An aged oil-painting plate showing labeled pots of healthy saplings beside fallen withered leaves, which a large beetle gathers into a bale, with one red arrow tracing its sweep.

Jack Zines

Plate III: What the Garbage Collector Does

Date
September 20, 2026
Edition
1 of 1Robinhood Chain

The computer's tidy-up routine, painted as a natural history scene. Live saplings in labeled pots stand in a neat row — these are the objects the program still reaches. The rest has gone to litter: withered leaves and twigs marked with hand-lettered tags, gathered into a round bale by a dutiful beetle the painter calls the Collector. One arrow in faded red traces its whole job: sweep what is no longer reachable, and leave the living pots exactly where they stood.