Stones

The day I was born, I had an empty backpack. The world in front of my eyes, the grass a noticeable green, the skies a noticeable blue. My, how wonderful the contrast was. And even on a rainy day, I would pay special attention to the raindrops on the backseat's window. I'd watch them rush, and I'd be so sad for that one little raindrop who didn't win the race. It seemed as if when he slowed down, the others would win, and he wouldn't try again, you know, for next race. And I'd watch the cars zoom past the car, wondering why they were in such a rush to get wherever they were going. I would mismatch my clothes, and I'd revel in the new colors. I noticed my mom's breathtaking scent from a mile away, I knew she was home when she was. My dad would carry me to my room to sleep in warm blankets, and if I was already in bed, he would kiss me, it woke me up from the deepest sleep with the love it carried. Nothing felt quite as nice as that, nothing ever has. Before my sister would run off to the teenage years, we would play Barbies in the basement. No one ever quite played like her and I. We had a magical, original Barbie game. We took such care of them. She let me push her Barbie van around the basement, and when we were called up the stairs, I followed her lead, and that has never changed. 

They started throwing stones in my backpack not too long ago. Not just stones I had to carry, but others' stones too. It seemed fit for the kind of person I am, the broader shoulders, the heavier the stones, the more sensitive the heart, the higher number of stones. And when people close to me had no green stones, I barely had green stones to give, but I tried to muster up the ones I had. If I had enough green stones, I'd give them all to the people I loved. 

The green stones became the object of necessity; everyone now needed the green stones! Suddenly, my empty backpack became heavier with stones that the Universe had "substituted" for the green stones. The new stones, the substitutes, kept piling up until you could fill their spaces with the green stones. If you had enough green stones, they had this magical power that they made your backpack super light, if everyone had enough green stones, all was well. And soon enough, the green stones began to consume us all. They consumed us so that we were swallowed up into the backpacks, and all we ever heard were each other's voices, and the voices of the stones, screaming "We cannot live like this, we need to find these green stones! We need to make them." And now, all of us silly people constantly look for green stones. But me, I have come to hate the green stones. They remind me of tar, they belong in a toilet, along with the emotions we all feel from their absence.