999 Paper Cranes

“Junk shop” was an apt name for the sad excuse of a building hunched in the shadowy corner of the plaza, with an abandoned shop on one side and an abandoned-looking donation store on the other. A sign with half its lights cracked or gone out named the junk shop Unfinished Tales in flickering, faded blue neon, as pitiful a relic of days gone by as the store itself. Looking at this forgotten place, you had to wonder who bothered to keep the lights on, and why.

​

The door handle was rusty around the edges, so Gracious was surprised when it turned smoothly in her grasp, the door opening with nothing but a slight creak and the gentle chime of a bell. The smell of the shop came to her at once—old, a little dusty, but somehow comforting. It reminded her of her grandmother’s house, the faint memories rising to mind with surprising strength. After all, Nan had died when Gracious was four and she’d never set foot in that house again.

​

Gracious shook off the intrusive memories—she wasn’t here to reminisce—and took in the shop’s interior. The place was lit with a soft light that mingled with the dust motes in the air in such a way that it gave a hazy effect to the objects displayed on the show’s many shelves. These shelves created something of a maze; some stretched the length of the shop, others created hallways with turns that disappeared into the dim recesses of the building. Gracious had thought of the junk store as a tiny building, but now that she was inside it seemed like it might go on forever.

Maybe I can just disappear in here.

​

The other thing that struck her as she took in the space was the utter lack of sound. There was no quiet hum of machinery, no creaking and groaning such as many old buildings tended to make, and no voices. The only sound was her own breathing, which seemed to hang in the air and accumulate like the dust motes. She swallowed uncomfortably, and that, too, seemed more pronounced than it should have been.

​

Her skin started to itch with a desire to leave, but she couldn’t afford to waste her trip out here. It was just a building, after all. She shouldn’t let old things make her feel this way.

​

She took a step into the shop and let the door swing shut behind her—another creak, another ring of the bell. The floor sighed beneath her weight, the wood giving in a way title never did. It caught her off guard and she stumbled half a step before catching her balance again. Embarrassing to be seen tripping and falling over nothing, it was a good thing the shop seemed empty.

​

Just like that, in a blink, it wasn’t. Gracious nearly stumbled again when she saw the man standing at the end of one of the shelves, looking at her.

​

“Welcome in,” he said in a quiet voice. He either hadn’t noticed Gracious’s clumsiness, or didn’t care to comment on it.

​

“Um, hi.” Gracious got her footing firmly beneath her. “Are you open?” A dumb  question—the door had opened, hadn’t it? But something about this place made her feel off-balance and uncertain.

​

The man had a cloth in one hand and was idly twisting it around something in his other. “Every day, ten o’clock until four.”

​

The man had an accent that Gracious couldn’t place. Something in the even cadence of his speech and the roundness of his words sounded foreign. With his shaggy,  just shy of too long hair, his easy, slightly slumped posture, and his handmade clothes with buttons and worn elbows and frayed edges, he fit perfectly in a place where old things were kept.

​

He, too, reminded Gracious of Nan, and she again had to push aside the half-remembered memories starting to surface. She wasn’t here to browse, or to chat.

​

Yet Gracious’s eyes roved the neatly-filled shelves anyway as she said, “I’m looking for an old device. It’d be oval-shaped and rounded at the edges, small enough to fit in your hand. It was called a Disregard?” Gracious could picture the device in her mind’s eye—or at least, she could picture the image she’d seen of the old machine.

The man showed no signs of curiosity or interest at Gracious’s request, his hands still moving idly as he nodded once or twice. “Seems I should have something like what you’re looking for in stock. Not a common piece of old tech but they’re still around. Follow me.”

​

Gracious fell in behind the man as he started down one of the aisles. The shelves rose above her and cut off the view of the rest of the store, reducing her world to corridors and rows of strange items. Some Gracious could recognize, but others presented a mystery as she pondered what use each object might have had once upon a time. She found herself wishing she could wander the store alone, taking her time to examine each object that caught her eye. Funny, how any other shopping trip was a focused thing, and she could walk past any number of goods without a second glance; but here, it seemed nearly everything called out to be looked at.

​

But the shop owner strode the corridors of shelves without hesitation, unhurried, but purposeful. He didn’t say a word and was still twisting that cloth in his hands. Maybe it was some kind of nervous tic.

​

With nothing but the sound of their footsteps echoing down the aisles, Gracious felt the urge to fill the silence—another trait abnormal to her. Yet when would she enter a place such as this again, and have the opportunity to purchase such unique items? Better if the answer was never, so maybe she should take advantage of her time here.

​

“Where do you get all these things?” she asked, lightly touching a small statue as she passed it by. The sculpture was of some twisting, ribbon-like creature she couldn’t’ identify.

​

“A lot get brought in by people—usually auditors who’ve just seen an old home demolished. Others, I find here and there.”

​

Nan’s home had been demolished. Gracious wondered with a start if her things had ended up in a place like this, or maybe even this very shop. Would Gracious recognize any of them if they had?

​

She needed to stop thinking about Nan and that old house. “Do a lot of people come here?”

​

“Not really. All this old stuff doesn’t have much use for most people. Tales is more like a museum than a store”

​

“But you must sell enough to stay in business.”

​

“Who said anything about business?”

​

The wry statement caught Gracious off-guard, and she didn’t know what to say. She continued to follow the man, in silence now, and looked at the objects around her with a new light. There must have been hundreds or thousands of items on display, yet there was no dust, no accumulated grime. The items were set neatly on the shelves, and she now realized that there was an order to it all. Heavier objects were displayed lower; one long shelf held nothing but old containers of all sorts, arranged by material and size. As she passed a row of books, Gracious guessed that a close examination would show them to be organized by alphabet or some other method.

