I'm not really sure how it all started. I guess, one day there was just this piece of paper I found. The first of, I think, thousands. The first few I did not pay much attention to where I was really. Didn't think it mattered much. But as I continued, I began to detail it all in a journal of sorts. What I found, and in great detail, a description of it. Where I was when I found it, what time of day and what day and all of those sorts of details.
Details, maybe that is what it was about all along. I had a sense I was looking for something, without really knowing what that something was.
And so it began..
Walking down a quiet street, on the way to my favorite coffee shop, to meet up with Joey. Nothing important really, just relaxing time. I had my warm jacket on, it was cold out. I don't wear that jacket very often. I dug my hands deep into the pockets to warm them from the chill in the air. At the bottom of my left pocket there was something there. I grabbed it between two fingers and pulled it out to have a look. A very worn white piece of paper, just a small corner of one really. No more than two inches across and the writing on it faded just enough that I had no idea what it had been originally that I would stick it in my pocket for later.... I stopped for a moment to look at it and then put it back into the same pocket. I forgot about it again for a time. Went about my daily life again for a bit and did not think about it at all.
And then, about a week later, I was cleaning my closet out and I came across that same jacket. No big deal really but I pulled out that piece of paper from the bottom of that left pocket and sat down to look at it. I suppose it mostly bothered me because I really did not know where it came from. No recollection at all of what it had been before it faded and why I had kept it. Logically, I could have reasoned that it was just a scrap I had tossed in there instead of littering on some sidewalk or something. Just the idea that I really did not know is what bothered me, I think.
Instead of putting this little white faded paper back into the pocket of my jacket again, or throwing it away, I decided to put it in a safe place and think on it some more. At some point it would come to me where I had gotten it and why I had kept it. I just felt there had to be a reason. So, I put it in a clear plastic baggy and sealed it in. This, I stuck in the bottom right drawer of my desk. Sort of out of sight, but I knew where it was.
A few days went by, the usual stuff happening, going to and from work, eating and sleeping. Nothing really going on, just living. On a Thursday I was at work in the morning. I went over to the printer in the side office near mine. I had queued a set of documents I had been working on. And so, I was waiting for them to print out for me. I leaned against the wall and stared out the window across the room. Not really looking but bored and just waiting. Near me, the printer clicked and buzzed into life and so I figured it was my documents. I looked at the printer and there beside it on the table was another piece of paper, this one smaller than a post it note, and a bright yellow. Not old at all, no folds or wrinkles in it. I picked it up and looked at it, my printing forgotten for that moment. I turned it over in my hands, somehow liking the cool feel of it but not in any way I could explain if you had asked me to. One side of this paper was blank but on the other I saw a small scribble in blue ink. I really couldn't make out what it said, if anything at all. So I looked at it and wondered for a minute or two and then one of my co-workers walked in and said "Hi." to me. I looked up and realized I had not grabbed the pages that had printed out and were waiting for me. Without really thinking about it I stuffed that little yellow paper in the pocket of my pants, got my documents, and went on with my day.
That evening when I got home I took it out again to look at it more. I wondered what it was supposed to have noted on it, but still had no idea. After I had looked at it for a bit and figured out nothing at all about it, I opened my desk drawer and put this piece of paper in the same clear baggy as the old white one. Closed it up again and put it back in the drawer.
The next day I was off work, sometimes I got Fridays off. I went out to my mail box and collected the mail. Sorted through it and read some and left the others on my desk unopened. Some was junk mail. The sort I tore up and tossed into the garbage. As I tore one of these pieces of mail up it made me think about the pieces of paper I had again. After I finished tearing the junk mail up and tossing it in the garbage I went back to my desk and sat down. I took the little clear baggy out again and stared at the two pieces of paper in it.
Something about them that I just cannot explain, it drew me to them as if I had kept them for a reason. I had no idea why, still. I sat there for a while, rubbing my fingers over the plastic. I hadn't taken them out this time.
If you were to ask me what I was thinking then, I couldn't tell you. Nothing I could clearly tell anyone that would make any sense. Sometime later, I put it away again and went about my day.
Over the next few weeks I began to notice more pieces of paper almost everywhere I went. Most of them I picked up and put in my pocket. And later, when I was home and it was quiet, I sat at my desk with them, just going over them in detail and wondering about them. Then adding them to what had become my odd little collection in the clear baggy. At some point I began to think it might be important to remember where and when I had found each one of them. And so, I began a little book that dated and described in detail, each of these little finds of mine. Page after page with a date, a place and what, if anything, was on the paper I had found. Into the baggy it went and on to the next one I had found. Most days it was only one piece and I felt in control of it all, could keep it straight in my head where I had been and when, when I found the piece of paper that day.
Eventually though, there were days where I was finding three and four pieces of paper in a day and pocketing them for later. I became obsessed with remembering later, exactly where I had been and the time of day and all of the tiniest details of the piece of paper I found. It got to a point where I decided, just naturally, that I ought to keep a little book with me to write it down when I found them, so I wouldn't forget by that evening, each of the details for each one. Each evening I sat down at my desk, took out the baggy that was filling rapidly with pieces of paper and I transferred my notes from the small book I kept with me into a larger one I kept in my desk. Pages and pages of information that I poured over time and again, hoping to see what I needed to see. Some sense to it all, some pattern that put this all together for me. I became obsessed with figuring out what it all meant. I knew I had found all of them for a reason. That reason just still eluded me.
On a rainy Sunday afternoon with nothing else to do, I sat down at the desk, cleared it off and took out the baggy of pieces of paper. I opened it and gently took out each piece and laid it out on my desk all of them side by side until I ran out of room and then started another row below the first, until they were all spread out in rows on my desktop.
Then I opened my book of details and began to sort them to the order I had found each one, the little white one first and then the newer yellow one and so on until I was done putting them in order there. Then, with all of them spread out on my desk I looked at the whole collection of them. I couldn't tell you how long I sat there with them and studied them. I really don't know. Eventually, I turned on the lamp on the desk so I could keep looking at them. Night had fallen, and there I still sat looking at them all. Some were blank, some were torn and tattered, some were brand new looking. They came in all sizes and shapes, triangles squares, some ripped edges so they had no real shape at all. So many different colors it was mind boggling. So many different things on the ones that had things on them. A squiggly line on one, a number on another, a date on another, some with a business logo, or a part of these things on some that were torn when I found them. Each had become so very important to me. And yet, I still did not know why.
I spent more and more time with my little finds. Less and less time out with friends or doing anything other than detailing these and looking at them. Pages and pages of notes about them. A book I studied over and over and over again on a daily basis now. On days I did not find a new piece I merely went over all the ones I already had again instead.
Still, I had no more idea about them all than I had when I first started collecting them. The collection had grown to over 50 pieces in just over a month's time. I thought about them in bed before I fell asleep, and again in the morning as I woke up and got my first cup of coffee for the day.
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