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The Curator

He always thought that she was beautiful because she curated memories- the happy alongside the sad , by scribbling pieces of doggerels on  the walls of her room, by putting up pictures with fascinating captions over the cupboard, by preserving wishes in cards, poems on leaves, notes of admiration, doodles her friends had sketched and every piece of souvenir she could ever collect from the past.

The day he walked  into her two bedroom apartment on one corner of the block, he discovered this insane effort. With dinner plate eyes, he saw that she had, with immense passion (and patience), decorated the walls, the shabby ceilings, the blackened window panes and even the wooden base of the couch. As if, she could not, for one moment, not keep away from reminiscences. Like it was the only permanence amidst the unephemeral inconsistencies of life. The only solid rock in the depth of her oceans.
There was not an inch of her house ignorantly left naked, unadorned with art. From excerpts of love letters to fallen leaves of the most despondent autumn years ago,  every piece of memory was safe and preserved like the mummy of a long lost love.

So,  that day, as he walked out of her house brushing off all the other things he knew she wanted him to take back and only jittered with the epiphany that had eventually set in -
She curated, not memories, but people, relationships and above all, love.

And that made her beautiful all the more.


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