The Collector

by Sarah Hilary © 2007

There wasn't much Stan hadn't seen in forty years working at the Baker Street lost property office, but the jar of bull's sperm gave him a moment's pause. He held it to the light and considered the sluggish way it moved in the glass, not quite like glue.

‘Poor cow.'

He put it aside and took to labeling the latest samurai sword. He'd dozens of the things; it made you wonder how many didn't get left behind on tube-trains or in taxis.

"Oi, Stan! Get a load of this."

Stan turned to the counter. Frank was fooling about with a wooden mask, African by the look of it, tribal; bared teeth, red stripe down the middle of the forehead and nose, hair carved in a style like an old-fashioned permanent wave.

"Put it with hats," he told Frank.

"Found at Turnham Green," Frank smirked. "And I should think it did. Turn ‘em green. Hideous-looking thing." He hung the mask off one hand, grimacing. "Think anyone'll come back for it?"

Stan wasn't prepared to say one way or the other. He'd organised the lost property so the items most likely to be collected were accessible: war medals, love letters, wallets and watches. Further back were the least likely collectibles, umbrellas and sex toys, salvage of that stamp. It was funny the stuff people'd come back for, and the stuff they wouldn't. He'd an urn of ashes gone unclaimed the whole time he'd been here. That sort of thing made Stan sad. He was never happier than when someone fetched up looking for what they'd lost and he was able to reunite them.

Such as now, an anxious-looking young man with the smell of the outdoors about him. His right wrist was strapped as if to support a bad strain, and he wore Wellington boots caked with dried mud.

"Let me guess, you've come for the bull's sperm."

"How did you..?"

"Frank, this gentleman's come for the jar from Ickenham."

"That load of old –?"

"Yes, thank you, Frank."

Happily, Stan handed it over. "All yours, sir. If you'll just sign here."

 

Bio: Sarah won the Fish Historical-Crime Contest with her story, Fall River, August 1892. Her story, The Eyam Stones, was runner-up in the Historical Contest. Both stories will be published in the Fish Anthology 2008. Sarah’s stories have been published in The Beat, Neon, Every Day Fiction, Idlewheel and the Boston Literary Magazine. Her short story, On the line, was published in the Daunt 2006 anthology. The Subatomic 2007 anthology features her story, LoveFM. She won the Litopia Contest in 2007 with The Chaperon. Sarah lives in the Cotswolds with her husband and young daughter. Website: www.writewords.org.uk/sarah_hilary/