Lost and found

Working at a "lost and found" wasn't Tim's first choice. However he could do his own hours and it was quiet most of the time. This would be a perfect place for him to start working on his book. Or so he thought, because this was no ordinary ”lost and found". It was so fascinating and mindbogglingly that in no less than one month Tim managed to write no more than one sentence.
At a first glance the place looked like an old and forgotten attic. There were big and small brown cardboard boxes scattered all over the place. In this boxes and on shelves you could find just about as much stuff as you can imagine. Objects of all kind and colors, tiny and big, some of them had no real value. Like ticket stubs or bottle caps. There was also a big box with photos of places. And this box made Tim wonder the most.

Like any other person, he started rifling through the stuff and tried to make sense of what this place was.
The first time a person came in Tim was even more confused. It was a young woman with blonde hair and red puffy eyes, like she's been crying. Tim immediately thought that she must have lost something of value and asked her if he could help. The woman didn't as much as glance at him, but went straight to a box in the corner and picked up a train ticket. Tim couldn't help but stare at her, for it seemed that the woman has been there several times before. She looked at the ticket intensely and then started crying quietly. Tim didn't know what to do. He never knew what to do when women cried. It was for him like driving on an unknown road with fog weather. But before he could decide what to do she left.

Soon enough another woman came in and took from one of the shelves a piece of a cable, sighed and left.

Tim realized that it was mostly women that visited and revisited the "lost and found". From time to time a man would come in, greet politely, pick up a photo of a place, stare at it, shake his head and then leave. Although, once, he saw a guy cry and hit one of the walls. That really scared Tim. He just got used to the queerness of the visits and then this happened. He picked up the phone to call the police and just then the manager came, like from nowhere, and put his arm on the man's shoulder and said "Soon it will be ok".
After the man left, a bewildered Tim asked the manager 

"What is this place? Who are these people? Where does all this stuff come from?"

The manager, an old man who seemed to know everything but the location of his glasses, said with a bitter-sweet smile "Sit down."
"My dear boy, this is a place of lost loves. All this stuff are mementos of the last time two people who were in love talked. This people that come in here, they are helpless that's why they come in here so often, they are not over it, they are nostalgic, they suffer, they need to cry..."

Tim's eyes got bigger and bigger. He was amazed and at the same time still confused.

"But what about the 'found'? Why in the world is this place called 'lost AND found' ?"

The old man sighed and as he stood up to leave said "Hope never loses faith in love and miracles. Who knows, maybe one day we will witness one" And he left.

Tim's brain started to make fast connections. He now understood the pattern and rhythm of the visits. He understood why it was mostly women who came in and weird enough he understood why this one time an arrogant girl came here and showed a picture to her current boyfriend.
Suddenly all that worthless stuff became as precious as gold and Tim felt rich and proud that he could be the guardian of lost loves. He proceeded to look through the pictures but now he saw them completely different. He tried to imagine all the stories that took place in those pictures. A train station. A courthouse. A restaurant. A busy street corner. A mall. A bench in Central Park. Tim felt his heart break into thousands of pieces. It was his bench. Their bench. It was the bench where he met Jane, a shy girl, with brown hair and a long scarf.
Ten years ago. It was a cloudy and cold day in March, but Tim decided it was spring and that he would go for a walk without a jacket. Jane was the only other person he saw in Central Park without a jacket so he sat down on the same bench she was sitting on. She loved spring too. They talked about everything and nothing. They laughed about something but he couldn't remember what about. They played truth or dare and a prank on a grumpy old lady. As this memories stumbled and tumbled, tears filled his eyes and all the three wonderful years they spent together came back to him. The warm hugs, the food, the games, the laughing, the presents, the crying, the silly dancing, the butterflies, that dreadful day he told her he has to move to California, the bench. The bench where they shared a last pretzel and a kiss.
Tim was crushed.
He cowered under the counter and started to cry still holding the picture. Questions started fighting in his head "Why didn't I call her? Why didn't I tell her to come with me? Why didn't I ask her to marry me?" They were so loud that he didn't even hear the door and the woman coming in. She looked around, heard someone crying and went in the direction of the sound.

"Hello? Anyone here?", she said as she bent down to see the person behind the counter.

Tim felt something tickling his ears. He looked up and saw a long scarf coming from above and that scarf belonged to a shy girl with brown hair. 

She found him.

Love found Tim.