The Collector.

"A sour Skittle for your thoughts?" he asked.

"I don't like sour Skittles", she replied.

"They're quite amazing you know," he countered.

"I find them vile, and evil".

He arched his right brow, demanding an explanation.

"They're sour, yet sweet, thought bittersweet would be the wrong word to use, and the minute they enter your mouth, you escape your own shell for minute, and focus all your energy on getting over that sour paralysis they seem to ignite," she explained.

"Wow, sour Skittles analysis?" he murmured.

"And you want in on my thoughts".

"Please, by all means share those. I will not judge", he bargained.

"It wouldn't matter if you did, and I think you know that, just as well", she uttered with a smirk.

"Sadly, that is true. Still, on a more serious note...those thoughts?"






"The many words unsaid", she stated at last.

"What about them?"


"There's the said.
Selectively constructed verbalizations.
And then, there's the unsaid.
A disparaging mess."

She paused.
And he sucked on another Skittle.
She looked at him - so very unaffected by the its tangy taste.

"Do go on... a disparaging mess?"

"Within every person, resides the said and the unsaid.
The said at times brings much relief, for it frees and rescues the soul, in a timely, yet miniscule manner.
The unsaid, is a constantly-procreating particle of lead. And one day, it becomes a sheet of lead, and then a block of lead ...

Now, hypothetically speaking, if there was an 'unsaid words' collector - he would be the most engaged man* around.
Every minute, he would transport buckets of unsaid words to his small corner, and start fitting the interconnecting parts; start penetrating the thick layers of enigma obstructing the bigger picture.

He would see what she can't see.
He would see what you can't see.
He would see what they can't see.


He would finally understand - make sense of the jumbles, and the odds and ends.

And within his reach, would lay the key to everything. To everyone's souls.
Now, that's ultimate power."


He looked at her in masked awe.

She silently implored him to reply.

He ignored that urge.

There was too much unsaid.
There was too much to unchain.

Better keep the way it is, held by bare threads - yet held all the same.

She laughed sardonically. "Look at us, having a heart-to-heart about the 'unsaid words' collected, when he's no more real than Tinker Bell herself. It's okay, I wasn't really expecting much of a reply anyway. It seems the fruitless 'said', is all we have. I'd explain more, but you wouldn't begin to grasp the gist of it."

With that, she selected a green Skittle from his packet, popped it in her mouth, and let its sour-numbing effect take over - and in that little while she didn't think, for she didn't have to.


He started to say something, and then stopped. He stared at her walking way, becoming more and more distant.

'I understand' he wanted to say.

Many a day when he would dream of being that very same man.
Yet the much unsaid outweighed his understanding, and so he said nothing.
Nothing at all.

*Note: 'man' here is derived from mankind, and not the other constituents of the population.

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