We returned home one year from a worldcon (world science fiction convention, for those who may not know the nomenclature)—I forget which year—and promptly I lost a book. Or a box of books. You see, we’d early on gotten into the habit of mailing our purchases home rather than try to take boxes of books on the plane. (The first worldcon we went to in 1984 resulted in about three hefty boxes going back, all of which cost around a hundred and fifty dollars. Today that much would fit in one (small) box.) This system worked pretty well until this time. I think it must have been Chicago in 2000.
We—I—misplaced a box. So I thought. We were rearranging the house once again, moving things from one place another, and along the way I thought this one box of books had disappeared. Oh, it was in the house, certainly, buried inadvertently, and one year it would reappear. But it never did, not even through subsequent house cleanings.
Over time the contents of this box took on mythic status. I only recalled one title that was in it, Dan Simmons’ Crook Factory, but I knew there must be others in there from maybe George R.R. Martin or Greg Bear or Emma Bull or a collectible hardcover by some SF luminary. It was a small box that acquired supreme status.
Well, this morning I found it. Or, rather, I found the one title I specifically remembered, the Dan Simmons. Not in a box with other books from a worldcon, but in a plastic file box filled with old Scientific Americans. One book.
As soon as I saw it I realized that the rest of the box did not exist. I’d put this book in with these magazines to get it out of the way while I did…something. It then ended up at the bottom of one of the closets in my office, and would have remained there had I not got it in my head a few weeks ago to completely purge this space.
The bubble burst, all those other volumes—which, tellingly, I could not recall—have vanished in memory. They never existed.
Now, I have lost stories of my own before, put somewhere to wait until I got back to them…those are not mythical, and some of them were masterpieces which may never see the light of day again.