Information



Bric-a-brac
Legacy Name: Bric-a-brac


The Graveyard Donadak
Owner: TiMESoNG

Age: 11 years, 10 months

Born: May 28th, 2012

Adopted: 11 years, 5 months, 1 week ago

Adopted: October 21st, 2012

Statistics


  • Level: 1
     
  • Strength: 10
     
  • Defense: 10
     
  • Speed: 10
     
  • Health: 10
     
  • HP: 10/10
     
  • Intelligence: 0
     
  • Books Read: 0
  • Food Eaten: 0
  • Job: Unemployed


Nighttime.

The city has long been abandoned, devoid of human inhabitants for decades. It stands, a dark and twisted wasteland, half the work of man's age-old struggle to push nature away, half the work of nature seeping back in through the cracks. The tall buildings that line the roads--office buildings, skyscrapers, hospitals, apartments--have begun to sag under nature's heavy hand; their concrete flanks are crumbling, falling away to expose ribs of twisted rebar. Beneath the cloudy heavens, the cracked and uneven asphalt is a night sky all its own, alive with star-like glitter of shattered window panes pushed from their warped metal frames, with a badly-rusted hubcap leaning against the curb for its lonely moon. The maples and hardy ginkgo trees that line the broken sidewalks like stationed sentries have grown unchecked, and they spread their grasping branches far and wide, as if seeking to snatch back more and more of what man once stole from the earth.

I gather up the bric-a-brac
In case one day they want it back.

In the fifth floor of the office building on what was once 14th Street, three soggy gypsum ceiling tiles shift in their frames. The squares, once bright white and cut through with their abstract gray squiggles, are now stained red and black with blooming mildew. They crumble softly and fall to the moldy carpet below with a wet, sloppy thud, taking their place among stray pieces of rotting paper, the remnants of a ceramic coffee mug, tufts of moldy yellow foam torn from the backs and seats of padded chairs, sticky clumps of last autumn's leaves blown in through the empty window frames, and soft-edged fragments of countless other ceiling tiles.

I gather up the bric-a-brac
In case one day they want it back.

Two streets down, and a left at the traffic signal that dangles from its wire like an eye hanging from a socket, stands a children's hospital. The brightly colored murals painted on the walls of the cancer ward have dulled over the years, and some of the colored plaster has chipped away, leaving gaping white wounds in the side of a tiger leaping through a pink hula hoop held by a girl whose fiery auburn hair has faded to a fragile, dusty shade of orange-gray. One of the bluebirds fluttering past the grinning, yellow-white sun has a roughly triangular patch of white obliterating its head, while another has had its wings clipped.

At the foot of the mural, what was once a play area for the stronger children remains. The small set of shelves, stacked with the soggy cardboard boxes that once housed Candyland and Monopoly Junior, is still standing, but is barer now. At its foot sits an empty plastic jar, formerly filled with colorful building bricks; a few stray bricks lie scattered over the moldy playroom rug. A plastic purple chest that was home to the children's stuffed animals--plastic-bean-filled birds with limp, spade-shaped wings, lions dressed in purple crushed-velvet robes, the ever-classic teddy bear, dolls whose eyes would close when they were laid on their backs, puppies who barked and turned flips when switched on--has been pushed onto its side, and now lies empty. The door at the other end of the room, which slumps dangerously on its lower hinge, squeals as it swings shut once more.

I gather up the bric-a-brac
In case one day they want it back.

Something shuffles down the hallway. Claws click against the cracked, water-stained tiles. The footfalls are uneven, and accompanied by the sound of something dragging against the floor. From time to time, these sounds fall silent. The world holds its breath. The rotting buildings lean in closer, tense with anticipation. A voice comes through the silence, eerie and sing-song. It rises and falls like the creaking of rusted hinges.

I gather up the bric-a-brac
In case one day they want it back.

