Project Gutenberg 2009-05-22 Public domain in the USA. 73 Young, Robert F. 1915 1986 Young, Robert Franklin Collector's Item Reading ease score: 62.2 (8th & 9th grade). Neither easy nor difficult to read. Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net "Collector's Item" by Robert F. Young is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. The narrative centers around a Galactic Historian tasked with condensing extensive histories of various races into a single manuscript, only to have it compromised by a mischievous breeze. This story navigates themes of memory, history, and the quirky nature of collection and ownership, ultimately reflecting on the significance of recorded history. In the plot, the Galactic Historian, overwhelmed by his responsibilities and personal troubles, fails to notice an essential page from his manuscript being whisked away by a strong gust of wind. This page, filled with critical historical dates and events, lands beneath a xixxix tree, home to two squixes—tiny, curious creatures with a penchant for collecting anything small enough to carry. The squixes, upon discovering the page, eagerly decide to create a hammock out of it, completely unaware of the historical value of their new possession. As they attempt to sleep on their creation, they are plagued by bizarre dreams, emblematic of the weight of the history they are now nestled upon, blending humor and introspection in an imaginative narrative. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Science fiction Short stories PS Text Science Fiction Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Browsing: Fiction 34183 34184 2024-10-12T12:19:06.525409 2023-09-13T03:58:48.862714 text/html text/html 30247 2021-01-05T03:39:56 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 11810 2021-01-05T03:39:56 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 78587 2024-10-12T12:19:10.592390 application/epub+zip 77472 2024-10-12T12:19:08.323415 application/epub+zip 77472 2024-10-12T12:19:07.113434 application/epub+zip 160140 2024-10-12T12:19:12.180379 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 153268 2024-10-12T12:19:09.912392 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 127786 2022-09-13T12:13:09.480561 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 28442 28341 2024-10-12T12:19:06.282416 2023-09-13T03:58:48.715212 text/plain; charset=us-ascii text/plain 28319 2021-01-05T03:39:56 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 10810 2021-01-05T03:39:56 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 20078 2024-10-12T12:19:12.375376 application/rdf+xml 12759 2024-10-12T12:19:07.761416 image/jpeg 3353 2024-10-12T12:19:07.441406 image/jpeg 75981 2024-10-12T12:19:06.529414 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia