer in a near empty keg.
My stomach sank, and my heart raced as I clutched the letter from its nails with shaky hands.
“He’s down here, you know?”
“Down where?”
“Behind me, further down the shelf. All the birthdays that never got the chance to be remembered.”
“I should really get going,” I stuttered, completely aware my legs had been shaking nonstop since it spoke.
The smell of chlorine drifted through the air as I began my inch to safety. Speaking in the voice of my dad, it said, “It’s okay now, Dad's always here when you need me.”
I felt nauseous hearing it speak in his voice. A voice that filled me with guilt at having nearly forgotten it. The memory of our first encounter flooded my mind with each inhale of chlorine. The darkness shattered as I emerged from the gap into the empty aisle, same as before. I sprinted to the employee lounge, nearly knocking over a pyramid of shampoo Nick had just stacked, and slumped in my chair in the corner, tearing into the envelope.
The card had a picture of a Velociraptor on the front saying Happy 8^(th) Birthday in big letters. Inside it read
“To Joe
Happy Birthday
I will always be the shoulder to cry on, the arm to lift you up, and the hand to wipe away your tears. Never forget that. I hope you have a fantastic birthday, and you enjoy that new dinosaur toy I got you.
Lots of Love,
Dad x.”
Some things in this world only make sense in the mind of an 11-year-old, and no matter how hard I try to understand my reasoning back then it remains impossible. The warm feeling of love washed over me as I read those words, and day after day, week after week, I visited the man behind the shelf for an entire year.
Each time I went the gap felt tighter, the hand bigger, and the smells stronger. It showed me memories of when I was a baby crying in my crib, my first day at the park shovelling handfuls of dirt in my mouth when my parents looked away, and memories that didn’t even belong to me. Toy inventions that never received recognition and died with their creator. Dog tags of soldiers who never made it home from war. The fossilized bones of a prehistoric creature not yet discovered. The more I remembered, the less I felt like leaving the space behind the shelf. Until one day when I crawled out of the space, chewing bubble-gum of a brand lost to time.
I walked straight up to my mum, and she walked straight past me without a single ounce of recognition. I ran after her and tugged on her shirt.
“Hello sweetie, what seems to be the matter? Are you lost?”
I looked at her, dumbfounded. “Mum, it’s me. Are you feeling, okay?”
“I’m sorry, honey, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Let me get a hold of Nick so he can look after you while I find your parents.”
When Nick saw me, he tried explaining to my Mum that I was her son, but it continuously failed to register. By that time Nick had been living with us for a few months, and slowly my Mum came round to the idea of having me around. Nick knew I was hers, but to my Mum I was the little boy whom she and Nick gave a home when no one else would. We’ve built memories together since then, but nothing before has ever been recovered. The store closed quite quickly after that due to sales, but my Mum and Nick left the week she forgot about me. Nick said she needed some time away from work. That it was some kind of nervous breakdown or abnormal burnout.
I am now 20 years old, and it has been 8 years since I last saw the man behind the shelf. I am writing this as a request to you all. In the last 8 years, I have struggled greatly in my everyday life. University didn’t help either, living away from home or being legally allowed to drink. Chucking up my guts each night until the hangover mornings had just become mornings. There is something locked away in the corners of my brain that refuses to be remembered. Some kind of memory that evades me and yet plagues my consciousness and fills me with unending guilt. I can feel it wriggling around in the dark of my thoughts. I only know one way of being able to face this memory, and it lies in the dark and dingey gap between the film and romance section. If you are reading this please try to remember me.
#entertainment
source
Have you ever felt like you forgot something important? A diamond ring, a birthday, or even a person? As if these things were part of your everyday life, and no matter how hard you tried, the memory wouldn't return? The memory washed away in the River Lethe to soothe the mind of its torment, or the final strand being plucked by something already aware it would soon break? Plucked by long slender fingers reaching into the recesses of your brain?
My Dad passed away when I turned 8 years old, and for 4 years after that my mum worked 6 days a week, 13 hours a day to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. For the first two years I missed my dad a lot. I’d often sit in the corner of the employee lounge, staring at the empty room, building him brick by brick in my mind, standing there at the kettle, raising a mug at me. It was hard for my Mum especially. Working in that store where masculinity is judged by the thickness of one’s watch strap, which they couldn’t even afford. Instead, they brushed my mum aside, told her that they’d be her “new man”, and looked with a glare that said “man up” whenever they saw me in the corner of that lounge. They used to call me “young Joe” as if they already saw a future where I replaced the space that was my Mum all the way into my old age.
