Owning the Unownable

[Scene: A grungy indoor swap meet. Dim fluorescent lights buzz overhead. The aisles are a labyrinth of half-broken furniture, bins of unidentifiable cables, racks of secondhand coats that all smell faintly of boiled pennies. People drift like they’ve lost both the plot and the map.]

Nettle: (slowing her walk to eye a shelf stacked with old rotary phones in colors nature would never approve) You ever notice how some people spend their whole lives trying to own things you literally can’t own?

Tarrow: (studying a nearby table of cloudy snow globes) You mean like… the moon? Or other people’s attention?

Nettle: The moon’s too cliché. I mean stuff like… the concept of “the last word.” Can’t put it in your pocket, but people fight over it like it’s currency.

Tarrow: The problem being—if you do get the last word, you can’t enjoy it. You’re just standing in an empty room, talking to the echo.

Nettle: Right. It’s like buying the deed to a lighthouse you never visit. All that light, and no one to gloat to.

(They pause at a table of mismatched silverware. A man in a neon hunting vest is examining a single butter knife like it holds the answer to his divorce.)

Tarrow: What about him? Perfect utensil?

Nettle: Nah. He’s chasing “the feeling of control.” Same thing kings used to fight wars over, just cheaper.

Tarrow: (dry) Marginally.

Nettle: Until you start collecting the idea of perfect forks. Then you’re just a dragon sitting on a hoard nobody respects.

(They pass a stall of VHS tapes with hand-written labels: “Best Commercials of ’87,” “Hamster Show #4.”)

Tarrow: Owning the unownable could just be another word for “hobby.”

Nettle: No. A hobby is knitting sweaters. Owning the unownable is trying to knit time.

Tarrow: That’s… bleakly accurate.

Nettle: I knew a guy who claimed he “owned” a sunrise. Wouldn’t say where he saw it. Said revealing the location would devalue his asset.

Tarrow: That’s just daylight hostage-taking.

Nettle: And the ransom note’s useless—sun can’t read.

(They stop. A kid’s selling a jar labeled “Air from 1994 – Authentic.”)

Tarrow: Strong contender for the title.

Nettle: Amateur. Impress me by bottling “the moment before someone says something stupid.” That’s rare air.

Tarrow: Volatile. Escapes instantly.

Nettle: Usually through the mouth that created it.

(They drift past a rack of vintage jackets. A woman is trying on a fur coat over sweatpants and flip-flops.)

Tarrow: She’s not buying the coat. She’s buying the story she tells herself in the mirror.

Nettle: Self-image—the most expensive unownable. Doesn’t matter if the mirror’s lying, as long as it’s consistent.

Tarrow: Until someone takes a photo.

Nettle: Which makes photography basically armed robbery.

(A man stands frozen before a table of ceramic frogs, hands in pockets, staring like he’s waiting for them to blink.)

Tarrow: What’s his quarry?

Nettle: Patience. He’s losing.

Tarrow: You can’t own patience.

Nettle: No, but you can rent it thirty seconds at a time if you pretend to be choosing between two frogs.

(They sidestep a woman wheeling a cart piled entirely with broken alarm clocks.)

Tarrow: Time.

Nettle: Yeah. She’s trying to own time. But time’s already left the building.

Tarrow: Which makes this whole place a marketplace for the impossible.

Nettle: And yet here we are—window-shopping for futility.

(They pass a booth selling hundreds of remote controls in milk crates, all labeled “No TV included.”)

Tarrow: This one’s good. Buying the power to change something you don’t have.

Nettle: That’s basically politics.

(A tall man at the next booth is flipping through stacks of incomplete board games.)

Tarrow: He’s chasing the concept of “almost winning.”

Nettle: The rarest victory of all—no one celebrates it, but it’s yours forever.

(They stop near a table of dented musical instruments. A trumpet with no mouthpiece, a violin with only one string.)

Tarrow: What’s this stall selling?

Nettle: Potential.

Tarrow: Feels overpriced.

Nettle: Potential always is.

(They round a corner into a quieter aisle. A woman sits behind a table of keychains, each tagged “Key Not Included.”)

Tarrow: That’s poetic.

Nettle: That’s predatory. She’s selling the idea of access.

Tarrow: Which is almost as good as the real thing—if you never try the door.

(A man at the far end is hawking “Lifetime Guarantees” printed on cardstock.)

Nettle: You can’t guarantee a lifetime.

Tarrow: You can if you never specify whose.

(They head toward the exit. The smell of stale pretzels follows them like a bad decision.)

Tarrow: So—do we ever stop trying to own the unownable?

Nettle: No. We just get better at pretending we have.

Tarrow: That’s… grim.

Nettle: Not if you start charging admission.