I'm A Rock

I started life as a large boulder on top a high mountain. For centuries a watched and listened as the world around me changed. One day in the distant past the ground beneath me shook violently and, along with several of my rock buddies, rolled down the mountain and came to rest in the valley below. I enjoyed my life in the valley surrounded by many friends and wildlife for a few hundred centuries until one day when several strange animals came by and started beating me with hammers for no reason at all.

These animals I learned later where called humans. They were building something and I was in their way. Because men are weak they broke me into smaller pieces of manageable size where they could move me aside in an effort to achieve what they call "progress". Soon these humans had achieved in just one short week what nature had tried to do since my creation. A few tears after I became very small a young human child, called a "boy", came walking along, picked me up, put me in his pocket and took me to a place where he and his family dwelt. Humans age very quickly and the boy grew into a man, married a woman, had offspring, and died. Most of this time I laid on his desk where he would pick me up, turn me over and look at me, and then lay me down for no apparent reason. One of the man's boys, a young man by then, took me away to his home and placed me on his desk where I now sit.

Now humans don't give rocks much credit for our intelligence. They say about one another "He's dumber than a box of rocks!" but we rocks just sit back and laugh to ourselves when we hear this because rocks are much smarter than they think we are. We aren't much on talking but we are excellent listeners and observers. Rocks are not good swimmers but we aren't afraid of water either. Long ago humans appreciated rocks more than they do today and in turn rocks returned the favor and helped man. We were turned into tools that helped man survive but one thing about humans that we soon learned, when humans discovered another material that worked better they cast us aside. That was when our Nemesis metal came on the scene. Since the dawn of time rock and metal were good friends and lived in harmony side by side. But when metal became man's  favorite for tools this arrogant material snubbed us just like man did.

Like just about everything there are exceptions to any rule. As granite I am not highly prized by man but my cousin, twice removed, is sought after by the human where they cut and polish him, mount him on a piece of the one of the metals they value highly, and wear them on their fingers. The female of the human specie covets cousin Diamond and hand him down as a heirloom. They use my family, the Granites, for building material and monuments mostly. My weaker brother, Limestone, is used for mostly menial tasks by man and treated horribly, often crushed into small pieces they call "gravel" and driven over by their cars and trucks. But the rock family is diverse and will be here long after man is gone. In the meantime I have taken the opportunity of sitting on this man's desk to find out more about this strange specie. I am trying out my man's new device that he keeps on his desk to record my observations and theories.