​

More like a museum indeed. Yet it cost money to rent the building, to keep the lights on, to maintain a seller’s license. So the man must get money somehow. Gracious was curious, but it felt rude to inquire further.

​

Nothing more was said until the man stopped at a small shelf tucked around a corner. He bent down and selected an item that Gracious recognized as a Disregard. Her hear quickened as he straightened and held up his hand to show her.

​

“One Disregard; excellent condition; 2334 manufacture date; two previous owners; standard gray.”

Gracious hardly heard him rattle off those facts, her attention was so focused on the Disregard. It looked both larger and smaller than she’d expected, and somehow…innocuous. She’d spent weeks walking around her apartment with similarly-shaped items in hand so she could get used to the sensation, but looking now at the real thing she had the sense that it would be like holding nothing.

​

She asked, “How much does it cost?” The price didn’t matter, of course, but asking felt like the correct next step. Besides, she was suddenly hesitant to touch the thing, and so invited any delay. But she didn’t even listen to the answer.

​

“…will you be taking this piece today?”

​

Gracious blinked, nodding before she was aware of it.

​

“And is there anything else I can help you find today?”

​

“Thanks. That’s it.”

​

Back through the shelves. This time, Gracious’s urge to stop and look was stronger than ever. There were paintings—mostly digital, but a few contemporary pieces, too. Others bits of old machinery and devices. Blankets, quilts, and other handmade items. She wanted to look at them all.

​

But in a blink she was standing at the front of the store in front of a cashier kiosk. The shop owner bundled her Disregard into a few layers of cloth, then into a box for her to carry away. She gave him her payment chip and he ran it through the machine. A screen popped up to confirm her identity.

​

“Gracious Sharpe,” the man said, a new tone slipping into his voice. “That’s a beautiful name. Unusual.”

​

“Everyone calls me Grace. Except my Nan.” She wasn’t sure why she’d told him that, but he nodded like he’d really been listening.

​

“Do you know much about these old Disregards?” he asked.

​

She knew they helped people disappear way back in the fourth and fifth wars. That was what mattered.

​

When she didn’t answer, the man went on.

​

“They were popular during the wars of course, but what nobody ever seems to ask is why they essentially disappeared after that. It’s a remarkable piece of tech, yet it goes unremarked upon. Isn’t that curious?”

​

She supposed it was if you thought about it. But there was such peace after the fourth war—who would need or want to disappear during good times?

​

Gracious’s payment finished processing. She took her chip back from the man and reached for the box—and suddenly, she saw him. He was taller than she’d first thought, his eyes sharper, his features clearer. He had freckles and a little scar on the side of his nose. A nametag on his shirt gave his named, Errol Hugh. Gracious blinked. How had these details escaped her before?

​

Errol passed her the box with her Disregard inside. Both hands. The towel and whatever he’d been polishing with it were gone. He was looking very seriously at her.

​

“Can I tell you something about this device before you go and use it?”

​

How did he know she wasn’t buying it for someone else, or as a decorative piece? But she said, “Okay.”

​

“The thing about Disregards is they work both ways. What I mean is, people disregard the user, but the user ends up disregarding other people themselves, and eventually, the device itself.”

​

He frowned, thoughtful a moment, and went on. “The reason Disregards disappeared is that the people using them forgot they were using them. Then they forgot about themselves and, well, who know what happened to them after that.”

​

It sounded theatrical to Gracious. A person couldn’t just forget themselves. Okay, so it had happened a lot in the VR days, but that was why such technology had been outlawed, and long before things like Disregards  were invented.

Yet she didn’t think Errol was trying to scare her. And why would he? He’d lose a sale. So why warn her off the device at all?

​

“I’ll be careful,” Gracious tried to sound light-hearted, even flippant, as she reached for the box.

​

Errol wasn’t fooled. “It’s easier than you think, to forget who you are, and a lot harder to remember later.”

​

He relinquished the box to her, and as she took it, the towel appeared again in his hand. Gracious grasped the box, shaking a little as she took its light weight into her hands. Such an innocuous thing, yet it would change her life. Maybe save it.

​

The man behind the counter offered her a smile. “Thank you for coming in today. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

​

Gracious nodded and left the little shop, listening one last time to the chime of the bell. She breathed out, unsure what she was feeling. Relief? Fear? A mixture of emotion she could not put names to swirled about her soul. She pushed them aside, to be processed at another time.

​

But as she made her way home, she felt her hand curving, preparing to hold the object hidden away in the box.

 

Gracious didn’t even open the box for four days. It wasn’t because she was scared, she told herself, but rather because disappearing as she intended to took some time to prepare for. Where would she live when her landlord forgot the apartment was hers and rented it out to someone else? Were would she get money when her boss struck her unfamiliar name from the employee roster? Could she get food at a charity drive if no one noticed she was there?

On the fifth day she decided to test the device. She opened the box and lifted the cloth-bound bundle out, placing it on her kitchen table. Carefully, she unwrapped the bundle, until the Disregard lay exposed in its center. So small and simple. If you weren’t looking for it specifically, you’d walk right past without even noticing.

Well, wasn’t that the point?

Gracious reached for the device. The closer her hand came to it, the more she felt a tingling sensation in her hand; an itch that couldn’t be scratched. When her hand connected with the Disregard, fingers curling around it, the tingling stopped. She slowly breathed out a pent up breath.

The Disregard was smooth, and perfectly room temperature, and it fit Gracious’s hand like it was made to go there. In her practice, she’d gripped the items in her hand until her palm seated and the muscles ached, building up an ability to carry the device for hours at a time. But the actual Disregard was almost weightless, and she found that she could hold it in a light grip. It was almost as if it were suctioned to her, holding her as much as she held it.

“This was meant to be,” she whispered.

This was right. This was how she would make things right.