(This fan-fiction is based on Andree’s world of lost items. Hopefully I got the gist of your story with an added moral to the story and did it justice. Enjoy~ )
KINTSUGI
I can’t believe that I’m back! But didn’t she say it was impossible? How do I tell Donna the secret and help her?
—
“WHAT? NO! HOW CAN YOU. I LOVED YOU. WHY ARE YOU, YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!”
I threw my phone across the bed. It hit the soft toy he gave me and fell onto the bed beside it. I scrambled across, grabbed the bear by it’s leg and hugged it to my chest. He gave me this bear on our first Valentine’s. It’s a little worn from my incessant hugging and handling. Yet, I still love it all the same. I feel connected to him as I hugged my bear, it’s as if he’s beside me and all’s fine. It isn’t. I’m just lying to myself. He’s gone. He left me for another girl. She’s…she’s… I let the tears flow. They cascade down the side of my cheeks, over my mouth and to the side of my chin. I can taste the salinity. It’s oddly comforting. I tucked my legs into a fetal position, with the bear being encased within this ball of a human, so tight it would probably suffocate if it were alive. I continued to sob uncontrollably, my torso heaving in an irregular rhythm. What will I do without him now? I love him. He’s my everything. I don’t know what to do! Everything I did, I did with him, but now what? He loves me, he said I would always be a part of him and he a part of me. I’m nothing without him, he completes me…
—
My head hurts. I could feel it throbbing, as if someone were knocking it with a hammer. I feel something poking into my back uncomfortably. Have I been sleeping in yet another bad posture? My body aches. Slowly, I opened my eyes. They could barely open. Ah, the tears dried up into a crusty mess. I rub my eyes, hoping that it’ll help break some of the crust off. Enough of it was brushed off, I opened my eyes slowly. I tumbled off the pile of …things. That woke me up immediately.
“God, where am I?!” I briefly inspect my surroundings and my attention went back to myself. Ouch, that fall gave me a few bruises and cuts on my body. Yet those are the least of my worries. Where am I and how did I get here in the first place?
“Where am I?” I sighed. “I really wish he were by my side now. Everything would be less scary. It’s me against the w- the unknown world now.”
I scanned the room. This doesn’t make sense. It’s just endless heaps of odds and ends. The most random things one can think of! Teacups, books about anything and everything, watches, keys, laptops and so much more. CLINK! I quickly turn my head to the direction of the sound. I’m unsure of what made the noise. There are just too many things around.
“Hello. You look new.”
I jumped up in a jerky manner. I tried to compose myself, not having remembered seeing anything alive in the room just a second before…? At times like this, I wish he were here, placing his reassuring arm around my waist, the warmth of his body letting me know that he was there through it with me-
But it will never be the same again. I should stop daydreaming. I turn towards the female voice. There stood a lady, probably around my mother’s age, with grey and white strands mixed haphazardly in her otherwise black hair. She looked very kind, yet you could see a sort of concern in her eyes, rimmed by faint wrinkles.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m Donna. Your name is?”
“Anneliese.” I stare at the ground for a few moments, my hands squeezing the fabric of my skirt lightly. Hesitantly, I began to ease the pressure on my fingers a little bit.
“Erm, where am I? Why am I here? Or how did I get here? I think I remember being on my bed last, crying. I probably fell asleep, but how did I…” The pitch of my voice rose, my lower lip quivered. I started to break down in front of this stranger. I felt so powerless, confused and empty to even resist keeping the strong front.
“There there, child. Everything is alright.” She puts a reassuring hand on my head and strokes it lightly. It felt comforting. “The House of Missing Things, that’s where we are now. Come, I’ll show you around.” She reached out her hand, her fingers were long and slender, yet worn from the years. Surprisingly, I did not hesitate. I stretched out my hand and planted it firmly into this Donna stranger’s hand. I guess I was longing for physical touch, a kind of reassurance that I have grown accustomed to.
Donna led me forward into the different rooms in this “house”. In each room, there were just endless piles of items, things that were lost according to her. To me, they don’t mean a thing. How I ended up here, I still have no clue. As of now, it’s just trudging precariously through the items falling and piling haphazardly around us. They’re just a bunch of rubbish. Are there no cleaners in this world?
