STUFF

Written by Sofía Martínez Álvarez
Content Warning: Implied Depression

I have a fancy watch and it sits in a drawer in a closet piled with Stuff and it doesn’t tell the time
or the date but it has thirteen shiny stones on it and I think about it often, which is basically the
same thing as wearing it, so my fancy watch sits in a drawer in a closet piled with Stuff and
watches me instead.

I imagine my fancy watch watching me all the time. How bored it must be! My poor
fancy watch in a drawer in a closet piled with Stuff probably thinks the closet is stuffy, it
probably watches each individual particle of dust float and land on my Stuff. It probably thinks
my Stuff is ugly and dirty because it hasn’t been washed or worn or folded and put away. I
should probably throw my Stuff away, but it’s in a big messy pile, and I don’t think anyone
would want to go into the stuffy dusty closet with me to help carry it all outside.

It’s just that the closet is stuffy because I don’t open the closet door, and the closet
collects dust because I’ve never owned a duster, no one has ever taught me how to use a duster,
although I guess maybe normal people are intuitively born with dusting skills, so they don’t have
to worry about dusty piled Stuff. If I dust, will my pile of Stuff magically become easier to wash
and wear and fold and put away? If I wash and wear and fold and put it away, will my Stuff be
less stuffy? Will I finally watch my fancy watch tell time? Will this please my fancy watch?

I bet my fancy watch feels bad for me. I bet it thinks about ticking every so often just to
see if I’ll notice that it’s there and take it out to admire it, if I will linger and recall how it used to
sparkle on my wrist, if the two of us will be reunited in glory at last! But then, I bet my fancy
watch remembers that I put it in a drawer in a closet piled with Stuff to get stuffy and it doesn’t
tick even once out of spite.

Maybe my fancy watch is trying to mock me! It and its thirteen shiny stones with its
classy metal band; those perfect tiny numbers beneath those slender burnished arms; that genius
precise machinery designed to tell strict meticulous time. It’s mocking me! My fancy watch that
sits in a drawer in a closet piled with Stuff spends hours and days and months watching me do
nothing. My fancy watch judges my tangled greasy hair with its tired brassy color; those squishy
pale rolls on my back beneath those ugly red spots; that tired sloppy body designed only to move
from the bed to the kitchen and from the kitchen back to bed.

My fancy watch, I wish I could be as flawless and unbothered as you. It is I who mock
your stillness out of envy. Come, come out, let me show you! I have my own drawer that I sit in
in a closet piled with Stuff, and I don’t tell the time or the date either. I don’t tick or tock at all.
Fancy watch, why aren’t I gleaming?

Fancy watch, this Stuff really is stuffy. I wish someone would come in and dust me.
Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit in someone else’s drawer? Wouldn’t you love to be
wrapped around a real wrist?

Oh, no, not my wrist! Mine isn’t worthy, fancy watch. I haven’t washed or worn or folded
or put away any of my Stuff yet. Not yet. Not yet. Maybe someday. Probably never. Go see the
world without me. Find a better drawer. Please don’t waste your magnificent minutes and
splendid seconds sitting among all of this stuffy dusty Stuff.

.

Sofia is a Colombian musician, writer, and independent bookseller living in Edinburgh with her partner and fluffy black cat named Chaos. She received her MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. Her rambling is showcased on her social media @whensofiawrites (X, formerly Twitter) and @sofiiiaam (Instagram).