A Collection of Stories

Hoarders of the Beautiful

Elias stared at me with an arch to his perfect brow. He paused mid-way with a spoonful of cheerios between his fingers.

"You want to do what this year?"

I plucked at my skirt pleats.

Our basement, attic, and garage were full of the odds and ends my brothers collected within the six months we lived in the new house. I never considered their habit of adding a fresh addition to the various storerooms a problem until the jolly calendar headlined my approaching birthday. I inhaled and took the plunge.

"I'd like a birthday party this year, a small one actually, since I've got a few friends now."

Abe, sitting across the table, blew some unseen dirt from the heavily glossed pendulum clock he was polishing. He said without raising his head,

"If she wants a couple of friends over, then why not?"

"I don't know..."

Abe glanced up.

"She's seventeen for crying out loud and she wants a party... what's wrong with that?"

Elias shoved some cereal into his mouth, as if eating was tiresome and detestable.

"Nothing's wrong with that... I guess..."

Abe and I looked at him.

Elias ran a hand through his shaggy hair.

"Sorry, Sara, I don't mean to be a stinker, but... a party?"

I quickly shook my head, but Abe rose from his chair and squeezed my arm. He gave Elias a stern look.

"A party is what she wants, and a party is what she'll get."

"Uh... no it's fine, Abe, really. I don't even know why I brought it up. We can watch movies and have pizza. That'll be fine."

Elias waved his hand.

"Hey, stop rambling, kiddo. Of course, you can have a party. Abe's right: you deserve it and it's about time you had friends over." He gave me a reassuring grin.

"And since this'll be your first party," Abe said with a small smile.

"We'll make it one you won't forget," Elias finished, rising from the table and pressing a kiss on top of my head.

~

Elias and Abe would never call themselves hoarders, though you and I know it's the correct terminology for their uncanny habits of collecting things. But their habits weren't all that bad, considering they found pleasure in restoring whatever junk they brought home. Restoration was their brilliance. Remaking their cadence. Recreating their greatest pleasure and never have I not been in awe of something that had once seemed beyond repair that they, with magic hands, mended, altered, reassembled or remade in a blink of an eye. Because of this, I didn't mind their strange obsession with old, broken and battered things, which in their eyes were infinitely beautiful.

The first time I witnessed their skill was when we'd moved into our house, a banged up two-story structure with battered windows, peeling paint, a termite infested porch, a leaky roof, and a lawn fit for a cemetery. They were ecstatic. Obviously, they expected the same reaction from me, but I only surveyed our new accommodations with a feeling of neutrality; considering my last home with an alcoholic aunt and her drug addicted boyfriend, the smell of mildew and dust surpassed that of cigarettes and booze and was, all things considered, a major improvement.

My brothers wasted no time in beginning the repairs: every morning I woke to the noise of hammers and table saws. Every day after school, I found them replacing something, rebuilding something else... it was crazy. It was as though an obsession drove them on from the brink of dawn to the starry hours of night. They never remembered to eat and before I knew it, I was bringing them breakfast, lunch and dinner and tons of water that they sucked up like a pair of fish. They needed another way to use their energy and talents when they completed the house three months later, thus began the hoarding.