2024:
he has never stopped starting, bye bye bookcase (unpacking peculiar meditations on packin it up and packin it in)
He is 37 years old and his parents insist on sending him away to sleepaway camp with bunk mates who are middle teens just starting to.
He insists for the 26th summer running on bringing many boxes to fill a large bookcase in his debunk full of books and wounded trinkets. He unpacks them and then does not touch any of them once. He has never touched any of them once in 26 summers.
On the day of camp’s end he finishes boxing up his tattersall boxers and smugly surveys his fellows who have procrastinated their own packing for far too long. Then he realizes he has yet to pack his bookcase as the movers wait impatiently outside. He sighs deeply at the remaining tattered dregs of boxes and tape.
The head mover inspects one of the tomb-sized art tomes with a cryptic cover stamp teetering on the top shelf, shakes his head gravely mumbling something about the customs risks of shipping it back down through Maine and Massachusetts.
He thinks to leave this all behind.
The lovely red-haired vivacious camp owner manager Adrianne with the thin swaying little rump he has quite the little crush on smiles breezily and sings gaily oh leave whatever you want behind there.
He replies: Oh good then I can then visit you them whenever I’m in town.
She says yes of course! with that fleeting never smile which breaks his heart.
Randy older than him says I’m sorry dude but that you have never stopped starting and helps him finish packing, including a small collection of turquoise and black splatched trinkets from the bookcase that seems to be worth something.
He releases the rest behind.
He breathes out hoping he will never have to go to that camp again or ever again fill and unfill that bookcase.