Collecting Dust (Twilight)
Twilight heaved a heavy sigh, the weight that had been pressing down on her chest escaping with her breath. Her fingers fumbled along the dark wall, searching for the light in this seemingly foreign place before she finally gave up, deciding darkness might be preferable. She didn’t need light to know she was in the middle of books in every direction. despite the forgotten town she found herself in, the familiar scent was enough to heal the day’s traumas.
Eyes already adjusting to the darkness, she picked her way across the boxes stacked haphazardly across the old shop front. She could feel the thick layers of dust coating the boxes, but that would be a matter for tomorrow. She didn’t have the energy to clean, let alone think about why she was here.
By the time she made it to the door, she heard Spike yipping in the darkness, ramming into boxes as he struggled through the miniature maze.
“Over here, Spike,” she called, weary with exhaustion, before sliding the key into the lock and shoving the old wood door open. Even more dust filled her nostrils, eliciting hacks and coughs on her part.
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to do anything except fall onto that old mattress on the other side of the room. After some time, be it a second or an hour, Spike jumped onto the bed beside her, snoring immediately after impact. She rolled onto her back, unsure if her eyes were open or closed at this point, only knowing that an infinite black hung low and heavy above her.
“Stop it Spike,” Twilight groaned, the wet feel of his tongue on her cheek, honoring the daily tradition they had formed. Something so consistent taunted her now though, acting as if the past week hadn’t happened. As if her best friend wasn’t gone. Spike barked a protest, but curled up faithfully under her arm and looked up at her with big green eyes.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t be moping,” she said, more for the feeling of having another voice in the room with her. Knowing that this had been his room left an eerie feeling of emptiness in the closed book shop. Spike blinked, tilting his head expectantly.
“Let’s go make Lance proud,” she sighed at last. Spike yipped his agreement before leaping off the bed. Twilight paused, before rolling over in pursuit and pushing herself to her feet. The words were easy to say, but knowing that there were more than just books in her brother’s old boxes was painstaking. She wasn’t ready for pictures or memories that some friend of his had stacked into random boxes. The poisonous reminder of his death was coiled inside of each box, and she wasn’t sure she could handle the bite.
Still, her feet moved forward in obedience, scooping up her bag as she made her way to the front of the store. A few old tomes and encyclopedias lay on the shelves, as if they weren’t important enough to have found safety in the boxes. Twilight bit her lip, unsure what person could ever leave a book in such a condition. She brushed her fingers along the old books gently, streaks from her fingers left behind, reminding her how fast everything could be buried. It must have been no more than a week since one of his friends had come around. It was too easy to be forgotten.
It wasn’t Lance though; who she felt would be forgotten. No, she knew everybody in this one horse town would be lining up to attend his funeral. She felt she might know them all by name through his weekly letters. There wasn’t a person Lance could meet and not light up their world. Twilight knelt next to a box labeled in sloppy writing books, digging a chewed fingernail into the bad tape job and slitting it open. She felt a twinge of guilt, realizing just how long Lance must have spent in this old family store, despite his dream to go as far away as she had.
Of course, Twilight could barely remember this place. It felt like it had been an eternity since she’d sat on the roughhewn wood floor, nose buried in a stack of books, her parents bustling around her. Then she’d gotten that letter, inviting her to the prestigious academy way up north, and she didn’t ever look back.
She thought of the first time Lance had come to visit her in her foreign world of sky high buildings and people who multiplied exponentially, only to tell her they were alone in the world. There is no way to truly grasp the death of a parent, especially with no true farewell. It was foreign, intangible, and a distant thought at times. Twilight often felt guilty for the lack of tears she shed, but her logical brain recognized that death was simply the next stage, and in their accident it had been painless. So they faded, their only memory living on in this old bookstore, their sweat engrained in the wood.
Lance took over, although he had always hated it in this old town more than Twilight ever did. Even after she graduated, he insisted she make it to the University, make her way to the stars, he had said. Then she could pay him back the favor of keeping the shop when he made it big in soccer.
That wouldn’t happen, though.
Tears pricked with heat at the back of her eyes, touching her cheeks, which she felt might as well have been covered in dust, like the rest of her family. She opened the box mechanically, thoughts trying to find something else to grasp to. Lessons. Books. Spike’s antics as a puppy. Nothing seemed real, all swimming blurrily just out of reach of her mind.
All she knew was she was being buried in this dust. She could practically feel it falling on her head, falling around her forgotten self. If Lance wasn’t there, who’d remember the damage of a lonely shelf life? Who’d remember that encyclopedias had worth too?
Who’d remember her?