Robes and Saber

Karr pushed aside a canister that looked like it might have held trash or compost and found a hatch cut into the grain of the floor. There wasn’t any lever or handle to open it with, but he pried it loose with a rusted knife blade he’d found in the sink.

Maize joined him. “What have you got there?”

They both stared into the hole while RZ-7 craned his metal neck to get a look for himself. Down under the floorboards, hanging in a net above the water—tucked tight beneath the house so no one would be likely to see it, or find it, or open it—was a box about the size of a suitcase.

Karr hauled it up into the house. It wasn’t heavy, but it was bulky and hard to maneuver; he pushed it into the middle of the floor so he’d have more room to work and tweaked the latch until it popped.

“It’s not locked?” asked Maize.

He lifted the lid. “Nope. Oh…oh, wow.”

“Is that…?”

RZ-7 let out a soft digital whistle.

He reached inside and pulled out a neatly folded bundle, tied with twine. With the same rusty blade he’d used to pop the latch, he sliced the twine and unleashed a pale, wax-colored robe. He held it up by the shoulders and rose to his feet—measuring it against himself and his own shoulders.

The robe was made for a bigger man, but not that much bigger. It was made for a man with wider shoulders, but not that much wider. In another few years, Karr would be big enough. His shoulders would be wide enough. But this robe was not for him to wear, and he felt it in his bones—every bit as much as he felt that it now belonged to him.

The Jedi might be dishonored rogues, if any of them remained alive to care, but he knew the facts and he could remember them. He could collect the robe, and archive it, and save it for future generations.

If the Force was as eternal as Karr believed and history did, in fact, repeat itself, then more Jedi would come, and they would need to know the truth. They deserved to know the truth.

He held the robe up to his face and sniffed it deeply. It mostly smelled like mildew, and he loved it. For a split second, he wondered if they ought to dress his great-grandfather in it before they set fire to every shred of evidence that he’d ever lived there—but no. He understood his role now. He was a collector, and he would collect.

“Can I see it?” Maize asked.

“Sir? Don’t forget about this….”

Karr passed the clothes to Maize and turned his attention to the droid. “What is it, Arzee?” But he saw it before the droid could answer—Naq Med’s lightsaber. It remained on the table where he’d left it, looking as unobtrusive as a teacup without the Force of the Jedi behind it.

He ran his thumb up and down the metal cylinder until he found the switch that turned it on. A bright green column shot out, startling them all. It buzzed and hummed, glowing with power.

Karr held it with terror and awe, aiming carefully at the middle of the room where no one stood and no one could be hit or hurt. “A lightsaber,” he gasped. “I’m holding a real lightsaber. Not a broken one, not a piece of one. A real one.”

“And your head didn’t explode or anything!” Maize said, clapping her hands and laughing. “Does it hurt?”

“It feels…” How did it feel? He didn’t have the words. It felt like electricity and pressure between his ears, but it didn’t feel like a hot spike. It felt like hyperspace. It felt like the Force. “It feels…good.”

“Good? That’s all you’ve got?” she asked, but she was grinning from ear to ear.

“It feels light, not dark. It feels like I’ve finally found the balance.”

RZ-7 asked, “In the Force?”

He nodded. “And in life. I don’t fear the future anymore. It’ll be whatever I make of it. Good? Bad? Jedi? Tailor? Collector?” A light went off in his head, and almost to himself he said, “Maybe I’ll even be a…” But his voice trailed off, and he replaced the last word with a smile. He took another admiring look, then turned off the lightsaber.

“What are you doing?” she wanted to know. “Swing that thing around! Get some practice!”

“No, it isn’t for me to use—it’s for me to hold. That’s where the balance is, see?” He put it back down on the long strip of cloth and rolled it up. “I spent so long trying to figure out how to be a Jedi, and how to master the Force…but I’ve been looking at it all wrong. Maz Kanata knew. That’s what she was trying to tell me with the milk. I’m not the milk.”

“You’re losing me, Karr. I don’t get it.”

“That’s okay,” he told her. “Because I get it, finally. I’m not the milk. I’m the glass. I’m the one who sees the past, and the truth about what happened there. I’m the one who holds the memory.”

“Why you, sir? Why now?” asked the droid.

“Because there’s no one else to do it. This is where I fit,” he said with real confidence. Real certainty. “This is what I’m meant for. I get it now. I’m ready now.”

When he stopped talking, he realized that the sky was quiet. The rain had stopped. The storm was over, and they had everything of value there was left to take. His great-grandfather was dead, and he was going to leave for a trade school in a month—but that was all right. He understood that part now.

“Let’s go,” he told them, tucking the case with the robe and the lightsaber under his arm. “We still have some tracks to cover when we get home, right, Maize? You have to switch the transponders, and all that stuff?”

[...]

Karr smiled, and Maize smiled back. Then the two teens hugged, eventually making room for a protocol droid disguised as a medical droid—and went their separate ways for the time being. Maize went home to talk to her folks about family, and Karr went home to share his findings quietly with his own.

Even his brother was impressed—a little bit, anyway—when Karr produced the lightsaber and turned it on. The little house lit up green, and it hummed with electricity. It sizzled with the Force.

And at night, when everything was put away and all Karr’s collectibles were cataloged and sorted and stashed on their shelves…he pulled out a datapad. A Force collector’s job was more than just collecting. It was also explaining. His job was to remember. To share the stories. And he couldn’t wait to begin.

He called up a blank document, cracked his knuckles, and began to type.

A long time ago…


- Force Collector, Chapter 26