Most people, when they find a random object on the street, might pick it up or just step over it. I started collecting them. Specifically, I started collecting lost gloves. A single, lonely glove on a park bench, on a fence post, on the curb. It started as a joke, a quirky hobby. My apartment had a “Lonely Glove Gallery” on a bookshelf.
Then, one Tuesday, I found a child’s mitten. It was bright yellow, with a smiling cartoon bee on it. Something about it felt different. It looked so sad and hopeful at the same time. On a whim, I pinned a small, blank tag to it and wrote: “I last kept warm a little hand near the playground on Monday. I miss my job. Please give me a new one.”
I put it back on the bench where I found it.
The next day, it was gone. In its place was a woman’s leather driving glove. Pinned to it was a new tag. It read: “I last gripped a steering wheel on the way to a difficult conversation. I am ready for a lighter journey.”
My heart hammered in my chest. Someone had not only taken the bait, they had thrown the line back out.
This is how “The Department of Lost Whistles” was born. (The name came from the third glove, a woolen one that claimed it “lost its whistle while cheering for a bus that never came.”)
It’s not an official department. It’s a conspiracy. A secret network of strangers who find a single glove, pin a tag to it with a fictional, poetic history, and leave it for the next person.
The rules are unspoken but understood:
The story must be kind.
You take a glove only if you leave one.
You must write a new history for the one you leave behind.
My “Lonely Glove Gallery” is now a transit hub. I don’t keep them anymore; I curate them. I find a glove, give it a story, and release it back into the wild.
The stories people write are breathtakingly weird and human.
A bulky work glove: “I helped build a treehouse. I have sap stains and proud memories. I’d like to help build something else.”
A delicate lace glove: “I last danced at a wedding. The marriage didn’t last, but the joy in my threads did.”
A mismatched pair (the only exception to the single rule) left together: “We got separated from our partners long ago. We’ve decided to stick together now.”
This isn’t about the gloves. It’s about the stories we tell to soften the edges of the world. It’s about acknowledging that every lost object has a history, and by extension, so does every person we pass on the street.
We are a community of archivists for forgotten moments. We are giving lost things a new purpose, not by finding their mate, but by giving them a new story.
So if you see a single glove with a little tag on a park bench, you’ve found a branch of the Department. Read its story. If you have a glove to spare, give it a new one and continue the chain.
It’s a silent, city-wide game of exquisite corpse, played with wool, leather, and a little bit of magic. The goal is to remind each other that even what is lost has value, and every story deserves a second chapter.