in the magpie tree, all the magpies collected their most prized possessions. the tree was a small beech tree, nothing fancy, slightly past its best, rough around the edges, but it did the job. the individual collections were varied, but followed a general rule of thumb; small, shiny, important, enviable. buttons, bottle caps, rings, tin foil, earrings, keys—that sort of thing. no one knows why they collect such objects, they just always have. there was a general consensus that the shiny things were worthy of collecting and subsequently hoarding.

there was one magpie in the tree however who did not share the same sentiment. the magpie admired the shiny things of course, no one could deny their allure. but this particular magpie saw value in the less shiny things. those that had lost their glint. or never had a shine to glint with in the first place. the things cast aside, long forgotten by their original owners. in comparison to the carefully ordered, meticulously presented collections of its fellow magpies, this magpie’s hoard was positively chaotic.

the base was constructed from a tangled mess of driftwood held together by sun bleached fishing nets. a mat of dried seaweed formed some sort of floor, upon which was piled all manner of objects. here is a small sample of the collection:

1x sheep vertebrae

3x porcelain regency figurines

1x wooden duck sculpture

2x rembrandt prints

1x block of wood with some rusty nails in it

253x miscellaneous old screws

1x particularly pleasantly worn piece of slate

2x vases with holes in, making them functionally less than ideal

the magpie knew its collection was not the envy of the other magpies. the magpie world was built on envy, having the shiniest things to make the other magpies jealous. if only they could have that shiny thing! they would be a much better magpie if they had such a shiny thing! no one wanted this magpie’s block of wood with some rusty nails in it. why would they? it was functionally useless, structurally unsound, a genuine health hazard. magpies can’t get tetanus jabs.

but this magpie enjoyed how it looked. how it felt. the story it told. the magpie liked how one side was bone white, scorched by the sun for god knows how long. the other side had a very pleasing rust stain, seeping down the grain from one of the many embedded nails in the side. why were there so many nails in this one block of wood? who had put them there? why had they put them there? what would be next for this particular block of wood? its journey had begun as part of a tree which was felled long ago. it was then milled into lumber, sold to be used in a structure of some kind, served its time in this role until becoming too tired, retired and cast aside, left to rot away leaving only the rusty nails behind. but it had caught the magpie’s eye—it had swooped down and picked it up, preserving it for some future purpose, to continue its story.

the magpie sat proud atop its collection. a jumble of things, no common thread between them, no monetary value at all. the narrative contained within the objects it hoarded gave them meaning and worth. the perceived value placed on them by the other magpies was irrelevant, the stories they told were priceless. the future possibilities, the things that could be made from the found objects, the disruption of their supposed predetermined fate—these all made the hoarding worthwhile. to the magpie, this unknown past and unwritten future was far more valuable than any shiny coin.

*please note: research has found that magpies aren’t actually attracted to shiny things, it just worked well as a metaphor in this story.