The Collector

My strange uncle Reginald once showed me a transparent box in which hung, as if suspended in mid-air, an odd tear-drop shaped and luminescent bead.

“What is it?”, I asked, “Some kind of jewel”.

“No. It is a raindrop collected on April 17th 2038; in fact it is piece or a cube of April 17th 2038; preserved by four-dimensional refrigeration; a raindrop frozen in time”, said my uncle, smiling.

“Cool”, I said, reaching out towards it, “Can I open it and take it out, can I touch it?”.

“No”, said my Uncle, pulling it away, “Breaking the seal upon the box and opening the lid would allow time to rush in; the raindrop would fall and splash and be lost forever”.

“Oh”, I said disappointed, “Well what’s the point of keeping a raindrop in a box?”.

“Well, I’m a collector of moments”, said Uncle Reginald with an air of pride, “I have a whole room full of frozen moments from history; a beam of July sunlight slowed from the speed of light to a crawl; a spring rainbow that will not fade for a thousand years. I keep them just to look at them”.

“So that’s how you spend your time, collecting moments in boxes?”, I asked.

“Yes”, he said, putting the box containing the raindrop back upon a shelf, “And aren’t they beautiful? I think I shall donate them to a museum one day so that everyone can see them. See all my precious moments”

“But what about your own life? What about the moments of it? Don’t you worry that they’re slipping away?”, I asked, “While you’re collecting moments in boxes you could be living them”.

“Moments lived are moments lost”, said my Uncle horrified, “What I’m doing is cherishing these moments so that perhaps others might cherish them too”.

“But you’re not cherishing them; you’re burying them in little time-tight coffins. What’s the difference between a frozen raindrop and a fake one made out of glass? What’s the difference between a frozen moment and something that’s dead?”, I asked, not impressed by my Uncles hobby the way he would have liked me to be.

“Why knowing of course”, said my Uncle, “And fragility. I know that my raindrop is not made of glass, I know that I collected it and chronofroze it on April 17th 2038 at exactly 2 PM and I know that should the box be opened the tear would fall and like humpty dumpty after his terrible accident there would be no putting it back together again”.

I agreed with him to disagree upon the issue. I thought if Uncle Reginald was happy with his frozen moments that’s all that really mattered.

Unfortunately, a month after that, something terrible happened to my Uncles collection; burglars or maybe vandals broke into his house and shattered all his glass boxes; they didn’t realise what they were smashing and when the boxes were broken time rushed into them, the moments contained within them; a frozen flicker of a candle flame, a frozen autumn leaf upon the wind, a frozen kiss between two lovers; all the moments my uncle had spent his adult life collecting, faded and vanished for ever.

My uncle was distraught, crouched on the floor upon his knees desperate to find a trace of a disappeared moment among the shards of shattered glass and weeping.

“All my precious moments, gone”, he said, “And no way to get them back”.

“Still, look on the bright side”, I said, “Your moments were insured weren’t they? Think of what you could do with your insurance money. Start living your life, having some fun”.

“Fun?”, asked my Uncle, glaring at me, visibly shocked and appalled by my suggestion, “No. That money is going into building my new collection. I will have to start all over again, ofcourse; moment by moment but I will have it back”.

“Well, whatever you choose”, I said, realizing it was a delicate subject.

And anyway, my Uncle did rebuild his collection after that and it was twice as big as his old one; filling up three whole rooms and after he died it all went to different museums, just as he’d hoped, all except one little container that he left to me in his will, containing a frozen moment from his life in which he smiled warmly.

And though friends always tell me it looks creepy, I keep it on a shelf to remember him by and I’m very careful with it; it’s all that’s left of him after all.

And it reminds me each time I look at it, that moments are precious but that, unlike what my uncle thought, the best way to cherish them is to live them; not to lock them away and look at them through glass but to savour them while they last because an unused life is not a life worth preserving.