I tried to stay out of the way a lot of the time. School only lasted so long, and there were never any sleepovers or friends to go to the park with. There were just the store and the cold, cramped apartment we couldn’t afford to heat. My mum with tired eyes and messy hair would kiss me on the forehead and tell me not to get into any trouble. I'd wander around the aisles of films I'd never be able to see and toys I could never take home. Clicking the “press me” button on the T Rex over and over again until the raw crackled and the batteries died. I’d throw on oversized jackets and sunglasses and run up and down the aisles dancing to Uptown Funk on the overhead speakers.
Sometimes I'd like to hide in the middle of clothes racks watching couples bicker over dress prices, old men trying on new hats to hide their bald spots, and kids my age squeezing into new shoes, running to the end of the aisle and back to see how they fit. Watching a world that wasn’t lit by the harsh hum of white light.
One night when my Mum was working overtime, I had already completed my usual routine. I tried the new stock of toys, looked at the DVD covers, and had already danced until my face was red and my knees sweaty.
Assuming my position behind a row of leather jackets, I crouched, peering through gaps of sleeves, waiting for anyone to come by. I waited for 10 minutes before creeping out and trying the shoe section. No one. As my final attempt, I shuffled through the empty store to the film and romance novels where the shelves were so tightly packed, I could only fit by holding my breath and inching down the dark sliver of space. Squeezed between the shelves of that space for 20 minutes, still no one came.
“It’s quiet tonight, isn’t it?”
The voice was soft, soothing, and finished with a gurgled ring that sent a shiver down my spine. My chest swelled with air, cramming me tighter between the shelves as my eyes darted to an end I could not see.
“What’s the matter, Joe? Aren’t we friends?”
The voice vibrated through my ears and into my body, relaxing my heartbeat and loosening my muscles, so I slumped against the back shelf like an old rolled-up rug on sale.
“I don’t even know you,” I managed to say with numbed lips that strained to move.
“Of course you do. I was there when you first learnt to swim.”
The slits of light began to dim as the smell of chlorine crept out of the dark space and invaded my nostrils.
“Your Dad was so happy, and you were laughing all the time, splashing your little feet around. Your Mum was at your grandma’s funeral that day. Dad was so worried about you screaming during the procession, and he was so protective he didn’t trust anyone else to take care of you. You punctured your armband, and it slipped straight off. Remember how your eyes stung when you bobbed beneath the water? “
My eyes began to buzz with dull pain.
“No, I don’t remember any of that. I should really go; my Mum will be worried about me.”
“Oh……Don’t you want to take this before you leave? It’s yours anyway.”
Long slender fingers reached out of the dark void, pale and gaunt with each knuckle threatening to pierce up and out of that tight skin. Snagged between the yellow and green talons was a small, deflated armband with a clown fish cracked and faded.
I whimpered a “no thank you” and, holding my breath, slowly began to inch sideways through the shelves, staring unblinking at the crumpled armband dripping with water. The smell of chlorine never faded, and the lights never brightened. Unmoving without so much as a twitch, the fingers remained outstretched in a macabre fashion of rigor mortis. My feet scraped against the metal bracket as the smell grew stronger. I chanced a look away, and within a second the sound of rapid successions of creaking bones echoed in my left ear as my foot breached the threshold. It seized my arm with a loose grip like that of a mannequin as I forced my way crashing through the remaining gap and into a beam of heavenly light.
I sprinted over to the registers, hyperventilating with tears streaming down my face and dived headfirst into a bear hug around my Mum’s leg. She asked me over and over again, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember the man behind the shelf. Not even when my eyes followed the quizzical look of my mother to the soaked and deflated clownfish wrapped around my wrist.
A year had passed since this first incident, and the armband had been thrown away along with our memories of my hysterical cries. My 11^(th) birthday was exactly the same as the previous 3 years, in which my banners were those of the category signs and my disco lights the flickering of white above me. My Mum handed me a sliver of thickly frosted birthday cake on a napkin and then a piece to Nick who brushed her hand as he took it. She tried to hide the smile, but he saw it and so did I. I hated the thought that my Mum had forgotten my dad while he still occupied every space left unfilled around me. Nick was nicer than the rest of them, at least. He’d give me his phone sometimes to play games, and I single-handedly pushed him all the way to level 50 on Candy Crush. He got a bit cagey after I accidentally clicked on one of the messages my Mum sent him. Snatched it straight out of my hand, chuckling, and never offered it after that unless I asked him.
