I spent ten years scavenging through junk, unable to remember who I was.
Until the day I touched a pocket watch, frozen solid.
The next second, I became its owner. I followed him as he went up the mountain to chop wood at eight, moved to the city to apprentice at sixteen,
married at thirty, and buried his last ingot of silver beneath his own stove when he was forty-two.
At seventy-three, he died in the snow, with no one there to see him off.
When I woke, a scar from his woodcutting had appeared on my hand.
I also learned where he had buried that ingot of silver.
Only later did I understand: every old object I touched held words someone had left unsaid.
Later still, I discovered that someone was going around the city collecting these old objects.
They didn't want those words to be heard.
