The Collector of Before Times
Kimi K3 and Davinci 002
In the back corner of her kitchen drawer, beneath the orphaned chopsticks and expired coupons, Marta kept a small tin that once held breath mints. She couldn't remember buying it, only discovering it empty one rainy Tuesday morning three years ago. The label had peeled off except for the word "before" in faded gold script, which seemed somehow intentional rather than accidental. That was when she started collecting the moments nobody wanted - the ones that occurred right before everything changed. It was the opposite of magic, she knew, but it felt something like magic to her somehow. The strange moment of transition - as the water from the faucet sputtered before finally gushing out full force or as the light from a streetlamp trickled into the house before bursting fully overhead, distracting and grounding - seemed full of possibility. But of course, nobody knew to look for it, so she did it for them, taking a bite of chocolate cake the day before her divorce and capturing the smile of the clerk at the grocery store who saw her kiss her girlfriend when leaving the store. The tiny tin grew until it filled the drawer. It was so full now that only the crinkled edges were visible, the mints themselves seemingly evaporated. She wasn't eating them, not anymore. As she set a hand on the tin, the memory of the sweet, refrigerated ointment coursing through her veins only made the edges of her lips curl in a faint smile and her eyelids turn pink. That same tin was the reason she would sleep in the fetal position next to a baby or put her arm around someone she barely knew. But the pictures on her wall would disappear, leaving the only evidence of their existence a bite of chocolate cake on a bakery's plate. It was an arrhythmical process that she had no control over, much like a refrigerator light that lingered until darkness fell and her replacement took the day shift. The world thought she was crazy, but she half wondered if the world thought crazier of those who couldn't see it.
Marta left the tin on the countertop as she started the coffee in the corner. When the clock struck eight, she bundled up in her coat and started down the and through the alleyway behind her apartment. Although she had lived in the city for your years now, she still didn't like roads and transportation. She preferred corners to roads and things on trains and subways to within them. Marta always preferred places because of all the stories they held, unlike objects: where else did trains come from and go to? Why did a bus stop at the same place every night if not for its passengers? And who necessarily named the subway stop "Town Square" in the first place? The concrete carpet in the alleyway was as cold as her fingertips as she walked, but the longer she walked, the less she noticed. Shortly, she passed under an electric trolley that shone only a few feet before the lamp's arc at the other end of the alley. People walked and bumped into each other at the intersection. The one she turned onto was thankfully wider as she dodged the stream of pedestrians. A glance at her watch informed her that it was 8:15 AM. A few minutes later, exactly after she turned two more lefts, she came out of the between of the two stores to the paved sidewalk of the main street. From there, the store straight ahead was the first one of the day in her line of work, a bakery run by an old man named Nikolai, who looked like the collection of tulips he always carried inside his apron. Brittle and with a sparse crop of chestnut hair, Nikolai greeted her with a smile as he set out the cakes of the day. He wore pricey clothes but always looked disheveled.
"Good morning, Marta!" He set out another cake as she took her order. She never ordered anything just cake.
"Hi, Nikolai. I need two more shots of butter cream." Marta held up her tin. "How many boxes?"
Nikolai thought for a moment. His worn down jaw jiggled as he did so. "Five? I think? Does it really matter? Just do what you do!" Nikolai's enthusiastic smile nearly melted the cake behind him before he moved to the back to retrieve more butter.
“It does, actually.” The fishbowl behind her stared at Marta, unreadable. The tin on the counter was the only thing she hadn’t finished moving into her apartment. Even the wall for the pictures had been erased by a burst of steam at the wrong time. Lately, it had begun to feel as though she carried the tin with her rather than the B mints, an incongruous weight that she could neither rid herself of nor explain.
The clock struck eight more minutes on the wall of the bakery, and Marta set her tin on the counter with one last shot of butter cream and a note asking the baker to leave it, as the tin was getting too heavy.
“I almost forgot,” Nikolai said as he put the red, cake-covered box on◆ About the ending
❧ About the title