Whose Is It Now?

The museum guide stopped in front of a glass case. A visitor leaned in to look.

“Whose ring is this?” the visitor asked. “It's beautiful.”

“It was hers,” the guide said, pointing to a painting of a young queen. “Almost everything in this room was once hers.” “The crown, the books, the silver — all of it belonged to her.”

“And these letters?”

“Those are different. They were written by her sister, so they're not the queen's. They're theirs — the whole family kept them together.”

The visitor moved to the next case. “And this old map? Whose is that?”

“Ah,” the guide said. “That one is ours. The museum bought it last year.” “Everything else here is borrowed, but the map is our own property.”

The visitor was quiet for a moment. “It's strange,” she said. “All these things outlived the people who owned them. The queen is gone, her sister is gone, even their children's children are gone. Only the objects stay.”

“Yes,” the guide said softly. “We look after them now. For a while, they're ours. One day they'll be someone else's.”