The Plot Calls #21 : "Collecting Meaning"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Wallace Parr’s house was full. Overfull. Cluttered to the point of collapse.

Shoeboxes leaned like tower ruins in every hallway. Stacks of unopened merch, premium packaging still intact, clogged the living room.

His bedroom closet? Sealed shut. Even the bathtub stored Funko Pop crates, “vintage” graphic tees, and rare imported snacks he’d never eat.

None of it was love. Not joy. Not hobby. Only hunger.

Not for food. Not for the things themselves. Hunger for meaning. Ceaseless gluttony.

Wallace never opened packages. Ownership was the drug. The moment of acquisition gave him a flash of “I got it.” Then, emptiness crept back in.

Wallace didn’t watch unboxings. He was one—an empty container, filled momentarily by delivery.

He didn’t eat much. Didn’t stream anything. Didn’t read the news. Didn’t talk to people—not really. Not beyond quick chats in reseller forums or arguments over drops and market value.

Wallace Parr wasn’t lonely however. He was plugged in. Still—none of it made him feel like he existed. Buying was the only time Wallace existed. He slept three hours a night, max. He’d wake in cold sweats, open four tabs, check alerts from bidding apps and “members-only” pre-orders.

Sometimes he bought the same thing twice and didn’t care.

The world outside? Dull. Colorless. Muted like a background tab. Open, available, yet forgotten.

Then, came a whisper.

No voice. No sound. A vibration that called from beneath thought—a feeling outside that called a feeling within him.

Naturally, Wallace followed the sound. If he ignored it, it might never return, so he answered the call.

Wallace stepped over boxes in the hallway, kicked aside packaging foam. He shuffled cases stacked in his kitchen, past unopened foreign food boxes. He followed the call down into his basement: a room once used for holidays, now a graveyard of his most treasured purchases, collectibles, and “I already own it” stockpile.

There—between two crates of sealed sports memorabilia—shimmered a light.

A patch—no, a plot of soil. Black. Violet. Iridescent.

Centered in the plot… a porcelain hand. Upturned. Expectant.

Impossibly still. Impossibly real. Impossibly beautiful.

Without hesitation, Wallace reached behind him, into a collector’s case.

Inside, cushioned by velvet and reverence, sat his rarest item: A signed rookie baseball from the only game his late father ever took him to. It was priceless. Irrreplaceable.

Wallace didn’t blink. He placed the baseball inside the porcelain palm.

The hand closed around it, then retracted into the shimmering soil.

The offering was accepted.

“I fed you. You feed me,” Wallace whispered, feeling seen and understood. He salivated for accumulation to fill the unexamined void and paid the price to receive it.

The plot pulsed. The pact was forged. Wallace was tied to The One Beneath the soil.

The next morning, packages appeared.

Shoes. Limited drop. Hype-tier. Size and color—perfect. He hadn’t ordered them. And yet, they were real. Physical. Tangible.

He laughed for the first time in years, then ran back to the basement.

The hand waited. Wallace wanted. He grinned and thought of more—jerseys, sneakers, trading cards, wrestling belts, baseballs, footballs, comics, and vintage toys.

Wallace Parr did not stop. Not after the first delivery. Not after the jerseys. Not after the rare controller set that hadn’t existed on retail shelves in fifteen years.

He fed the Plot, and the Plot delivered. Every offering was answered. His old trophies went next—peewee ribbons, Little League plaques, a medal from a regional spelling bee he forgot he even won.

The porcelain hand accepted them all, always vanishing into the soil with silent grace.

Wallace had never felt more… alive. Each package became a hit. Each knock on the door, a fix. Each item, validation. And yet—he never kept any of it.

It wasn’t about owning. It was about receiving. The act. The transaction. The rush.

He never even touched the jerseys. Didn’t remove the controller from the box. Never tried the shoes on. He stacked the packages in towers. Shrines to something he couldn’t name.