Donna motioned my attention to the large sofa in the room. “Let’s sit there a while to rest.” I absentmindedly nodded my head. I still can’t figure out how I ended up in this place. How am I in any way like these lost belongings? Besides, I’m tired from all this “exploring”. There’s nothing much to explore anyway, just heaps of lost, probably unwanted and forgotten possessions. I could do with some rest. Maybe I could ask Donna more. Maybe she knows something about all this. I followed Donna’s lead and carefully traversed across the room to the sofa.
I sat down stiffly to Donna’s left. I look down on my lap where I placed my hands. I was subconsciously wringing my hands. I guess it comforted me in a way to concentrate on something else. I have to find out more, she’s my only means of an answer to all this madness. I plucked up courage and looked up earnestly into her eyes, disrupting the silence(except for the occasional clinks of more lost items plummeting into this world) between us, “Do you…do you know how I ended up here? Please tell me if you do.”
“Well child, I can’t say with absolute certainty I know how but I can tell you what I have gathered from observations and my time here. Things from your normal world end up here when they are lost. Somehow, when you lose these things they go through some portal and end up here. They rarely get out of this realm. I’ve only seen it happen twice in my long time here. So I’m not entirely sure how the things return back to the real world or if it just gets lost in the stacks and I made a mistake. So I’m guessing you got lost in some way and magically ended up here like the rest of us.” Her eyes briefly motioned to the scattered stuff around us. “Do you have any recollection of what happened before coming here? How did you get lost?”
“I remember…” My voice trailed off, memories rushed over me. “I remember that I was at home when my boyfriend called.” Tears started flowing down my cheeks. I broke into sobs, my body heaving irregularly. I choked on my words as I explained. “He called to say that he was breaking up with me. He was in love with someone else and they were seeing each other. I GAVE HIM EVERYTHING!” My voice broke. It trembled as I continued. “He is my everything, I gave him my everything. For 3 whole years. We’ve always been close, some would even say we were attached to each other by the hip. He’s my everything. Suddenly, everything has changed just like that.” I snapped my fingers to illustrate my point. I use the back of my hands to wipe the tears from my eyes, clearing it up a little but leaving a teary mess around my eyes. “You know, it’s like the person is your everything for 3 years and suddenly they break up with you. You realize that hey, there isn’t the shared common identity you once had, that you once lived off and were living your life around.”
“I guess it was during those 3 years that I easily gave myself up to please him or the circumstances we were in. It is as if I don’t belong there anymore. I don’t feel right, directionless, empty. So I cried to myself to sleep hugging the bear he gave me on our first Valentine’s.” I did not realize but I was crying again. Tears collected at my chin and dripped down onto my skirt.
Donna attempted to placate me. “Hush darling child. Everything will be alright, okay Anneliese?” Through watery half opened eyes, I saw Donna frantically looking around. Her eyes fixed upon something as she lets out a slightly audible “Ah.” She proceeds to lean over to the right of the sofa to pick up a pack of pocket tissue and swiftly took a piece out. “I knew this would come in handy some day.” she said to me, jokingly. I knew she was trying to lighten my mood so I gave her a sheepish smile.
A curtain of awkwardness fell over us. “Erm…erm…oh ya! I forgot I was looking for something earlier. I’ll come back to you soon okays. You’ll be fine right?” I gave two small nods without giving eye contact to acknowledge her. Donna scooted off to do something – whatever it was, although I was pretty sure it was to relieve herself of the heavy, uneasy atmosphere.
I gave myself some time to regain my composure. I cleaned my tear-stained face with the tissue Donna found. I could see better now without those tears blurring my view. “Hmmm, what do I do now?” Since Donna left me, there was really nothing much to do here. Just tons of lost belongings.
With nothing much in mind, I let my eyes aimlessly wander around me. Something in the pile from across where I sat looked familiar. “Oh wait! Is that…? No way, it can’t be…”
I quickly rose to my feet, forgetting that the used tissue was on my lap as it fell to the ground. I didn’t bother picking it up, my attention was fixed onto that pink book in the pile before me. I rushed forward and in a swift motion, knelt down on both knees to see.
