Rise and fall of a collector
Something I wrote, to try a new perspective, a more realistic story.
Waking up is not an easy task, when I can't feel the presence of these items that garnish my life. It took me years to gather them, hunting them down in small, obscure shops, internet resellers and yards sales.
Sometime, my travels were vain; the advertising was nothing more than a lie, to attract me toward something that I did not desire. Other times, other people were faster than me, making me realize that I had to be faster in this quest of mine.
It feels so empty, to stare at this collection of mine, without having all the appropriate items to fulfill it, as if my efforts were vain. Maybe I am losing my time, maybe it is pointless to do such a thing, but I cannot give up; it is consuming me, filling my dreams, fueling my nightmares.
There is nothing else in my mind; my relatives are avoiding me, but it's a small cost, to accomplish my destiny. I do not care about the money and the resources it is costing me; I have to complete it, to have that wonderful feeling of completion, to be able to brag to others that, contrary to them, I succeeded where they failed. That feeling, that euphoria would be enough for me to forget everything, to make all my struggles fade in nothingness for a while, until I would find something else to collect, another object that would strike my fancy in the same way that current item did.
But again, I felt uneasy doing so; more I collected, less happy I became. Sure, the hunt was thrilling; nothing could finding a new collectible, a new addiction to my ever-growing collection. But it seemed so hollow; the more I gathered, the less they seemed to mattered to me, the less it seems to make any sense at all.
I was alone with my possessions; it was my fortune, my everything, but at the same time, was it truly worth it? Sure, I attained everything, achieved fame among those that dwelled in the darkness of their basement, but was it truly a goal that was worth my sacrifice?
To the people surrounding me, I am now a shadow of what I used to be; the people I used to talk to don't recognize me anymore. The little children are now mocking me, for they see me as an obsessed lunatic, unable to cope with reality.
But are they really able to understand the beauty of my collection? All my hard work and dedication is in these little figurines; a part of me is now in them, a part of them. They will survive me, they will... a legacy that will survive the passage of time, that will... tell the tale of my struggles, so, one day, someone else will take the helm of the grand quest that is collecting.
But for now, all I can do is look at them, wondering how I can arrange them, wondering why I feel ever so empty...