My souvenirs are physical connections to the past. Personalized items meant to be held close, but not necessarily shared with others. Things that have a strong relevance to me yet appear mundane to the general public who are not familiar with the history. Souvenirs exemplify previous relationships, preserve intimate moments shared and are subtle reminders of mischief I got myself into and subsequently out of.

My collection grew beyond what the original shoebox under the bed could hold. Now it’s stored in a plastic tote at the back of my master closet. These simple objects hold the power of remembrance and wait until I revisit them for a nostalgic fix. I’ll pull this tote out from time to time during quiet moments, when I long to retrace the paths I’ve trodden. Because that’s what souvenirs are, personalized trinkets documenting your life.

Outdated newspaper clippings, fragile to the touch, tout my achievements. Fading photographs capture the transitory sessions of passion. Inanimate objects elicit an emotional rush of my satisfying experiences. These are things I’ve accumulated over a lifetime. All are treasured and have assigned importance.

Each piece makes up the puzzle of my growth. They also give me a sense of anticipation. I wonder how the ones I’ll collect in the future will compare to the ones I collected in the past. This gives me motivation to acquire more.

I sit alone in the interrogation room, my right wrist handcuffed to the table. The Good Cop/Bad Cop duo excused themselves when Good Cop got a message, which I know was from the detectives executing their search warrant at my property. The closet tote, i.e. shrine, must have been discovered.

I grin to myself. Maybe I’ll identify each individual associated with the respective, macabre souvenir. Maybe I’ll explain the specifics behind the object one last time. Maybe I’ll go into a gory description, tearing at the decades-old scars of the living. Maybe I’ll divulge answers to questions not yet asked. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll leave out details, creating an air of uncertainty. Or feign ignorance then ask for a lawyer.

Despite knowing I won’t be leaving this room with a tangible item; I’ll consider time spent with this new audience as my greatest souvenir.

Alone. Surrounded by people. With strange eyes and hidden intentions. The girl-who-was-almost-a-woman shrugged her heavy backpack onto her shoulders as she searched for somewhere to sit, somewhere to lay her head. The ferry was filled to brimming, as people milled about, some heading to cabins, those with cheap tickets scanning the common areas for somewhere to sink to the floor. Somewhere they might be able to snatch a few hours of precious sleep, if the seas weren't too rough, if they could keep the harsh flicker of the fluorescent light from permeating their eye-lids.

Already territory was being claimed and defended - hostile expressions warding off any who sought a spot too close to the first settlers. Even spaces further away were full. The girl-who-was-almost-a-woman had been one of the final passengers to step aboard, so there was nowhere for her to go.

The boom of the ferry horn ripped through the air and she felt it shudder through her as the mooring lines were cast off - and the great, hulking vessel left the dock. Piraeus was bathed in the lazy golden sunlight of the evening, softening the edges of the cityscape and lending it a romantic aspect. She almost longed to be back on land - rather than amongst this territorial rabble, but the ferry was heading out to sea and unless she jumped into the frothy, murky depths, there was no-where else to go until morning. The decks were mostly empty now, but the wind bit at her hair and whipped sea spray through the air. Even so high above the water.

She needed somewhere quiet and dry, somewhere as yet unclaimed. She waited until the sun had snatched the last light from the sky and the stars had winked into view. Then crept towards the cabins. To the warm, quiet dry corridors. Somewhere she could roll out her sleeping mat and close her weary eyes.

A place not too far from the door to the deck, that she might be able to get out quick if she needed to, but not too close to the common areas, that there would be many people walking past. The hall was empty and she was soon spread out, grinning at her own cleverness at finding somewhere to rest her head. She was between two cabin doors, tucked as close to the wall as possible, so there was still room to walk past her.

She was just drifting off to sleep, when sounds filtered through. Little yelps. The girl-who-was-almost-a-woman startled awake and sat up. Was someone in trouble? She listened carefully - the sounds unabated. Her eyes turned round when she realised they were sounds of pleasure, rather than of pain. She could have moved, she should have moved. But she stayed - and listened as an entire soundtrack of desire played out, to the last shuddering groan.

She left the ferry in the morning but the memory stayed with her. A lasting souvenir.

The Kindergarteners in my classroom couldn’t understand why I would want to be gone for a whole week to go on vacation during the school year. When a few tears fell as I was about to wrap up my day, I quickly promised to bring back souvenirs for everyone.

While walking on the beach during my blissful week, I noticed seashells floating in the water. It didn’t take long to grab 25 of them. I decided to also use them as a lesson about how we are all different to avoid complaints about the various shapes and sizes.

