//The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away

"The entire room, from floor to ceiling, was filled with heaps of different types of garbage. But this wasn't a disgusting, stinking junkyard like the one in our yard or in the large bins near the gates of our building, but rather a gigantic warehouse of the most varied things, arranged in a special, one might say carefully maintained, order." (page 34)

Vivid images of my dad's home workplace came shooting through my mind after internalizing this thought. Despite having kept every scrap of paper and knick-knack since childhood, he has it organized in the most meaningful way imaginable and can recover an article at the drop of a hat. His memory has not failed him, nor are his reasons particularly sentimental – he just holds on to things for fear of needing them down the line to back up an obscure piece of knowledge lost otherwise to time. The main difference between my father and the character we know only by "the plumber" is that he still works and lives amongst his endless memorandum. For comfort, perhaps, or maybe because it is a natural product of never having moved residences upon establishing himself in a career. Regardless, what he retains is just as reflexive as the plumber's of the sum total of his being and contribution to the world.

"...going up to the large bundles of old boots, tin cans and similar junk hanging on long ropes attached to a nail which was driven deep into the wall, he could already guess what might be written on the white square tied to the end of each of these things." (Page 34)

Although I often refrain from symbolic interpretations of the elements in fiction, this passage struck me as a blatant representation of a plot or story – the expression "at the end of my rope" ties an inanimate object to an unexplainable phenomenon in nature so as to make the entire concept more manageable. From birth (the beginning of the rope) to death (the end), memorabilia are attached marking special events in the saga of the represented individual. Despite the pieces being insignificant out of context, it is clear that each represents much more. To the outsider, though, the story told through garbage might be just that – the plumber's narrative, though, aids those who wish to explore his narrative.