The Lost Item Rule
If you find something you lost years ago, don’t touch it. It means something else found it first.
I lost the bear when I was nine.
Corduroy arms. Plastic eye. Stitched-on smile that had started to come loose.
It disappeared in a motel near Lake Hesper, the one with beige carpets and a vending machine that ate your quarters. I think I left bear in the sheets. My mom said the cleaning lady probably tossed it out. I cried, then I moved on.
That’s what you do with lost things. You let them stay gone.
Until last Thursday.
I found bear again. Not in a box. Not at my mom’s house. Not in a thrift shop I might’ve wandered into on autopilot. I found bear under my bed. The bed in my apartment that was also three stories up with a double-locked door and no visitors in weeks.
Bear looked the same. Same rip on the ear. Same dusty corduroy. Except he smelled like mold now and lakewater and something faintly sweet, like rotted fruit left too long in the trunk.
I stood there, toothbrush still in my mouth, just staring. I live alone. No one else has a key, and I’ve never kept childhood things. That’s always been my rule.
So I did what anyone else would do. I asked around. My roommate, who moved out two years ago, said she didn’t take anything of mine but a pothos plant and the Brita. I think she misunderstood the question.
My mother hadn’t seen bear since I was nine. She laughed when I asked. Said, “You used to talk to that thing like it was answering you back.”
That night, I put bear in the closet. The next morning, it was on the kitchen counter, sitting upright.
On day three, bear showed up on my pillow. Next to him, a Polaroid photo. A shot of me, age nine, asleep in the motel bed where I lost bear. My mouth was slightly open, and bear was in my arms. The photo was dated: August 3, 1999.
I never owned a Polaroid camera.
I tried to throw bear out. The photo, too. But the trash bag tore on the way down, and bear rolled into the street. When I looked over the fire escape, bear wasn’t there anymore.
I didn’t sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard breathing. Wet, sticky breathing, like someone sleeping right up to my ear.
At 3:12 AM, I heard a knock. Twice. I checked the door, nothing. When I turned around…bear was back. This time he held another photo. A new one.
It showed me as I am now. Older, tired, hunched in front of my kitchen window. But my eyes in the photo weren’t mine. They were black, hollowed out like someone had burned through the paper.
Scrawled on the back of the photo in blocky child handwriting: “TRADE PLACES.”
So I tried fire. I filled the sink and lit a match. Bear didn’t burn. The water turned black, and something screamed up from the drain. Then the lights went out.
I crawled under the bed. The space there was strange. Wider than it should’ve been. Longer. Deeper.
I swear I heard waves. Until I heard nothing at all.
When I opened my eyes, I was in the motel again. Room 6. Beige carpets. Lake Hesper glimmering outside the window.
But no cars. No mom. No checkout time. Just me and bear. Smiling.
I don’t know who lives in my apartment now. But if they check the closet, they’ll find something taped inside the door. A drawing. Some crayons. A picture of someone curled up in bed, holding a bear. The smile isn’t mine. The eyes are still missing. And underneath, written in red: “Don’t touch what you left behind.”
So if you’re reading this note, then that means you are now in my apartment. Thank you for visiting. Please follow these instructions carefully.
One. Do not speak to Bear.
Even if he speaks first. Especially if his voice sounds like a higher pitched version of yours.
Two. Feed him once.
Leave a piece of fruit on the counter before sunset. He won’t eat it. That’s not the point. After that, never leave food sitting on the counter for him again.
Three. Don’t open any drawers after midnight.
Someone will put something in them that used to belong to you. If that happens, you will have no way of escaping.
Four. If you hear two knocks, don’t check the door. Stay in your bed.
He’s only knocking because he forgot how to open the door himself.
Five. On the seventh day, leave the photo album in the bathtub.
If it’s not full, he’ll take more pictures.
Six. Whatever you do, don’t look under the bed.
You might find something you lost a long time ago. Or worse, you might find me.
Author’s Notes
I don’t think we really lose things.
We say we do. We blame the dog. We blame the couch cushions. We blame time and absent memories. But deep down, I think we know that the things we lose—those weird, intimate little objects from childhood—they don’t just vanish into some unnamed abyss. They have to go somewhere, right? Maybe not in the literal sense, like down a vent or behind a radiator, but somewhere. A somewhere we’ll never know.
That’s where this story comes from.
When I was a kid, I had this ratty old toy raccoon. Missing one eye, like all good childhood friends. I lost it on a family trip to the mountains (probably left it behind in a motel room that smelled like carpet glue and cigarettes). My mom said I must’ve dropped it somewhere.
But I used to dream about it. I’d be in that motel room, and the raccoon would be sitting under the bed, waiting for me to come back to look for it. Or maybe wondering if I’d left him there on purpose.