The creature singing is an ugly beast with crooked, spindly legs. Its hard, gray skin is run through with cracks and creases, dotted with patches of moss and mold. Its heavy feet end in thick, pale claws of uneven lengths. One of its bulging eyes is a gangrenous shade of olive green; the other is cloudy and blind. One of its forepaws is wrapped around the top of an old burlap sack, which it drags behind it as it stumbles along; the bag is bloated with unknown cargo. From time to time, the creature pauses to sit back on its haunches and pat the sack affectionately, or reach inside with one paw and stroke what lays within. These respites are only momentary, though, and soon enough it is on the move again. Its single good eye darts around as it goes, peering into rooms and scanning them for treasure. At the end of the hall, it pushes open the door and begins to descend the staircase.

Down and down the creature goes, the shuffle-scrape of its claws the only sound of life in this deserted city. Sometimes the going is difficult. More than once, it has to take its sack into its mouth and leap over the gaps left by crumbled stairs, avoid patches of floor soaked in a foul, unidentifiable liquid, or push its way through high piles of fallen debris. Even when its mouth is full, though, it continues to hum its little melody to itself. Its unsteady voice rings off of the crumbling walls.

I gather up the bric-a-brac
In case one day they want it back.

The hospital basement was once as sterile and brightly-lit as the rest of the building. Airtight bins for biohazard waste lined one wall, their surfaces painted with all the warning symbols. Other rooms housed spare sheets, packaged sterile equipment, paperwork of years past, boxes of bright orange bags, the janitors' mops and buckets and bottles of sky-blue cleaning fluid. Shelves with contents neatly stacked. Everything orderly and labeled and straight and clean.

No more.

Now the basement is dark and dank. The clean, white posters on the walls are dotted with gray-green mildew, mold the color of drying blood. The bins are rusty, their paint flaking off and gathering on the floor like colorful snow. The saturated cardboard boxes, whose sagging flanks have been mangled--no doubt by the creature's cracked and broken claws--spill their contents into the puddle-spotted floor; the records and bills are ruined, and lay around in heavy, wet clumps. Here in this room, silhouetted by the weak moonlight trailing in from an empty window frame, stands the pile.Anything and everything makes up this massive mountain of collected curios, which sprawls across the center of the floor and stands nearly six feet tall at its highest points. A child's backpack. DVD cases. Video game cartridges. Sweatshirts with torn cuffs and peeling silk-screened logos. Tarnished silverware. Ripped paper plates. Saturated stuffed animals with moldy, matted fur and scratched plastic eyes. Rusty scissors. Waterlogged books. Stray socks. Coffee mugs with a dark brown ring forever stained into their ceramic hearts. Broken paintbrushes. A coloring book. A disconnected keyboard. A sapphire blue bridesmaid's gown with crumbling lace at the collar and a trailing satin sash once tied at the back into a big, gleaming bow. A power strip. Glass bottles. A porcelain raccoon. The left foreleg of a taxidermied grizzly bear.

I gather up the bric-a-brac
In case one day they want it back.

The creature pauses in front of this impressive pile, tilting its flat face up to take it all in. A smile stretches across its frog-like lips, and it sets down the sack. It reaches inside and begins to pull out the items it collected on its rounds tonight. Plastic building bricks. Bean-bag toys. A bag of coffee beans, dark roast. A mounted carp. A furry teddy bear dressed in a moldering cheerleader's outfit. Chipped, green-plastic houses from a Monopoly game. Picture books. A pair of glasses that lost their lenses. This and more the creature removes from its sack, and it arranges them all with the utmost care on its pile, singing all the while. Once the new additions are settled in place, it prowls forward and begins to climb the pile. Random bits of stuff, pieces of bric-a-brac, go tumbling down from its heavy feet. At the top of the pile, the ugly beast turns three circles and flops down, snuggling its grimy cheek against the pile. As it settles into sleep, it sings its little song one more time:

I gather up the bric-a-brac
In case one day they want it back.
But if that day should come, they'll find
What once was theirs is now all mine.

Pet Treasure


Red Fast Food Cup

Festival Litter

Dirty Socks

Headless Unlucky Bunny Plushie

Waterlogged Teddy Plushie

Torn Up Sketch Book

Moldy Disposable Fork

Stained and Torn Family Album

Clotted Green Cologne

Moldy Disposable Plate

Mossy Rubble

Rusted Milk Can

Waterlogged Teddy Plushie

Rotted Jump Rope

Zombie Chess Set

Pet Friends