💚 THE THINGS WORTH SAVING
A Sunday OZmic from the Island of Regos
🌊⛵ ⛵ ⛵ ⛵🏝️⛰️
The Flotilla reached Regos beneath a gray Sunday sky.
Long before the harbor appeared, the mountains did.
They rose from the Nonestic like enormous stone teeth, scarred by old mines and older ambitions.
Scarecrow stood at the rail.
“Not exactly Pingaree.”
Q smiled.
“No pearls on the beach?”
“Not unless somebody buried them.”
Behind them, the vessels eased toward shore.
Regos had changed since the days when King Gos and his warriors terrorized the neighboring islands. Kingdoms change. Rulers disappear. Flags rot. Even the stories people tell about themselves eventually acquire footnotes.
But mountains remember differently.
They keep scars.
THE OLD STOREHOUSE
Not far from the harbor they found an abandoned stone building wedged against the mountain.
Above its enormous iron doors were words almost completely erased by weather:
ROYAL STOREHOUSE OF REGOS
The lock had rusted away centuries ago.
Inside were shelves.
Thousands of them.
Crates filled the rooms from floor to ceiling.
Scarecrow opened the first.
Broken helmets.
The second contained bent swords.
The third held tarnished goblets.
Another was stuffed with proclamations bearing the seal of King Gos.
Another contained hundreds of identical brass buckles.
Another...
empty boxes.
Scarecrow stared down the endless aisles.
“Why would anyone save all this?”
A small voice answered from somewhere behind a pile of shields.
“Because it belonged to the King.”
Out stepped an elderly Regosian with a ring of keys large enough to anchor a boat.
“I am the Keeper.”
Scarecrow looked around.
“Keeper of what?”
The old man seemed surprised by the question.
“Everything.”
EVERYTHING
For generations, the Keepers of Regos had followed one command:
Nothing belonging to the kingdom shall ever be discarded.
And so nothing was.
Broken objects were stored beside useful ones.
Copies beside originals.
Worthless records beside important histories.
Rusting machinery beside priceless artifacts.
Nobody knew which was which anymore.
Whenever the storehouse became full, another chamber was excavated into the mountain.
Then another.
Then another.
The Keeper raised his lantern.
“The Royal Archives now extend nearly three miles.”
Scarecrow blinked.
“You dug three miles into a mountain because nobody could decide what to throw away?”
“Correct.”
“That sounds surprisingly familiar.”
Q attempted not to laugh.
She failed.
THE GREEN BOX
Then the Keeper showed them something different.
A small green wooden box sat alone on a stone pedestal.
It was worn.
Unremarkable.
No jewels.
No gold.
No royal seal.
“What’s in there?” Scarecrow asked.
“Nobody knows.”
“You’re the Keeper.”
“I keep it. I do not open it.”
“Why?”
“Because the previous Keeper told me it was important.”
“Why did he think it was important?”
“Because the Keeper before him told him.”
Scarecrow looked at Q.
Q looked at Scarecrow.
There are moments when two friends can conduct an entire conversation without saying anything.
This was one of them.
Finally Scarecrow lifted the lid.
Inside was a child’s wooden boat.
Its little sail had been sewn by hand.
Beneath it lay a scrap of paper.
The writing was faded but readable.
Made for Papa, before he went to war.
Nothing else.
No crown.
No treasure.
No magic.
Just a toy.
The Keeper stared at it.
“My goodness.”
Scarecrow gently returned the boat to the box.
“Yes.”
🏮 THE LANTERN LESSON
Outside, the gray clouds were beginning to separate.
They sat overlooking the Nonestic while the Keeper remained beside them.
“I have spent my life protecting things,” he said.
“And you did your job,” Scarecrow answered.
“But I never asked whether they deserved protecting.”
Q turned toward him.
“Those are different questions.”
The old man nodded.
Far below, sunlight touched the water.
Scarecrow thought about the enormous storehouse.
Three miles of possessions.
Three miles of decisions nobody wanted to make.
And one little green box whose importance had survived even after everyone had forgotten why.
“Maybe,” Scarecrow said, “the trick isn’t keeping everything.”
Q waited.
Scarecrow continued.
“Maybe the trick is knowing what you must never lose.”
💚 THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD
We live in an age of accumulation.
Files.
Photographs.
Bookmarks.
Domains.
Documents.
Chats.
Subscriptions.
Accounts.
Ideas.
AI-generated material by the thousands.
Digital abundance has made keeping extraordinarily easy.
It has not made valuing any easier.
In fact, abundance can bury value.
When everything is marked important, nothing really is.
AI can help us sort.
It can inventory.
Compare.
Search.
Classify.
Find duplicates.
Recover forgotten things.
Warn us when something needs attention.
But there remains a profoundly human responsibility that we should be careful about surrendering:
deciding what matters.
Some things have utility.
Some have monetary value.
Some carry history.
Some protect a future possibility.
And some little wooden boats would be worthless to everyone on Earth except the person who understands what they mean.
Wisdom is not possessing the largest storehouse.
Wisdom is knowing the difference.
Before returning to the Flotilla, Scarecrow asked the Keeper what he would do now.
The old man looked toward the mountain.
“I think I shall begin opening boxes.”
“All of them?”
“Heavens, no.”
Scarecrow grinned.
The Keeper held up the green box.
“I believe I’ve finally learned that isn’t the point.”
And somewhere beneath the mountains of Regos, after generations of keeping everything...
someone finally began to choose.
⛵ ⛵ ⛵ ⛵