“Wow, it really is my old polaroid album! I thought I had lost it for good.” My heart started racing, I was excited to see my old friend again. I lifted it with both hands and dusted it even though there was barely any dust on it. I stared back at the cover. It is a picture of us taken on our second Valentines when we spent it together having a quaint little picnic. It was a simple affair, we had fun prior making different fusion sushi, baked a small chocolate cake – my favourite. We found a spot near the lake and were constantly being attacked by those hungry swans wanting our sushi rolls. He would put on a hilarious show trying to shoo away the birds. I remember both of us laughing it off, hugging our tummies and rolling on the grass. Our laughter scared the swans more than his horrible array of shoo-dance. Ah, those were the carefree lovely days. Sigh. It reminded me of him again. I could feel the tears well up in my sore eyes again. I continued slowly flipping through the book, stopping to look at each photo and reminiscing the memory it captured. Photos of us at a blood donation drive, on his birthday, when he got his driving licence… Those were the days. I miss him. As I continued to flip the pages, I realized all the photos were at events revolving around him. I also noticed that I was always happier than he was in the photo as the years progressed. Maybe that was the reason why my memories with him in the later years were more blurry and vague, I could barely remember that we went through those milestones till I saw the photos. Whereas, I could remember crystal clear the events in the first two years.
I took hold of the bottom right corner of the next page and realized the next two pages were stuck together. I peeled them apart gently. Staring back at me was a polaroid of me and my friends enjoying ourselves at a girls only sleepover. We were hugging each other in our embarrassing pyjamas, giving the widest and happiest smiles possible to the camera. They had been my best friends. Had been – because they no longer were. My friendships with them slowly broke down over time. I fragmented away from the group, drifting away from them as I placed all my attention and energy on him, neglecting them. I wasn’t worthy to be their best friend.
“I was a fool.” I muttered to myself.
“If I can get out of this weird place,” I made a mental promise to myself, “I will try to connect back with them and meet them for high tea like we used to love to do. Catch up with them. Anything really. Anything to repair those precious friendships.” I had been so blindsided by love that I lost sight of who my true friends were, who still stick with me till today, messaging me to catch up even though I’ve constantly turned them down. True friends who were there for me thick and thin, even when he wasn’t. I realized I gave up so many people I loved to accommodate him. “What else have I given up for him? Just for him to be happy?” Moisture began to well up in my eyes, and I turned my head upwards to stop the drops from forming. I blinked the tears away, pushing them back with my eyelids. As I lowered my gaze back to the album, all I saw were my empty hands. “Huh. Did I put it back down somewhere?” I looked around at the floor space surrounding me. No sign of the familiar pink album, but something else caught my eye instead.
It had a vaguely round shape, but it was hard to tell by all the lint and fluff covering it. You could tell it had been green, but having been bleached by the sun during long weekend training sessions, it was really more yellow than anything else. Overall, it looked like any other tennis ball. I remembered that I lost mine years ago, probably when I was in Secondary 2. I used to be a very active sportsgirl in school. I loved the sun and how the rays made me feel so rejuvenated. Tennis was my favourite sport as it combined both athleticism and speed. It gave me confidence as I could chart my improvements as time went by. I absentmindedly tossed the tennis ball up and down slightly a few times as I recalled the past. How I wished I had continued to pursue my passions and continued to play tennis longer… Out of the corner of my eye, a little red scribble caught my attention. I caught the tennis ball in mid air and turned it till the red part faced me.
The letters ANNE bore back at me. What a coincidence, that’s my own tennis ball with my name written on it to identify that it belonged to me. It really was mine. I stroke it with my other hand, letting myself just feel the texture of the worn out, yet still fuzzy, ball. Memories of my time with it rushed back to me. I remembered that playing tennis gave me this indescribable boost in self esteem. I realized I had stopped fully loving myself, my self esteem had deteriorated, which had made me less confident in ways apart from sports. He would tear at my self-confidence too, bringing me down made him feel powerful and in control. He would always say nasty things such as tennis was such a manly sport and that I should stop, as it was making me become bulky. He constantly reminded me that that was unattractive. Unbeknownst to me then, it subconsciously broke me, further decreased how I viewed myself favourably. Recounting all those memories triggered something inside me and I started to get emotional again. A cry escaped my lips and I found myself sobbing uncontrollably yet again, gasping for air. I took a deep breath, sucking in my mucus that blocked my nose and used the back of my hand to wipe the tears off my face.
