the Collection

Stamps; coins; coke cans; toy trains; matchbooks; ticket stubs – why do we collect this shit? It’s insane! One day they will invent a drug that will put a stop to these compulsions. It’s like those people who turn the light switch on and off 17 times before bed for fear that the world will implode if they don’t. Hoarding is legitimized madness.

In a room overrun by junk, he shows me to the bottle-top collection. It consists of eight shoe boxes piled on the window sill where the curtains are always drawn. "Over a life-time", he mumbles into the dust as he stoops over a Reebok box. He digs his hand into the dusty pit of chinking tops and pulls out one at random. He examines it in with a puzzled look on his face, perhaps remembering the day he acquired it, or perhaps not.