#ilse;

Ilse’ life has never exactly prompted a circumstance in which she could put much worth into possessions, although she maintains an admiration for most things extravagant and grandiose, it is only due to the wonder of it all, and most of her prize possessions are trivial belongings she keeps on her person. The contents of her pockets mostly consist of––

º The poem ‘To the Memory of Mr. Oldham’ seemingly torn out of an old bound book, folded once too many times to say the least. The text is beginning to fade from the page, but the discernible stanzas read as, 

“So long, too little and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own; For sure our souls were near ally’d; and thine Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. One common note on either lyre did strike––––What could advancing age have added more? It might (what nature never gives the young)”

ºA coarse cloth, perhaps a napkin at one point, wrapped neatly around a rough cut of ruby and a few other various stones and seeds.

º Some loose twine and a book of matches to accompany a half smoked clove cigarette

º A pastel postcard of some tropical beach adorned in palm trees and carelessly lodged surf boards adorning a Hepburn-esc sun bather with a too wide grin and the words ‘Wish You Were (Still) Here’ painted in the sky above her.

ºA gold necklace, potentially the only thing of real value, with a kinked chain and a half-heart pendant she was given by her grandmother. Ilse can’t recall the full passage with the conjoined piece, but the broken phrase adorning the half she possesses reads, 

Touch Starved || ACCEPTING; 

Ilse’ breath is shallow and even, careful in her ministrations as though Casper were a frantic animal she had cornered and had only just settled into a tentative acceptance of her company. Still, her lips bloom into a soft, closed lipped smile at the inebriated man weighted against her. Her back is pressed against the bed frame, Casper’s head coaxed against her chest, his messy curls tickling at her collarbone and the iridescent blue light of the television painting through an episode of ‘Jeopardy!’ in some language she was sure neither of them could understand. 

Ilse had just begun to stir when his voice cuts through the silence, thick with sleep and an immediate comfort where she had previously been unaware she was restless anyhow. Perhaps, she was moving to retreats back across the slatted rooftops to her own makeshift bed-- maybe even to the solace of his bathtub but Casper is asking her to stay, and it is such a foreign and bright notion that she couldn't possibly deny him such. Her fingers card gingerly through his hair, drawing his curls back and out of his eyes as her nails scrape soothingly along his scalp. She doesn’t move to answer him, thinking perhaps that a verbal reply might startle him into recognition of the whole situation, aware of his own vulnerability and Ilse would not risk losing the little progress she had fought so hard for over the last few months.