Moving house – it’s a hassle. Not only that, but it makes you realise just how much junk you own. The detritus you accumulate as you make your way through life. Sometimes you stumble upon small treasures. I’m not talking about $1.20 in loose change. I’m not even talking in tangibles.

***

He stands between a cardboard box and a bin. He is holding a cheap yellow plastic brush. It’s the sort you get from K-Mart. There’s a solitary strand of red hair caught between the bristles. It stands out like spinach in teeth. He disentangles the strand and holds it up to the light. It shimmers and dances.

***

When they first moved in a year ago, he did most of the heavy lifting, while she turned the place into a home – putting up happy snaps, dusting off furniture and placing an inordinate number of throw pillows on their bed. As he hauled the last heavy box inside, he noticed her by the TV, methodically brushing her coccyx-length hair. It was mesmerising. He caught her eye, she stopped brushing and gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘We made it,’ he thought to himself. He smiled at her, knowing she was thinking exactly the same.

***

Her departure was a long time coming. Even still, it came as a shock. Sex was the first thing to go. For some bizarre reason, co-habitation had diminished their attraction to one another. Their interactions were now limited to trivial arguments, punctuated by “Remember when…” conversations – reminiscences of a pleasant past. By no means were they out of love. They just couldn’t live together anymore. Domesticity didn’t agree with them. An argument about the TV remote and, ultimately, about why they had no future together, brought things to a head. She left the next day in a loud, ugly whirlwind of tears, feeble apologies and childish name calling.

***

He gently places the hair in the box, atop his clothes. He tosses the brush in the bin.