Cake was over and with it the birthday treatment from all the employees as they regarded me as a mobile mannequin to dodge when making their rounds. Same as before, I had already completed all of my routines and visited all of my usual spots before settling on the cramped space between film and romance. Maybe it had been a year since the first time I saw him. Maybe it’d been only a day.
“Happy Birthday Joe!”
My whole body stiffened, trapping me between the shelves as I stared wide-eyed at the dark void.
“I got you something”
The smell of gasoline wafted through the air as its fingers stretched out of the dark and elongated all the way to my hand with an almost invisible envelope hidden between its giant nails, as sharp as knives.
“It’s from your dad!” It said as it let out a chuckle that sounded like the sloshing of beer in a near empty keg.
My stomach sank, and my heart raced as I clutched the letter from its nails with shaky hands.
“He’s down here, you know?”
“Down where?”
“Behind me, further down the shelf. All the birthdays that never got the chance to be remembered.”
“I should really get going,” I stuttered, completely aware my legs had been shaking nonstop since it spoke.
The smell of chlorine drifted through the air as I began my inch to safety. Speaking in the voice of my dad, it said, “It’s okay now, Dad's always here when you need me.”
I felt nauseous hearing it speak in his voice. A voice that filled me with guilt at having nearly forgotten it. The memory of our first encounter flooded my mind with each inhale of chlorine. The darkness shattered as I emerged from the gap into the empty aisle, same as before. I sprinted to the employee lounge, nearly knocking over a pyramid of shampoo Nick had just stacked, and slumped in my chair in the corner, tearing into the envelope.
The card had a picture of a Velociraptor on the front saying Happy 8^(th) Birthday in big letters. Inside it read
“To Joe
Happy Birthday
I will always be the shoulder to cry on, the arm to lift you up, and the hand to wipe away your tears. Never forget that. I hope you have a fantastic birthday, and you enjoy that new dinosaur toy I got you.
Lots of Love,
Dad x.”
Some things in this world only make sense in the mind of an 11-year-old, and no matter how hard I try to understand my reasoning back then it remains impossible. The warm feeling of love washed over me as I read those words, and day after day, week after week, I visited the man behind the shelf for an entire year.
Each time I went the gap felt tighter, the hand bigger, and the smells stronger. It showed me memories of when I was a baby crying in my crib, my first day at the park shovelling handfuls of dirt in my mouth when my parents looked away, and memories that didn’t even belong to me. Toy inventions that never received recognition and died with their creator. Dog tags of soldiers who never made it home from war. The fossilized bones of a prehistoric creature not yet discovered. The more I remembered, the less I felt like leaving the space behind the shelf. Until one day when I crawled out of the space, chewing bubble-gum of a brand lost to time.
I walked straight up to my mum, and she walked straight past me without a single ounce of recognition. I ran after her and tugged on her shirt.
“Hello sweetie, what seems to be the matter? Are you lost?”
I looked at her, dumbfounded. “Mum, it’s me. Are you feeling, okay?”
“I’m sorry, honey, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Let me get a hold of Nick so he can look after you while I find your parents.”
When Nick saw me, he tried explaining to my Mum that I was her son, but it continuously failed to register. By that time Nick had been living with us for a few months, and slowly my Mum came round to the idea of having me around. Nick knew I was hers, but to my Mum I was the little boy whom she and Nick gave a home when no one else would. We’ve built memories together since then, but nothing before has ever been recovered. The store closed quite quickly after that due to sales, but my Mum and Nick left the week she forgot about me. Nick said she needed some time away from work. That it was some kind of nervous breakdown or abnormal burnout.
I am now 20 years old, and it has been 8 years since I last saw the man behind the shelf. I am writing this as a request to you all. In the last 8 years, I have struggled greatly in my everyday life. University didn’t help either, living away from home or being legally allowed to drink. Chucking up my guts each night until the hangover mornings had just become mornings. There is something locked away in the corners of my brain that refuses to be remembered. Some kind of memory that evades me and yet plagues my consciousness and fills me with unending guilt. I can feel it wriggling around in the dark of my thoughts. I only know one way of being able to face this memory, and it lies in the dark and dingey gap between the film and romance section. If you are reading this please try to remember me.
#entertainment
source
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