The Tales of Minz series is narrated and edited by fictional characters. This short story is set in their whimsical world. Learn more about the series here.
What determines value? Sometimes, we can fall into the trap that value is determined based on contribution—what someone or something has to offer. For example, perhaps such a person is a gifted musician, or the item (whatever it may be) fulfills some important function. Does that contribution benefit us, or society at large, or not? If so, it has value. If not… The problem is, when we think in such narrow terms, we restrict value to something service-based. Monetary even. This short story takes a different approach and offers an alternative determination and definition of value. Enjoy.
—Barnabas E. Wooldridge
Editor in Chief of the Tales of Minz
If you’ve never been curious about how trash in sprawling cities is collected in a timely and efficient manner before it gets really ripe, a vocation in Waste Management… probably isn’t for you. (You likely already have a job, but if you’re currently in the market, I’d advise you to look elsewhere.)
But now that I’ve got you thinking about such a job, however briefly, let’s think about it a little bit more. Collecting trash in a city the size of Marglegruff or Nelgraven is a daunting but absolutely necessary task. Thousands upon thousands of people call such places home, and all of them have trash that needs to be disposed of.
If you think stinky, rotting trash heaps on the sides of the cobblestone streets help attract tourists, you’ve got another thing coming—and not business if you own a shop or storefront. No, for a plethora of reasons (including personal hygiene, clean streets, and a welcoming environment for travelers and paying customers for small, locally owned shops), it has historically been in the best interest of city officials to have trash promptly removed, out of sight and out of mind. That’s true to this very day.
But how on Minz do the trash and garbage and refuse get removed in a timely and efficient manner? I’ve already alluded to the main method: cities must implement a branch of Waste Management in their form of government. Such an entity will be charged with overseeing the disposal of trash in the city.
As you might imagine, Waste Management is rarely a small, lightly staffed organization. After the City Watch, Waste Management usually has the most people on payroll in most cities. However, like many systems of governance, the effectiveness of Waste Management organizations will vary from city to city. Funding (or lack thereof) usually plays a big role in the variances.
Certain cities on extremely tight budgets cannot afford to hire full-time employees in Waste Management. But the trash must still be collected. What to do? Hire part-time ragpickers and trash collectors to do the job at a fraction of the cost (and with fewer benefits).
The ragpickers would collect trash from around the city and return to Waste Management headquarters outside the city (usually located near an ever-growing trash heap). What they collected determined their pay, capped at a certain amount. For example, if they collected twelve moldy pieces of bread, they might make two copper Coppers, but the total pay could not exceed fifteen copper Coppers for the day. So if they collected more than one hundred moldy pieces of bread, they’d still only make fifteen copper Coppers.
Not very motivating to go above and beyond the job requirements, I know, but that wasn’t really the intent of the program. Many part-time workers were just happy for any pay at all. That being said, if they found something valuable in the trash, they could sell it for more than the daily limit. Finding such a treasure was rather rare, though.
This is the story of one such part-time worker—a ragpicker named Ida.
Perhaps you’ve heard the expression, “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” For some, an expression is all it is—a helpful reminder not to take one’s possessions for granted or be careless with them. For others, it isn’t just an expression. It’s a reality. It certainly was the reality for Ida, who literally made her livelihood from picking up other people’s trash.
At the time of our story, the Waste Management department in the city of Breckenweld was woefully underfunded and understaffed—no doubt the result of severe taxation and an effort by city officials to cut costs to keep citizens somewhat happy. And so, citizens were encouraged to start compost heaps and donate old furniture and clothing or use it as kindling, and part-time ragpickers and trash collectors were employed on an “as needed” basis. (They were needed all the time, but since they were part-time workers, the city didn’t have to pay them nearly as much.)
Ida didn’t mind. She was just happy to have a job, even if no one else wanted to do it. Collecting trash had never bothered her, not in the seven years that she’d been doing it, which was more than half her life. She grew up on the streets, starting when she was five, and began collecting trash soon after. Orphaned without a family or place to call her own, she would have been rummaging through the trash to survive—it was just as well that she got paid for it.
Before you go asking about child labor laws, I’ll remind you that throughout its storied history, the various governments of Minz have always been rather lax about such regulations. Enforcing such laws excludes such a large part of the population from contributing to society. And so, Ida worked. In her mind, it was better than begging or stealing. Maybe not as lucrative, but less unpleasant.
The Andon day in 1373 of the Third Age, upon which our story takes place, started like just about any other for Ida. She began her morning well before dawn by walking her normal route, picking up trash.
Perhaps a word or two about Breckenweld might be helpful to give you a visual, Dear Reader.
The sprawling city of Breckenweld contains factories, major trades, fruit sellers, artisans, merchants, images, smithies, tailors, taverns, and just about any respectable line of work you can imagine. Split into districts, the city is somewhat haphazardly organized with commerce and industry in two districts and residential in a third (with some exceptions overlapping between the three districts—taverns being one such notable exception).
Ida’s preferred route for collections was in the industrial district. She went up and down the cobblestone streets outside the great factories, shops, and warehouses, and rummaged through the junk, trash, rubbish, and refuse that such places left for Waste Management to collect. Whatever she could carry, she took. And whatever she couldn’t carry, she left behind for another ragpicker to claim for themselves.
Sometimes she ran into other ragpickers on her route, but for the most part, the ragpickers of Breckenweld respected one another’s claims to certain areas and collection routes. They weren’t a tight-knit group, most of them kept to themselves, including Ida, but they all knew one another—if not by name then by sight.