And the Plot demanded more.

It whispered now. Still soundless. Still internal. But louder than thought.

At night, he lay surrounded by shelves and mailers, buzzing with hunger. Echoes of The One Beneath.

He offered his childhood video game system. He offered old photos. He offered the gift his sister gave him on the night she moved away. He hadn’t spoken to her since.

Each item sank. Each delivery arrived. Each breath became shallower. Each thought became thinner.

He didn’t eat. Didn’t sleep. Didn’t leave. Time frayed. Days became events marked only by deliveries and offerings.

The hand stopped reaching. The soil no longer needed to be asked. It just took.

Wallace barely noticed when his reflection changed. His cheeks, gaunt. His skin, thin and powdered like dusted vinyl. His pupils, always dilated—like waiting for a dopamine hit that never came.

But he smiled. Because more always came.

Until it didn’t.

The deliveries slowed. Then stopped. He offered more—expensive collectibles, fan-signed posters, authenticated gear.

The Plot pulsed, but nothing arrived. His phone no longer lit up. Shipping alerts dried out. Even reseller bots ignored him.

Desperate, Wallace staggered down the basement stairs—knees buckling, hands trembling. He fell to his knees before the soil.

“Why?” he rasped. “I gave you everything.”

But he hadn’t.

The whisper returned—gentle, insidious. There was still more to give. More to lose. More to shed.

And in the back of his mind, Wallace understood: He wasn’t collecting anymore. He was being emptied.

Wallace stopped making offers. Not because he didn’t want to—but because there was nothing left to give.

The shelves were bare. The floor, open. The walls, visible for the first time in years.

No boxes. No packages. No cluttered shrines to impulse or nostalgia. Just a hollow man and the soil that never blinked.

He sat beside the Plot, legs crossed, arms limp, eyes sunken. He didn’t cry. He didn’t plead. He just waited. Because that was the truth beneath it all—

He didn’t want things. He wanted to be filled.

But the Plot had only ever mirrored him. And Wallace Parr had always been empty.

He offered his name next.

He said it aloud. Quiet. Almost shy. Like giving away the last piece of a puzzle he couldn’t solve.

The soil pulsed once. As if nodding.

That night, Wallace dreamed of tunnels. Interwoven caverns made of teeth and broken glass. He wandered barefoot, cutting himself, leaving no blood. Just paper and receipts and expired gift cards.

In the distance, he heard a lullaby. Familiar. Warm. His mother’s voice? Or a commercial jingle?

He followed the song. It led him back to the basement.

Back to the Plot.

When Wallace awoke, a figure stood beside him.

Tall. Still. Dressed in black robes like mourning silk.

The Idle Man.

Not waiting. Not watching. Just there—as if he’d always been part of the house.

Wallace didn’t scream. Didn’t speak. He simply looked.

The Idle Man held a photo in one hand: Wallace as a boy, smiling beside his parents—Christmas morning, maybe. Something real. Something before.

In his other hand: a knife. Small. Ceremonial. Beautiful.

Wallace swallowed.

“It’s never enough,” he said. “Is it?”

The Idle Man turned his hollow face. Not pity. Not judgment. Just reflection.

“Never was.”

Then silence. Thick. Eternal.

Wallace knelt beside the soil. He placed his hand on the edge of the plot. Fingers trembling, breath shallow.

He whispered something no one would hear. Then, he let go. Life oozed down his neck.

The soil shimmered. The basement dimmed.

The photo crumbled. The blade vanished. The Idle Man stepped backward, fading into the space between walls.

And Wallace Parr—the man who bought everything to feel something—was gone.

Officer Gunn entered the basement days later. He stopped cold. The walls buzzed. The soil shimmered faintly.

Officer Alvarez arrived behind him, already uneasy. “You okay, Gunn?” he asked.

Gunn didn’t answer. He looked down. The house was full of nothing.

Finally, he muttered—

“The Plot Thickens.”

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