Carrie took the parcel to her office and closed the door. She rarely closed her door but it was early, no one would need her. The parcel was from Donald and he must have delivered it to the school himself, the postal service didn't deliver parcels cheap and not even her mom, who she never saw any more, sent parcels, it was very exciting to have something to unwrap. She cut the string and unwrapped the brown paper carefully to find a thick leather notebook inside.
The book's pages were full of photographs, picture cards, ticket stubs and drawings, the book was colourful and beautiful and it was full of words. Carrie flicked through the pages not knowing where to start, it was too much, she closed it and put it down on her desk. There was a note in the remains of the brown paper packaging, she unfolded it and read it.
'Dear Carrie, I kept this diary when I was 21 so forgive any pretentious thought that might be scrawled on these pages. I spent the year between my undergrad and my masters interailing through Europe. (You paid a set price and could travel on all the railroads over there) I managed to get to India too, so yes, I did see an elephant or two. In the diary I checked and the idiot boy who wrote it describes the elephants as "truly majestic beings that instead of frightening with their size, radiate a calm serenity that a hundred hours of yoga wouldn't touch on." Jeez-oh, I don't know where I thought I'd get with a degree in Arts and Humanities, no wonder your dad thought I was a fool… Anyway, give it a read, I don't know if it's a step up or a step down from your comic book, you be the judge.'
Carrie sat down and opened his diary, before reading his note she had flicked through the pages and not really taken in the photographs. Lots of them were of him; tall and thin with a head full of thick sandy hair, she hadn't connected it. Even her earliest memories of Donald's family, from sitting in her dad's office after school was over and looking out of the window, seeing him pick his daughter up when he must have been touching forty Donald had looked the same as he did now, as though he'd been fifty his entire life. It seemed there had been a time when he was young.
Carrie looked through the book slower this time, leaning over its crisp pages she looked at every photo, every postcard and every drawing. She still didn't read the words, she would do that at home that evening when she didn't have lessons to plan and children to look after, but she couldn't help wanting to see all his memories, things she'd never seen, things that didn't exist any more.
The buildings of Europe were captivating, she'd seen pictures before but seeing them with Donald and his friends standing, sitting, lounging at the steps of great palaces, cathedrals and thousand year old ruins, seeing someone she knew smiling, posing, eating ice cream… It made her cry.
Carrie felt the tears fall from her eyes before she felt the emotions pull at her brain and her heart. She wondered if her parents had been right to keep her from their memories of a better world, the kids in her class were certainly happier in ignorance. No one asked why things were the way they were because no one had any concept of the dead world in Donald's scrapbook. But she did not feel sad because she didn't have that world, she felt sad that no one had that world but that wasn't what was upsetting her. She felt sad for Donald that he wasn't like the rest of them, he wasn't blissfully ignorant, but she also felt happy, she was glad to know him, he didn't have a bad attitude, he had an unbelievably good attitude.
She knew the reason her parents didn't talk about the world as it had been was because it depressed and scared them that their world was dying. But Donald had had no problem in giving her his memories when she had asked and his note had been good-humored as always. She knew he was not comfortable being on his own, but he was definitely not a sad man, he wasn't afraid either, just concerned for his family and now for some reason, she supposed because she'd been the first person he'd spoken to, now he was concerned for her too. Perhaps it was just the only way he knew to escape from letting himself become frightened.