They called her a hoarder, and by definition she was, but clinically she was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive personality disorder. Her collection stood in opposition of her condition, but the manner in which she maintained it was textbook, everything clean and organized. The affliction was obvious, but so well managed, impressive to behold. Room by room, every drawer and cabinet filled with neat, flattened bundles of cartons. Every variety dismantled to it's basest form and laid in perfectly organized stacks. Folding cartons, egg cartons, aseptic, gable top, all of them. Her grocery trips were predictable and she always checked out in the same lane. Her cashier was a bland woman in her fifties who never had much to say, she liked that. She lived in the community but no one knew her because she kept to herself, maybe too much.

There was no information about what happened, it was like her existence had been expunged. Was she really my neighbor at all? She was gone as if she had never been there.

No trace, not one carton.