What would other ragpickers see when they looked at Ida? They’d see what you’ll see in your mind’s eye when I describe her to you:
They’d see a short, thin young girl with rags for clothes (the irony of that wasn’t lost on her) and a slight limp in her step. She broke her foot when she was five and, living on the streets of Breckenweld, didn’t have the money to go to the doctor. So, her foot healed improperly, leaving her with a permanent limp. Ida had white-blond hair and fair skin, but that was a little hard to tell beneath all the dirt and grime, some of which came from her job and some of which came from living under a bridge without frequent access to a washroom. Ida also had a smile that she wore infrequently and kept hidden, to be worn only on rare occasions. She walked up and down the streets all by herself, forever and always alone.
And yet, there was a kindness to her as well that her circumstances couldn’t seem to diminish. She stopped and opened doors for her elders. She knelt to pet and feed stray cats and dogs that looked just as hungry as her. She was respectful to the members of the City Watch.
If anything, Ida was living, breathing, walking proof that appearances could be deceiving. If people took the time to look past the dirt and grime, they might have wondered why no one had done anything to help a hungry child get off the streets and live somewhere safe and warm. Who knows? Maybe that would happen for Ida one day. But that’s not what this story is about.
This is the story of how Ida found something simply incredible—and what she did with it.
Ida found it when she was rummaging through the trash outside Mark’s Magic Shoppe. The name might make you think that a fellow named Mark owned such an establishment, and you’d be right. Ida normally passed over the trash outside Mark’s Magic Shoppe because there was never anything good. Mark was rather frugal and didn’t part with things lightly, not even his trash.
Today, however, there was a small, wooden music box partially obscured underneath several old banana peels. Ida gingerly picked up the box and admired its craftsmanship with its dark stain, shiny clasp, and carved lid. The discarded object was small enough to fit in her palm. She wondered why Mark would throw out such a beautiful box.
After a moment, Ida opened the lid and gasped as she beheld the small figurine of a beautiful dancer standing on a pedestal within. She nearly dropped the box as the tiny woman, with fine features etched in metal, turned to her on its pedestal and spoke up softly. “Hello?”
Ida had never heard a figurine talk before. She figured such things were possible (she was standing outside a shop that sold magical trinkets, after all), but never imagined she would experience such a thing for herself. Her initial thought was that such a find would be worth more Coppers than her daily quota if she sold it. Immediately, she felt guilty because the magical object had spoken. It didn’t deserve to be sold like some inanimate thing. Ida collected herself, remembering the figurine’s timid greeting, and tried to smile.
“Hello,” she replied. “I’m Ida. What’s your name?”
The small figurine was silent—so much so that Ida wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. Then, she spoke again in that same, soft voice. “I was never given a name, I don’t think. But I call myself Ebony.”
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Ebony,” Ida said.
“Is it really?” Ebony sounded sad, though her expression didn’t change. Perhaps it couldn’t.
“Of course it is. Why do you think it wouldn’t be?”
“My creator said that I was his greatest achievement, but then something in me broke. I’m supposed to dance, but I can’t. Not anymore.” Bitterness entered Ebony’s voice. “When my creator realized he couldn’t fix me, he threw me away. That’s why I’m out here in the trash.”
Ida’s heart went out to the small, magical dancer in the wooden box. To some extent, she understood. You see, Breckenweld had orphanages, and Ida had lived in one of them for a time. You can imagine how that went for her, seeing as she was not with an adoptive family who loved and wanted her. This was no different.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Ebony. You don’t look broken at all, even if you can’t dance. I think you’re beautiful. And hey, I can’t dance either, so you’re in good company.” Ida tried to smile again as she gestured at herself, but it had been quite some time since she smiled last. She couldn’t quite remember how to do it right.
Ebony was quiet again. “You really think I’m beautiful?” she asked.
“Of course!”
Ebony nodded slightly. “Thank you,” she said. Then, “But I was created to dance. If I don’t do that, what am I good for?”
“Lots of things!” Ida said. She hadn’t the first idea what to say to a magical figurine going through an existential crisis, but she wanted to try and help Ebony. Even if she didn’t know how. “Look—I was probably created to be a part of a family, but I don’t have that anymore, either. But I’m still here, I’m still trying to figure out what to do with my life. I think that’s all any of us can do.”
“You don’t have a family?” Ebony asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“Friends?”
Ida shook her head. “Nope.”
At this point in the conversation, Ida stopped trying to remember how to smile. Instead, she started walking down the cobblestone street with the magical music box still cupped in her hands. She wasn’t upset with Ebony for asking such painful questions—she had been the one to admit that she didn’t have a family in the first place. But to be reminded of the fact that she didn’t have friends either… That brought back some truly heart-wrenching memories.
Memories of watching other kids at the orphanage run down the street, knowing she couldn’t keep up with them no matter how hard she tried… memories of other children walking down the streets keeping their distance from her, pulled away from her by their parents, as if by being too close to her, they’d become just as dirty and unclean. Memories of being forever and always alone.
Some small glimpse of those painful memories must have been visible on Ida’s face as she thought of them, because Ebony was watching her the whole time. And something changed in the magical figurine’s heart as she noticed the young girl struggling to smile and still walk down the street despite her pain and sadness. Something that was broken began to mend and be made whole again. It wasn’t the ability to dance—that was still lost to her. But perhaps it was something that Ebony hadn’t even realized she was lacking until that moment.
Eventually, Ida felt a cool, unexpected touch. She looked down to see Ebony leaning out of her box and resting her hand on Ida’s wrist. The figurine’s features couldn’t change. They were etched in metal. No amount of magic could change that. But the warmth in Ebony’s voice… that was unmistakable.
“Perhaps… perhaps I can be your friend?”
Ida stopped walking. She stared down with surprise at the small dancer who no longer danced. The dancer stared back. Then, the girl who walked up and down the city streets collecting trash all by herself smiled.
Ida’s world didn’t seem quite so lonely or empty anymore. And neither did Ebony’s.
