Eager young eyes are illuminated with hunger for tales of the past, a past that seems almost inconceivable to those who had not lived it. The focus of the young eyes, a face and body weathered by time, lined with experience, stares patiently back. Shadows dance and flicker upon the grey stone walls, and silence fills empty corners like a spectator, impatiently awaiting the unknown. The weathered body moves closer to the source of warmth, the source of life itself. With a clearing of the throat the sense of longing is increased for the unfledged audience. And so, the tale begins…

            Darkness filled the world. There was but one shadow, and it engulfed and suffocated all things. A young boy, struggling through the cold, searches the flat and frosty ground for some obscure source of sustenance. The boy no longer shivered, his body had become hardened to the cold, in fact, he had been hardened to much of his cruel existence. Emotions were cast aside, for as unnecessary as emotions were, they had proven to be impractical for survival in such a harsh environment. And so, as the boy marched dutifully through life, he became almost oblivious of his own existence, and was certainly indifferent to the passing of time.

            There are no distinguishing characteristics to this boy, although he had the uncanny ability to notice things. He noticed things simply because his mind was free from all conscious thought. On this particular day (or was it night?), he noticed a very slight breeze blowing past. This breeze was warm on the boy’s skin, and because of such an unfamiliar sensation, the boy remained fixed in place, as though he had turned to stone. In his state of utter shock, the boy failed to notice that the wind had begun to build up speed. Before long, the boy was being pulled gently in an unfamiliar direction. It was impossible to tell if the boy had been walking for days, or merely hours, but he began to grow weary. The wind gently whispered in his ear to continue his journey, and the boy was unable to refuse.

            As suddenly as the warm wind had begun to blow, the air became still and glacial once more. The boy collapsed to his knees in complete exhaustion. It was then that he noticed something peculiar. Among the sparse brush, he noticed a small, red pebble. The astonishment of the young boy was unfathomable. Before this moment, his world had been black, never in his life had he seen colour. The boy scooped the pebble into his hands, and admired its smoothness.  Never in his life had he owned anything. A sudden, strange feeling consumed him. It was as though his whole body was warming. He felt joy for the first time. The boy had no way of communicating his sheer ecstasy to the world, for it was something he had never experienced. Unable to control himself, the boy began to dance, and as he did, he forgot all the miseries of his pitiful existence. The boy was dancing so furiously however, that he tripped over his own feet, and the magnificent red pebble was thrust into the air. The pebble seemed for a moment to be soaring, as if it possessed a freedom to escape the darkness. Yet all hope was lost as with a glimmer, the precious stone tumbled back to earth. The boy looked on in horror as the source of his life’s worth shattered on the frozen ground.

            Frantically the boy raced to the pebble and began his efforts to reassemble it. There were so many small shards that the boy’s endeavours seemed hopeless. He persisted. The boy desperately tried to push two of the larger crimson remnants together. Suddenly, the world was illuminated. It was only for a brief second, but it made the boy stop. He looked cautiously around, searching for the source of the unfamiliar light. After several uneventful moments, the boy shrugged and resumed his reparations. He began again to push the two pieces together. Again the world was lit.  It was at this moment that the boy realized that he had caused the phenomenon. The boy smiled to himself and began furiously rubbing the stones together until the light remained. With a great explosion, the gargantuan shadow that had enveloped the world shattered, just as the red pebble had done.  The world was at last revealed to the boy. It was the most beautiful sight that he could have ever hoped to encounter. The frost began to melt on the earth, and lush greenery began to appear. The boy pulled himself closer to the source of light he had created, and was pleased to discover the warmth that it radiated. It was with this spark that the world began to flourish.

            The audience listens, enraptured, to the weathered old man. With the end of the story, a general murmur of satisfaction echoes through the stone dwelling. The young listeners, their wonderment now spent, move heavy-eyed to their beds. The old man chuckles, perhaps reminiscent of his own childhood, and moves away from the fire. He fumbles in his pocket, for some trinket long forgotten, and draws out a beautiful fragment of red stone.