A Collector of Buttons
buttons
He was a collector of buttons. He stored them in jars and as a child he categorised them by colour. White ones, black ones and a rainbow of colours in between.
There was a time when he would empty out a jar for the joy of running his fingers through them. Watching the kaleidoscopic tumble, hearing a sound like the sea swishing over pebbles.
Square buttons and shell buttons were admired for a while. Delicate pearls, mostly fake he soon discovered, were tossed aside. The innocence of youth.
Size and shape no longer captivated him; it was quantity that really mattered.
Shiny gold buttons would always carry some weight. There was status in a display of glistening gold.
At the other end of the scale plain white shirt buttons were the least valuable – “ten a penny” in old money.
On collection day the people cried they had nothing left to give. He would snip buttons off shirts that were barely held together. They owed him, but everyone had long forgotten what the debt was for.
There were complaints about how the cold wind blew, but that was not his concern. His pockets bulged like the bumpy thick skin of an orange.
One day a young girl proclaimed she had no buttons to give him but she knew where he could find the biggest button in the world. So large it wouldn’t even fit in his pocket.
He was sceptical at first but as the girl described the magnificence of this button, the size, the weight the golden glow, he knew he needed it for his collection.
The girl led him to a cliff top overlooking the sea.
“Where is this button?” he asked her.
“Rest here for the night and in the morning it will appear.”
While the button collector slept the girl went down the narrow cliff path. The tide had receded leaving a smooth beach. In the moon glow, she got to work creating a giant sand button. She dug and patted and smoothed the sand, perfectly round with two button holes like watching eyes. Then she decorated it with shells and sea glass to add some extra sparkle.
By sunrise she had climbed back up to the cliff top and she awoke the button collector.
“Come and see the most magnificent button,” she said as she led him back to the edge of the cliff.
The sun shone on the golden sand and all the collector could see was the most marvellous, biggest sparkly button he had ever seen.
“I must have it for my collection,” he cried as he ran down the path as fast as he could. It wasn’t an easy path to negotiate with bulging pockets; the path was narrow and twisty. He tripped and stumbled and sometime rolled down the incline.
The young girl watched the bobbing figure with a smile because what he had failed to see was that the tide had turned and the water was already lapping edges of the button.
The button collector fell onto the sand at the bottom of the path. He could see the button disappearing beneath the waves. He had no thought of his own safety and he followed the button into the water to claim his prize.
Buttons sometimes wash up on that beach, slightly worn, no longer a precious commodity. Instead, they are used by children to decorate their own sand buttons. With button hole eyes forever watching, making sure nobody takes more than they need.