Many happy faces appeared when they learned the meaning of souvenir and vowed to save theirs forever. The next day, a little lad looked a bit sad. When I asked if something was wrong, he said his mother was sick, so he gave his seashell to her, and it made her feel better. Glad I kept my own souvenir in my pocket. I didn’t know the purpose it would serve.

True story.

“It's that little souvenir, of a terrible year, which makes my eyes feel sore.”

I am so suggestable, singing The Sundays, on a Sunday, and feeling that soreness in my eyes because, as usual, they picked up my daughter, and took her away for another week.

“Here’s where…” I run the water over my face to ease the sting, then spit the water away from my mouth. “…the story ends.”

There’s blood in the shower tray again. I must remember to rinse it down after. The poor, dilapidated thing could do with a scrub. Knowing I should put on gloves, and get going is one thing, but trying to perform the mental gymnastics just to start that damned process is exhausting.

The black mold is back. The closet sized room doesn’t have enough ventilation to keep it at bay for long, and my landlord has found fifteen different ways to avoid paying for it to be painted with decent, water-resistant paint. Its current coat is desiccating; cracked and peeling away from the wall, dry, yet dripping with sweat.

The cabinet needs replacing. Its hinges creak and wobble, threatening to drop the mirrored door. Excess water has scratched and marred the mirror, de-silvering it with dull marks that sketch a grim scene of wirey brambles overgrowing a sharp, iron, graveyard fence. A sketch of a man folds his arms and forever throws his head back laughing at me, wide mouthed.

The old shower tray had rotten away the supporting plywood until a big man like me should have fallen through to the dog groomers below. When I step near the new shower, the floorboards and plastic façade sinks down when I step near it. The replacement tray was smaller but never filled the gap.

I often wonder if I could slip through the crack and die in the floorboards. My flight of fancy never lasts long, before I remember my allergy to the dander of dogs, and as much as I would enjoy the puppy watching portion of my haunt, I would be put off by the irritation of rats scratching and gnawing at my bones. What a terrible racket.

I turn off the water.

The clutter of broken things gathering in the corner needs to be cleared away, and the sealant around the tray redone; sealant was never applied around the shower dial. A steady heartbeat of water still falls from the dial down to the shower tray for a time, after. The beat slows.

Reaching down to the floor reveals an odour, infecting the plush shower mat that covers the gap. I stroke the tousled ends to ease the mat, but feel the grime of the room seeping into me. I pat the carpet down and move to leave, instead I retreat to the shower. Three frantic attempts to close the stubborn door.

Turning the temperature to max and nozzle to high pressure, I wait for the comforting knife-jabs of heat that follow.

“Ohhh, here’s where, the story ends.”

"We have a time of death yet, Johnson?" Captain Harris asks, slipping on gloves and squatting next to the corpse.

"ME thinks 36-48 hours ago, but he'll confirm once he gets the body back to the morgue."

"Vic have a name?"

"Jimmy Jones. Resides at 2525 Feldstone Court."

"Married?"

"Yeah. A car has been sent to inform the widow."

"No missing person report?"

"No, sir."

"Ring's missing."

"Ring?"

"Wedding ring. Look at his finger." Detective Jonson leans over the captain's shoulder. "There's still a deep indent where the ring was. Probably wasn't easy to get off."

"I just lick my finger when I need to get my ring off."

Captain Harris looks at him with disgust. "Why do you need to take off your ring?"

"Oh, you know...no reason really."

"Yeah. Maybe the vic had the same no reason. Where are his pants? Anyone check his pockets?"

"Wallet, cash and cards intact and keys. No ring."

"Hmmm. Do we have a cause of death yet?"

"ME says he'll have to run some tests to confirm, but it looks like some kind of neurotoxin. Old-fashioned hemlock, maybe."

"Maybe. Could be botulism. Any food in the room?" he asks glancing around the motel room.

"No, but whatever he ate will come up in the autopsy."

The captain gives him a duh look then asks, "Any cameras?"

"Manager says the only one working is by the back entrance."

"Vic have a car?"

"Front entrance."

"So either he knew the cameras weren't working or he didn't care. Interesting. Receptionist see him come in with anyone?"

"She said the room was reserved by a woman," he looks at his pad. "Nancy Doss."

Harris looks up from the body. "You're joking."

"No, why? Name mean something to you?"

"If I'm right, I'm pretty sure the vic's wife will not be home."

"You thinking the wife did it?"

"Google Nannie Doss. But first call for back up at 2525 Feldstone just in case."

"Court."

"What?"

"Feldstone Court."

"Just do it, Johnson."

"Copy that, Captain."

Five hundred miles away, behind a luxurious log cabin in the Adirondacks, Nancy Doss, aka Jenna Jones digs up a small wooden box. Inside are four gold wedding bands. She drops in the fifth.

