Only after Mr. Jago had mentioned about few preliminary phonograph recordings he had been conducting at his theatre, it dawned on Professor Litefoot, that on good conditions those wax cylinders could well outlive them both. And that's exactly when he began his hoarding habit.
It came as a no surprise, that Jago was keen on his own voice. His new toy seemed to cater directly his old, but quite harmless side of his vanity. He wasted time, and his money recording jargon no-one would be giving a time of day in a hundred years of time. You could've called it "a voice-diary". Or like Mr. Jago phrased it: "An Acoustic Account of an Acute Artist". Litefoot assumed he was singing funny songs and reading melodramatic or tasteless poetry on his precious cylinders. Not the kind of content reasonable people would deem worth preserving, but to Litefoot… well, to him, every word counted.
And since no-one else had any preoccupation with, quite frankly, irrelevant things Mr. Jago kept recording for his own amusement, Litefoot was more than welcome to keep as many as he liked. Jago was now practically making them just to present them for Litefoot, after realizing his friend was keen on having them. More reason to keep on recording. A vicious cycle of wasted efforts, one might say.
Others could call it a pretty romantic exchange. Neither of them were foolish enough to confirm anything at all.
The Professor didn't even own equipment to listen what he'd got. Besides, it's not like he didn't hear Jago's voice on a nearly daily basis as it was already. It was just the thought; the very idea he was preserving a glimpse of his friend's unique personality forever, that was giving him pleasure of a soothing kind.
And it was very romantic. All of it.
Every sentence, every song, every bit of sappy and soggy poetry of the worst kind. So superfluously sentimental – the only type of emotion Mr. Jago was able to produce. Nothing subtle about it, all listenable. Like testimonies or confessions on wax.
And the Professor didn't need to hear any of it to know he had a wax cylinder collection of declarations, that would tarnish his name and ruin his reputation. Taint Mr. Jago maybe even further, they were his words after all. Litefoot could easily lose his job and social status if it to be published and scandalized. Yet it only made his heart swell.
Litefoot was a rather clinical man. A scientist. A modern liberal, but a cold one, they said. Mr. Jago was anything but, so Litefoot would have done him a favour for getting rid of all the damning evidence. But have you ever received a love letter? Could you throw it in a fireplace? And what Mr. Jago did was something so, so, so much better.
And so will the words like: "I love you my old chap, you're the dearest fellow I know - and my harking heart's dumbfounding desire", be one day be preserved in a digital archive somewhere, someplace, said in that exact tone of voice, as in face-to-face, person to person. From one lover to another. And that's what made every cylinder worth the space it was taking in the attic.
Worth taking the risk of someone listening and not being understanding and kind, for it was love, love and nothing more.
FIN