The Collector by David Luna Page A

fine, but she can see through him. She touches his arm. “What are you doing here? There’s no one here but me.”
    “I was just…I brought you something.” Neil digs in his truck to reveal the pieces of her wagon.
    “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Inna giggles in surprise.
    “You pieced me back together. Thought I could at least help return the favor.”
    They smile, locking eyes, each holding it a moment longer than they should until they break away.
    “So this is where you collect all your junk?” Neil asks.
    “It’s not junk,” Inna counters.
    “Broken clocks. Cracked mirrors. It’s all garbage.” Neil kicks at the trash, then follows her through a pathway formed by two towering stacks.
    “You might see garbage,” Inna calls back, “but that’s not what I see.”
    The pathway twists and turns. She moves faster than him, gaining ground, more familiar within the maze.
    “What do you see then?” Neil asks, but he quickly loses sight of her. “Hey. Wait.” With each turn Neil catches only a glimpse of Inna right before she disappears again. It turns into a game to her as her giggles echo back to him. “Inna!” Neil shouts.
    “Over here,” her voice calls out.
    Neil continues until the path splits in two, pausing for a moment to choose his route when suddenly Inna somehow pops out directly in front of him. “Why are you always so serious?” she asks. “C’mon, this way.”
    As she pulls him along through her makeshift playground, Neil can’t help but shake his head. This is silly. He never plays games like this, and he hasn’t since he was a child. He loses sight of Inna again in the labyrinth of towers.
    “Where are you taking me?” He continues to follow her infectious laughter, stumbling in his attempt to keep up.
    He finally comes to an open clearing where tall crooked towers block out the harsh sun, while a breeze whispers as it slithers through. Inna is already there taking it in, her eyes shut and head tilted back. Neil catches his breath, then notices Inna holding a doll with the stuffing coming out of its torn arm.
    “Not trash, huh?” he quips.
    “This is a well used toy that made some child happy. And after some quick repairs…” She pushes the stuffing back inside, holding the arm so the doll is whole again and propping it upright on a barrel. “It’ll be able to put a smile on another child’s face.”
    Neil kicks a water purifierwith frayed tubes and a cracked container reservoir. “What about this?” he asks, still not agreeing with her point of view.
    “This is a device that simply needs new tubing, which…” She takes off again down another pathway, a childlike dance, knowing exactly where to look in the mountains of trash.
    “Hey, get back here!” Neil shouts. Her giggles echo throughout the maze. Neil finds her near an appliance with dangling tubes.
    “I’ll take these, and…” Spinning around, she backtracks, skipping and gone again. Neil attempts to follow, but she somehow manages to appear behind him with a large plastic jug, startling him as she continues. “I’ll swap out that container with this, and voilà, a perfectly good machine to help sustain life.”
    Neil shakes his head in disbelief.
    “People are so wasteful!” she defends herself. “No wonder we’re in the situation we’re in.”
    “You sure get excited about this stuff.”
    “I was practically born here in the landfill. The shop was my grandma’s.”
    Just then Neil spots a fragment of panpipes buried in a mound. From his smile, Inna can tell this has meaning to him. “Still think it’s all garbage?” she asks.
    “I haven’t played one of these since I was a kid.” Neil blows in it, clogged with dirt.
    “Here, let me.” Inna cleans it out, then blows to play various broken notes.
    Neil’s interrupted by his buzzing PDA. It’s Slayter calling again. Neil knows he can’t miss Slayter’s call a second time, but as he steps away to take it, Inna’s broken notes begin