The rock

A gift.

5:00 pm, the echoes of slightly-worn guitar strings, high-pitched, smooth sounding voices just beyond the reach of control and mastery, and the unapologetic strikes of the drum step up the stairs, out the front door, beside the last person to leave the house. "You should play your piano or something later on, you like piano, right?", the girl rhetorically blurts out, as she makes her way to the car. "Wait, Alexa", the young man orated, slightly confused and considerably unsettled, "Why?", he then asks, similarly, in an unintentional mockery of her rhetorical remark.

What a hassle these two were, not just then in this moment of confusion and primal, rhetorical exchange, but earlier that day, when the extents of my intuition and logical outlook on life was tested, changed; broken under extreme circumstances and forged anew from the extremities such sediments were first birthed upon.

Many a time had this eccentric group of people visited this house, but for me, it was my first. 

"Where am I?", I ponder, motionless, laid down on the side of a hand-me-down, beat-up IKEA table. To my right, a note, or was it a letter of some sort? It read:

"To Dylan.

here's a spicy gift for you from your spicy friend ivan."

"Wow," I initially thought. Being the first lick of English, or understanding, I've been exposed to, I feel that I should have been amazed at that moment, yet the anticipated unraveling of life which should have surpassed that of the natural, self-awareness of a rock continued to sustain itself as just that: a possibility. I felt nothing; it was in my rocky nature. A note, which I supposed served some sentimental purpose, lay there just as I did, motionless, unconscious; purposeless.

I felt that I should've held some sort of significant figure towards such a thought, but, again, I didn't.

"It's 'In-To your dire-ction, not 'into - your- di-re-ction', Jairo and Crysteen", said the stern-faced, assertive young man from earlier, clearly involved and leading the exchange. "I still don't really know how it goes, I didn't listen to the songs to be honest", said the young man named Jairo, one of a smaller stature made up for by his confident demeanor and a voice just short of ethereal.  "Jairo, you do realize that camp is in two days, right? Common' man, get it together!", joked the girl they called Crysteen, jokingly, in an attempt to waft out the mundane repetitiveness the practice has now embodied, three hours in. 

Turning his gaze halfheartedly towards the couch on the left side of the room, with drained discontentment and an air close to hopelessness in his voice, he uttered: "Ivan. Aaron. Keith. Now is not the time for memes." The three dangling heads jolted up and away from the enticing projection from the gray, "HP" display, all giving the young man a guilty nod of acknowledgement, signalling for everyone to move forward.

I began to envision differing possibilities as I did before, but only now they were much more powerful, if such a word was appropriate in this context. Expressions, emotions; life of which I couldn't and would never be able to experience, all apparent and carefully illustrated before me. Envisioning turned to thinking, which boiled down to the same question I had asked before: Why? 

Was there a feasible reason for one devoid and incapable of experiencing emotions and feelings to be exposed to their uniqueness and indifference to the emotionless, an indifference unrequited and enviable by the likes of myself. Who would allow for so great a misdemeanor to occur among nature at such a time? My envy and the impossibility of such an ideal called upon the esteemed titles of "envy", "grief", and "sadness", to which none seemed to respond to. 

Typical, I'm quite used to it by now.

Attention away from detail, memorable instances ensued, as my pleas towards different names continued to go ignored. Everything of my essence just seemed wrong at this point: I've been introduced into a wonderful, new world of which I had to leave. 

Leave, just as these moments came and went. Following an exchange, all went on as if it didn't happen; the present wrings at the past until it no longer exists. Feelings, emotions, exchanges, all disappear eventually after their initial occurrences. Was it such a flawed appeal system that I was striving for? Even the extents of my imagination seemed to provide no hope for a rock as self-aware and reflective as I am. 

I stirred. 

"Why?", the young man had inquired, in response to the girl's rhetorical proposition. "Don't worry about it", she blatantly responded, heeding to no further response, pacing on her way. 

This? A fitting conclusion to such an afternoon? An exposition of the physical manifestation of the gods I call upon everyday, an entire world of possibility and unpredictable bliss, simply concluded by an apathetic informality leaving so much unanswered? Such were the conflicting thoughts of which flooded my being until the young man, his stern look lightened, put me down beside the note of which read:

"To Dylan.

here's a spicy gift for you from your spicy friend ivan."

"A rock, huh", he whispered seemingly both to himself and me. Shortly after picking up the note and examining it for a short while, he pondered for a bit, stopped, and smiled. When he stopped, I stopped; the world stopped. The surface-level, artificial domains of which plagued my existence slowly dissipated, and in its space were filled the essence behind the names of which I had called upon earlier; they heard me. Within me, I knew envy, anger, sadness, and I knew happiness, laughter, fulfillment; I knew Aaron, Jairo, Crysteen, Keith, Ivan, and Aaron. The feelings they've shared, experienced, showed, and created that afternoon were all within me: I felt it.

It was more than a rock could ask for.

It was all coming together. This was my purpose: to carry the sentiments and emotions felt that day; the only day I really came to know and understand. This was my calling: to serve as a reminder of what happened that day and its significance. 

A significance of which I will never understand or appreciate, I've recognized that, for I'm just a rock.

But its okay.

For whenever the young man arrives and sits upright at his desk, with the same stern, slightly confused look on his face, quietly with a sense of fulfillment, comes the exclamation, "Dangit Alexa". Words of which mean so little but hold so much meaning ignite my essence, give me purpose; for I am reminded that it is not emotions, but memories that give life to what cannot live on its own.

- The rock