I no longer save anything, my life is a steady effort to shed the litter of time; but when I was too young to understand the covetous nature of memory, I preserved the casual souvenirs of my life with a hoarder's passion, with the true dedication of an archivist. Nothing was too trivial for inclusion in the large red-spined letter boxes I was given by my uncle Jack, nothing so ordinary that it did not acquire, by association with my life, the aura of a relic. Rescued from oblivion, guarded against neglect, I stored myself carefully against extinction.

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