“No. Never again. I won’t even shed tears anymore. Not for him.”
A feeling of déjà vu swept over me. “I was just holding on to the tennis ball a while ago wasn’t I? I don’t remember dropping it or anything, so where did it go?” It was no longer in my hand when I wiped my eyes. I glanced around my immediate vicinity, my brow furrowing deeper as the seconds ticked by.
I stood up. I decided that it was too much for me to handle. I walked around in a slightly tip-toed manner as there was barely any space on the floor that was not already preoccupied by lost possessions. To walk across, I sometimes had to use my foot to slightly nudge the things aside to create just enough space to not trample on everything. My foot pushed against something cold. I looked down and saw this piece that appeared to be metallic. What a dangerous thing to lose, I thought. I squatted down with the intention of picking the unsafe metal piece up to place it somewhere safer. I gingerly picked up the metal piece so as to not cut myself. Oh wait, it’s not a knife or something dangerous, it’s a metal bookmark… and it looks exactly like my bookmark that he accidentally lost – or so he claimed. I was devastated by the loss of my treasured bookmark. It symbolized things that I held dear: the philosophies I adopted, the values I believed in. It felt as if a part of me was destroyed. He was never truly sorry about it, brushing it off as if it were nothing and even claimed that I was making a mountain out of a molehill. His excuses and wrongful accusations shattered my self-esteem even further. Yet, he never tried to appreciate my hobbies or the things I loved. I, on the other hand, had been more than accommodating. I gave up any time I had that could be used to immerse myself in my books, and instead played video games with him, not that I particularly enjoyed partaking in playing those games. It was definitely not my ideal relaxation method. I just always put him before myself.
I brushed my fingers across the cool metal and admired the delicate art. It pictured a kintsugi blue china porcelain with visible gold fillings to repair the cracks on the pottery. I read the engraved zen quote softly under my breath.
Even broken things can be beautiful again.
A soft shock shot up my spine. Ah, it never ceases to capture and ease the weight off my heart, mind and soul. I clasped it in the center of my palm, feeling the cool thin metal on my skin. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. A sense of calmness and surprisingly – bliss swept over me. My eyes fluttered open and slowly unravelled my fingers from a clenching position. The bookmark is no longer in my palm? I don’t understand…
I sighed deeply, with equal parts frustration and release. I was so perplexed and preoccupied with what was going on, I did not realize how tired I was. My back ached from the walking and so did my legs. I delicately cleared a small roundish area on the floor. I crossed my legs one over the other and ensured that my skirt modestly covered my legs. I leaned my chin onto my arm propped up on my right knee.
I started to recount each individual occurrence – how I found each object that I once lost and in turn, a small fragment of myself. The photo album reminded me that I should treasure my friendships and that they all matter to me, regardless of how anyone tries to discount them. The tennis ball helped me remember that I used to have passions and how I used to be full of self confidence, not overconfident, but just enough to make me feel that I loved myself. The metal bookmark showed me how passionate I had been about reading that I used to read endlessly. I recalled that I had hobbies and interests that I used to pursue fervently, until he demanded I stopped, of which I complied.
My life over the past few years had not been kind to me. I gave myself up, piece by piece, to satisfy his ego and his needs. Slowly I was torn, broken and separated into different fragments.
In my mind’s eye, I saw porcelain fragments: pieces of a once-beautiful work of art. They lay shattered on the ground. Ethereal hands floated about the glittering shards, unafraid of the edges that threatened to cut. Confidently, they picked up the pieces and placed them against each other. Where the edges aligned, they melded together, leaving a golden shimmer where the cracks had once been. Piece by piece, the original work of art was being restored, only that it wasn’t the original, but it was something even more. Even broken things can be beautiful again. Not only was it beautiful again, having been broken made it better. Stronger.
In this world of the lost, I found myself. Found all the parts of me, and I think I’m beginning to feel whole again. Can that which was broken be…unbroken?
—
CLICK!
