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My father always said that America was full of treasures, and I believed him. Proof was right there on our floor of the apartment building for graduate students. Everybody called it a storage closet, an eight-by-eight room next to the elevator with a single-tube fluorescent lamp illuminating the leftovers of academic lives. It was where the students deposited whatever didn’t fit their rooms or lives anymore—outdated textbooks, chairs with missing spindles, parkas with torn armpits. It smelled vaguely of perfume and burnt food, the best and worst of our little world.
It was mostly junk, but if you dug around, you’d find treasures. A Hot Wheels set a week after Christmas. A Brooks Brothers shirt missing a cuff button. A knockoff designer purse that made my mother’s cheeks flush with pleasure when we presented it to her. She carried it for years, tucked tight under her elbow to ward off thieves. I secretly called the closet my treasure room, but that was before it happened.
— “The Treasure Room” Descant Vol. 61 (2022)
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You can read the full story by purchasing a copy of Descant Vol. 61.
N.B. Descant is a print-only magazine. If you cannot access print, please contact me and I’ll send you an accessible version!
© Cristina Hartmann