The Paradoxicon, Chapter One: Victor Frank

Chapter One

Victor Frank

For just over a year now, he has been collecting things and taking photographs of them. Everything he finds, he places in The Room of Forgotten things.

Victor has always collected things: badges, cigarette cards, games consoles and computers...He has a fascination with history, things past; forgotten things. He buys job lots of CDs and DVDs online; out-of-print books and hard-to-find original, uncut versions of cult and horror films, mainly by Japanese and Italian directors and mostly from the seventies and eighties. He owns all of the titles banned under the Video Recordings Act of 1984. He had too much to keep in the living area of his new flat, so now he's going through his own things and those of the previous tenant and separating them into things to be remembered and those he'll forget. Often he goes into the loft to reminisce over his own forgotten things from his past; to remember, to have regrets and to torture himself.

When Victor moved to his current flat, the previous tenant had left in a hurry. The landlord had offered to clear everything that the departed occupant had left behind but Victor was fascinated by this abandoned life. So he set about collecting things he found interesting from around the flat: books, CDs and DVDs; old VHS tapes and audio cassettes of the kind he used to make music compilations on and give to his latest girlfriend. Some items were too large to keep, so he disposed of them - mainly by selling them - but never without photographing them first. The landlord had no knowledge of the previous tenant's whereabouts. The flat was on the top floor of a converted manor house and it had a loft. This became the room of forgotten things.

The room is becoming crowded, so Victor is spending a Sunday afternoon in the loft sorting through the forgotten things, being reminded of and reminiscing over his own past. Occasionally he finds something he thinks he should throw out. But every time he puts something in the box destined for the skip, he wonders if one day he might need it. It's only once something is gone that you miss it, even if you didn't know it was there before; Like only realising that you took something for granted once it's gone and you miss it. He becomes reacquainted with some of the lost things and others he sees for the first time, in the boxes of things left by the previous tenant and which he sometimes sorts through. 

He has no room for anything else downstairs in the living room or the bedroom. Those rooms are large enough but they're the only two he has in the flat besides the loft and the bathroom. And there's only so much you can justify having in a bathroom. The flat isn't cluttered but it's laid out just so; just the way Victor likes it, with everything in its place, until he finds another cast off or bargain online or in a charity shop and needs to move something into the loft to make way for a new acquisition downstairs. 

The sound of David Bowie fills the living room below and floats up into the loft. Victor is playing Bowie's Hunky Dory album and the current track is Quicksand: "...Don't believe in yourself / Don't deceive with belief / Knowledge comes with death's release...". He has all of David Bowie's studio albums, plus compilations, tribute albums full of cover versions of Bowie's greatest hits, every film Bowie was in and several books. His most prized piece of Bowie memorabilia is a signed copy of Diamond Dogs on vinyl, which he has hanging on the living room wall. Up here in the loft are the vinyl albums which the CDs replaced. Even though the vinyl albums are packed away, they're in chronological order in their storage box, just as they are on the shelves downstairs, where Bowie's albums are between those of James Blunt and The Carpenters, also in chronological order. 

Looking through the old vinyl collection, Victor is reminded of times spent with Julia, punctuated by the Bowie albums they listened to so much. He can't decide if it's an ironic or poetic coincidence that the Bowie collection downstairs is sandwiched between two pieces of music which signalled the beginning and the end of his ten year marriage to Julia. The first dance at their wedding reception was We've Only Just Begun by The Carpenters and when Julia ended their relationship, James Blunt was on the radio: ..."Goodbye my lover / Goodbye my friend / You have been the one / You have been the one for me...".

Behind the boxes of vinyl records are two boxes marked "Photoes xx": Julia had helped him pack and had labelled most of the boxes. Spelling and grammar weren't her strong points; one of the few things which grated Victor a little, being grammar school educated. He'd often point out those redundant "E"s to her, or misplaced apostrophes but then she'd get upset and he'd realise he was being snobbish and morally superior. She was a sweet girl and a great mum to their kids, often covering for him when he wasn't home for the children's bedtime, or he was away for days on end. Victor rarely had to offer an explanation for these periods of absence and when he did, Julia believed him. 

As he turned through the pages of the photo albums, Victor felt guilty; guilty that he may not have treated Julia as well as he might. Maybe he should have explained those nights away but at the time, there was no pressure nor reason to do so. The photos in the albums were arranged in chronological order and Victor wondered at how he and Julia had aged in their time together. 

He was procrastinating; dwelling on the past; a past he had no chance of getting back. If only he could travel back in time, make changes and not do some of the things he'd done. But the past is where it is and must stay there. Before moving onto the box he'd come to find among the forgotten things, Victor took out the last photo album. These were the last photos of the time he and Julia spent together and they were a family then, with two young children. Hunky Dory was still playing downstairs and the words from Kooks floated into the room of forgotten things: "...Will you stay in our lovers story / If you stay, you won't be sorry / 'cos we believe in you. / Soon you'll grow / So take a chance / With a couple of kooks / I'm up on romancing... I bought a lot of things to keep you warm and dry / and a funny old crib on which the paint won't dry / I bought you a pair of shoes / A trumpet you can blow and a book of rules / of what to say to people when they pick on you / 'cos if you stay with us you're gonna be pretty kooky too... Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cats / 'cos I'm not much good at fighting other people's dads / And if the homework brings you down / then we'll throw it on the fire and take the car down town...". Victor was singing the words he knew so well, as that song was the one he'd sing to the children to get them off to sleep. When they drifted off, Victor would leave them and say, "Daddy will see you in dreamland. Every night."

He found it difficult to look at the photos of the kids and looking up, Victor saw the box he'd originally come to sort through. Sealed with green parcel tape to differentiate them from his own, all of the previous tenant's boxes were categorised along with his. So behind Victor's boxes of music were the records and CDs which had belonged to his predecessor. To the left and behind his own boxes of photos were more boxes, sealed with green tape. And beneath those was the box he needed; the one he'd forgotten about in this room of forgotten things. He couldn't even remember how he'd labelled the box, nor categorised the contents.

Victor stepped over his photo collection and lifted two boxes, sealed with green tape and marked "Photos". Now he remembered what was in the bottom box as he read the label:

"Doctor Brunner: tape recordings and transcripts."