From Matthias Haker’s Decay series

She looked up at the dripping world. Water dripping from dripping skies only to disappear into the gray-green grass. The water did not saturate. It disappeared into the grass, which was full to the brim with emptiness.

His shoes, worn out New Balances that collapsed, unable to hold their shape without a foot, were empty, unable to bear up. His Apple mug from the eighties was empty, as was his particle physics cup. She wished she hadn’t washed them yet. He’d them bought for nostalgic purposes. Not nostalgia. Nostalgic purposes. Because that’s the way he’d talked.

He’d liked things that had purpose, things that held memories were all right, but better yet if they also information or reminders of coffee or M&M’s. Even things that held memories should do something more than gather dust like his mother’s porcelain squirrels.

Their house full is full of things with purpose. (His mother’s squirrels went to a charity shop, after she died). Now he is gone and his shoes are empty, but she has his mugs…. She has his things with purpose, that have, just recently, acquired a new one. They must organize her memories of him. Half-finished books bought on that trip to Sonoma, the cord to an old cell that he kept in a shoebox, just in case, (“just in case” could be a worthy purpose). She would keep his favorite gin. She would keep his dark-roast in the jam jar. She would not consume them, for to do so would be to steal them from their purpose.