I love to go out on summer nights and watch the stones grow. As the moonlight flickers gently across their smooth faces, I can see my life in those stones. All the memories, all the years, it's all there. I can see the summer nights my brothers and I played here on these stones, laughing into the night. I can feel the romance of the walks my wife and I took by these stones. And I can hear the squeals of my now grown children as they too bounded over these stones. And as I grow older I can see the rocks begin to age along with me, filled up with memories, and how their aging delicate moss slowly flakes off and floats to the ground.
One night, long ago, as I sat watching the stones grow and listening to their stories, before these old stones had even grown their first moss, I noticed a man sitting beside me. He was not talking or moving or even breathing it seemed- just sitting there watching the stones grow. As I glanced in his direction, he suddenly started to talk. He did not turn his head to look at me or change his manner at all, and at first I wasn't sure he was even talking to me.
"I wasted my whole life on that fish," he said, "I wasted my whole life. If only I had stopped to think..." Unsure of what he meant, I watched the man's face and said nothing. His manner did not change.
"Once upon a time when I was a young man like you, I traveled to the sea," the man said. I now was certain his words were meant for me, but knew not why.
"I walked upon the shore of that great beach," he said, "with the entire world and all its opportunities open to me and In my search for happiness all I saw were some fishermen, delighted at their catch. And I said to myself 'If I could catch fish like those men, then I would be very happy.' And I endeavored to do so, and became a fisherman. And I was happy. Until one day, when as I looked into the water beside my boat I saw the fish. It was the largest most beautiful fish I had ever seen, with milky white scales the size of plates, and I knew then that I must catch that fish to be happy. Alas, I began to focus only on catching the fish. I forgot my happiness in being a fisherman, I forgot my friends, and I forgot my memories. That fish tormented my thoughts day and night. Eventually I caught it. But when I had done so, it was too late, and I had nothing. No purpose, no memories, no happiness. I simply had another fish. It is good that you watch these stones at night and think upon your memories, and do not focus entirely on the present. I forgot my memories and they are gone forever now." As I thought this over in my mind, the man must have left the clearing, because when I looked up, he was gone.
That is why I sit here now and rejoice that the stones grow. For as I grow, the stones grow with me, holding my most precious memories within themselves to be found again in the moonlight and never forgotten. I can see my whole life in the stones, and I am glad that they grow.
Submitted by: Katie Whitnah, George Washington High School