The Saltkeeper
At the edge of every mind there is a beach.
The sea brings dreams, ideas, and quiet certainties.
The land holds all the tools and duties of the waking world.
Between them lies a strip of sand no wider than an hour’s peace.
Most people forget the shore exists.
They walk the land until their soles harden.
They build towers that scrape the horizon and call the height perspective.
From those heights, the sea looks small.
But when the tide retreats for too long, the world holds its breath.
That is when the goblins come.
They arrive without malice, chattering and bright.
They wear the colors of urgency.
They set up stalls that promise news, relevance, and company.
They do not take by force. They trade.
A thought for a click, a memory for a minute, a conviction for applause.
They call it fair exchange.
In time, the beach fills with their stalls, tiny fires burning night and day.
The people forget the sound of waves.
The goblins thrive on the forgetting.
They do not steal the sea; they make it seem unnecessary.
But there are always a few who remember.
One morning a man arrives carrying a small bell and a bag of salt.
He walks past the stalls and kneels at the tideline.
The goblins laugh. There is nothing to sell him.
He presses his thumb into the salt, draws a circle in the sand, and listens.
The tide answers.
It always does, once someone remembers to ask.
The water creeps forward, slow and deliberate, washing away the glitter and ash.
The goblins hiss and scatter, for salt stings their feet.
By noon the shore is clean enough to see reflections again.
The man does not speak of victory.
He teaches whoever will listen how to draw a circle of their own,
how to hold the silence long enough for the sea to return.
Some stay. Some leave.
But the pattern spreads, small coves of kept attention appearing along the coast.
No one knows his name.
They call him the Saltkeeper because the name is enough.
The goblins return with every low tide. They always will.
But as long as someone draws a circle and listens for the water,
the sea remembers the way back.