When I was young, my mom used to go on trips. When she went on trips, she always brought me back a souvenir, and usually it was one based on my favorite animals - insects. I distinctly remember a golden dragonfly pin she brought me back from some event on the West Coast, and I remember wondering if I would ever see or go into the Pacific Ocean some day. I still wonder if I ever will, honestly. She brought me back pamphlets from the museum of medical oddities on one of the last vacations she took without me. We've mostly traveled as a family since I graduated high school, with the majority of traveling being getting me to and from university, but we did also spend a week at Yellowstone National Park. My souvenir there was just a camera roll full of buffalo. And also a new app for my phone that could identify birds called Merlin. And we saw a huge moose right on the trail we had planned in walking, derailing that plan.

I think thoughts that think thoughts that think back—at me—then they trap me in my mind’s mansion. Sometimes they let me out from one room to another—like how people buy new shoes; my thoughts buy me new chains for each new room.

They all share the same wallpaper, the same floorboards, and the same carpets. There is not a single difference—except for the paintings in odd, familiar shapes that adorn the walls painted teal. Some unimaginable force has each and every single one of the paintings mounted impossibly hard, so hard that even if I had the want to tear them off—I never could—not that I had tried.

There are no windows to provide air, no chandeliers to provide light, and no fireplace to provide warmth. So, I curl up on the floor each and every single time I am forced into a new room, then arrange myself in a fetal position.

I try to sleep.

I do not sleep.

Hours blend into days that blend into months that blend into years that thread into the tapestry of time.

Only then, after an eternity—an eon—that I force myself to study the paintings.

There are—were—paintings that I had laid my eyes upon in the past. Think about faded, light colors, that are used to paint joyous sceneries, of soulful moments. Now, imagine one of such temperament, maybe one of young youth, playing an instrument of romance—perhaps a piano or a violin—amidst a sea of clouds up high.

Can you feel it? Have you felt it in the past? That feeling of lightness that fills your heart with unbridled, ephemeral fulfillment? All from the beauty of something so ethereal that makes you feel as luminous as those painted clouds and carries you to a place that could only be described as heaven on earth.

If you have, and haven’t lost that ability yet, then I envy you—for I have long since been hollowed of that.

For these paintings that my thoughts think back at me, are those of a blackened abyss which siphons what little I have left.

For all that I think of—for all that I try not to think of—I always end up thinking of you.

These paintings—they are in colors of your eyes, in form of your earthly beauty, and in shape of memories of you.

Their names—conjured of the words that left your lips.

So now that you went out of sight, out of orbit, in your voyage across the endless ocean of stars—these paintings are all that’s left.

I suppose they are the souvenirs you’ve left for my soul.

The souvenir i wear around my neck weighs me down.

But it humbles me to obedience and awe.

I drop to my knees,shattering my ego.

The splintered past woven into a prayer mat.

I kiss the ground as I watch you below through the glass tile.

I watch you dance on hot coals as you raise your hands to pull me into your world.

I lift the poorly stitched mat over the glass pane,noticing the threads.The mat is torn sewn with fingers that seek.

I lose sight of you,knowing that I will see you again.

My first kiss had an identical twin sister. In a weird little twisted triangle, I actually started with a crush on the one who didn't kiss me, but ended pretty tangled up in the other one.

It ended with me settling in with her best friend.

Twisted little triangle, indeed.

From somewhere inside the fiery wreckage of that fiasco with the twins, I plucked some wisdom. My own little souvenirs from my visit to what certainly must have been adjacent to a circle of hell. Firstly, I learned that a dude named George was an asshole. He was pretty keyed up to throw down, but I laughed at him and turned my back. Turns out he had a thing for the girl who kissed me. Sorry, George. I never forced her to hands-free transfer to me her Mystery Mix Now & Later in the backseat.

Second, I learned that braces aren't awesome. Later, I learned that braces really suck for a different kind of kissing, if you catch what I'm throwin.

Third, I found that love finds us, we don't find it.

Love has found me a few other times throughout my life, and sometimes it was good. Other times, it was good for a while. On occasion, it was bad, but even before it went ugly, it was beautiful.

Those twins remind me that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Two girls, identical in every physical way, but so very different. Two girls is probably one too many; life aint everything Penthouse Forum promised it would be.

One sister was kind and gentle, the other was all edges and angles.

When the edgy one kissed me, it cut.

Decades later, when I see her picture from time to time, I smile.

I hardly even notice the taste of a little blood.

And did it matter what I wrote in the end?

Truth

The Way

And the Light

And who would believe me?

You

You would.