As a young man, Christopher
had a habit of infusing his possessions with personalities and feelings. He
wore shirts he didn’t care for because he didn’t want them getting picked on by
other shirts in his drawer because they never got worn. The epic battles
between his action figures never ended because no one was ever defeated.
Christopher being unwilling to let any of his toys end the day feeling like
losers.
As he grew up, this empathy
for inanimate objects didn’t wane, but he did become more aware how odd others
might think him if they knew. Small wonder then that he ended up running a flea
market when he grew up. Though he long since learned to keep his quirky
relationships with objects secret, he never abandoned it.
At night at the end of market
days, people would think of him gracious and kind when he would volunteer to
tarp up their merchandise for vendors, especially those who had had a bad day
and hadn’t sold much. And he was kind, but in his mind his kindness was not for
the vendors, but the poor goods who went another week feeling unsold and
unwanted. He would drape the tarps over the remaining merchandise like a
blanket, tucking the used goods in at night, and telling them all bedtime
stories about the big wide world full of people just looking to buy someone
just like them and all the grand adventures they would go on with their new
appreciative owners. In his mind, he didn’t run a flea market. He ran an
orphanage for lost treasures.
- Originally sent to A.C. in Illinois
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