The Collected...A Short Story

 Flash Fiction Photo Prompt--Get Inspired!

This week's writing exercise began with an amazing picture. I mean, check it out! How can you not get inspired by that? But, the required words were a little tough to incorporate. Here are the rules to the Photo Prompt:

1) Use the photo and the 5 words provided in your story
2) Keep your word count 500 words or less.
3) You have until next Tuesday to link up your post.
4) Link up your story at these sites: Nicole, Carrie, Tena, or Leanne.
5) Have fun, don’t stress, let those creative juices flow.

 This Week's Words:

Factory
Dock
Comedy
Sign
Riddle

 Enjoy!

 The Collected

When he saw one, he picked it up, no matter the condition. Each piece of aged plastic or porcelain added to his collection. For decades he policed the empty halls of the abandoned children's hospital, a solitary figure among the souls of ghosts.

At first he ignored the trash, his job was to patrol the rooms and halls and labs of a hospital no longer needed once the childhood disease disappeared from existence. Someone else was to clean the place and in his opinion, they failed at their assignment. But after years of checking for unwanted and unauthorized "guests," he began to notice the small things, the things the vandals and taggers left behind. Gone were the Surgery & Morgue signs--any sign on any door, actually--which probably found their way into college dorms or antique shops. Missing for years were chairs and light fixtures, and even doorknobs. Only the refuge remained.

The first time he saw a set of glazed blue eyes hiding under an old newspaper, it froze his blood. The intact face called to him and made him think of the dolls his daughter used to play with. He picked it up and it mocked him as he held it in his hand. The indifferent face reminded him that his family no longer existed as the cohesive unit it once was when he worked as a dock worker. Those were the days before the factory shut down and left almost everyone in town unemployed. Those were the days before his wife took their daughter in the middle of the night and left. At first he thought it was a joke, some sick comedy from which he would awake. It was not. He never unraveled the riddle of her disappearance, and he never heard from either of them again, not in 23 years.

He brought each new addition to his empty home and placed it with the others. The silence from the objects emanated from the box to the rest of his apartment and filled the space with sorrow and loneliness, turning the rooms where he lived to an extension of the darkened halls of the hospital. He began his latest work shift wondering if he would find another treasure, or return home alone.

Word Count: 379