Wednesday, August 6, 2014

I am slate.

Another writing exercise from Lissa Rovetch.  For this one, we were supposed to use this opener: "Who am I?  Just a _____."  We had to write in first person from an object's perspective.  Some of the options were: plastic fork, slate rock, wood, toothbrush, tea bag, smooth and round rock, or an index card with a shoe on it.  Here's mine:



Who am I?  Just a piece of slate.  I have seen empires rise and fall, great lumbering beasts dominate then fade, the cracking and cooling of the earth.  I was born from the fiery womb of a volcano, ejected into the air and slammed into the dust far from my mother.  Her fertility faded and now she slumbers, a slumping hulk of what she once was.  Now grass and flowers grow on her face - they no longer burn at the sight of her intensity.  She deserves the rest, after ten thousand years of pain and heat and change.




But I wonder if she misses it, despite or because of the chaos.  If she pines for the glory and magnitude of her old self.  Or if she is content to let new life grow upon her, to support and nourish rather than destroy and create whole landmasses in her fury.

I don't know that I would miss it.  I like being a rock, the constancy of it.  The solidity, the dependability.  I don't need to change.  I can stay right here, on this spot, and never worry what I'll look like tomorrow or eons from now.  I'll look exactly the same.  The same plain face, the same uninteresting situations.  I'll never have a fall from grace like my mother.  I'll never have regrets.  Because regrets require opportunities.  And I have had none.