the key to keys
keys and the locks they don't open
Many people fetishize keys. I understand this completely. I have an antique key on a leather cord that I wear sometimes. I bought it at El Rastro in Madrid. I had run into a classmate traveling there too, both of us miles from home and intersecting on very different paths. The key reminds me of how old the world is, and how small. Every key performs the same function: to open something (or if you’re a glass half empty type - to lock something away), but the mystery lies in the what.
friend's wall of keys
Inherent in keys is a complete absence of clues about what they belong to, although we try everything to overcome this particular attribute. Literally everything. Have you been to the key section of your local hardware store lately? This is because while most keys looks the same there are actually three types: keys we use daily to come and go, keys we use on special occasions, and keys whose purpose we can no longer recall.
““for twenty years there hung from a nail a large key whose purpose everyone had forgotten but which nobody dared throw away.””