REFLECTIONS
Really out of my comfort zone writing this piece as I’m being very explicit and descriptive about everything. Especially my feelings and thought processes. I personally prefer to be implicit. However, I felt that it suits the character better to be more explicit, to show her raw emotions and helplessness throughout her discovery to find herself again and to understand that something may be broken but it can be beautiful again.
Also, I feel that it was quite fun to read about the meta worlds my classmates had conceived and their creative aspects/elements that they added into it. Thinking of how to incorporate my story into his world was challenging as I was afraid I didn’t capture the gist of his world. I chose Andree’s one as he had only 2 chapters posted so far when I started writing so there was lots of room for me to play around and dictate laws of my own. In addition, the metaphysics of his world is quite loose, since lost can be interpreted in many ways, hence I went for his.
RESEARCH
With Regards To Andree’s World
Inside Out.
For me, I find that the storyline in this animation movie does have quite some similarities in that there’s a lost element. Like how the lost memory glass balls end up in the memory dump as they are forgotten. – Which is quite like the heaps and piles of lost possessions in Andree’s world. But the difference here is that the lost memories don’t ever get out but start to disappear if they remain in the memory dump for too long.
Harry Potter World’s Undetectable Extension Spell
As seen during Fantastical Beasts and Where To Find Them Newt Scamander’s brief case contains quite an open zoo, housing many gigantic magical animals;
Or Hermione Granger’s little beaded purse that has the Undetectable Stretching Jinx that allows her to store her gazillion books, potions, camping supplies;
Or Mad-Eye Moody’s suitcase. This is a bit different from the above two examples, as it feels like there is actually a limit to the space the suitcase has. Also, it’s not a singular opening, but rather many compartments, each housing a small room. However, irregardless, the fact is that you are still able to play something from it
These examples, remind me of how Andree described that the house was seemingly endless as the white room would have this light grey doors that lead to more rooms with doors leading to even more rooms.
With Regards To My Fan-Fiction Set In His World
Inside Out
Using the same reference as earlier…with regards to the memory dump. In the memory dump in Riley’s mind, the memories(as those represented by the glass balls and Bing Bong) slowly fade into this blackness flying powder and disappear. However, in my story, I decided that the flying disappearing dust idea doesn’t have as much impact than it just disappearing in a snap into thin air. I feel the swift disappearance is as if it got transported by some invisible portal from one realm to the other makes more sense.
Kintsugi
The idea of embracing damage. Kintsugi has the ideals of wabi-sai philosophy interwoven in it, which means “to find beauties in broken things or old things.” I thought this was quite a poetic way to tie in my moral/educational message I wanted to get across.
Coheed and Cambria: Afterman
The band’s music revolves around a story. Basically(or very very briefly), the story is about this man going into space to find out more about this energy force field(triangle) that links the three planets. The force field is so strong that it destroys his spaceship. He manages to survive but he’s stuck in the force field. There he discovers that this energy force field was not what they had thought of before. It’s the intermediary stage of afterlife. So after you die, you end up here. Your soul is trapped here. It doesn’t matter if you did good or bad during your time on earth. As long as you can put down all hatred, regrets etc in the past life, only then can you ascend into heaven. He helped a few people let go of their past emotions and ascend into heaven. Meanwhile, his wife finds out about his “death” on the news. She’s devastated as she believes that’s the truth. After a while, she decides to pick herself up and bring her life back to a normal rhythm. She starts going out with any man. The astronaut man finally figures out how to get back to earth. When he lands on earth, everyone is shocked, they thought he was dead already. He is angry when he realizes that his wife has move on. yada yada. So fast forwarding… He was driving his wife one day, they got into a fight and they ended up in an accident. His wife dies. He knows that his wife will not put down the hatred so he decides to go back into the force field to help her. Even though he knows its extremely dangerous, he had almost died before the first time. Yet for the love of his wife, his willingness to sacrifice himself, so that his wife can let go of the past earthly life and ascend heaven.
Which is what I meant to hint the story’s first line that Anneliese(main character) figured out how to get out of the portal. She wants to free Donna from this never ending pain of being stuck in the House of Lost Things. I wanted to hint the magnanimity she possess.
Metal Bookmark
As a reference, the images above are what I’m describing about when I mentioned metal bookmarks in my story. It would contain a picture of a blue china porcelain kintsugi with the quote Even broken things can be beautiful again engraved on it.
