There once was a stick. A stick in the mud. He’d thrash and splash only to create a rash from other sticks and stones. Yet no one dared to say anything to him, afraid that he might thrash them too. No head or tails to make of his appearance, as stick wouldn’t have such a thing as a head, maybe a tail… After weeks of thrashing and splashing in the mud, the stick had stopped. With the other sticks and stones, curious, they came to see what he had done. It was not a work of art, maybe something you’d call abstract, but the stick was now full of mud. Covered from tip to toe, blinded, he couldn’t see what he had done or those around him watching him. He wanted to say something, but no mouth. Trees speak, but a stone that broke away from its mountain, a stick broken off a tree, a bush, does not. As water flows through mountains telling the tales the giants have seen, wind does not pass through sticks as it would through the lush pins of pines or the branches and leafs of the trees.

Muted, blinded, all alone, in the land of any and all. A stick stands. The earth he stands in shakes and quakes. All the stones and sticks have fallen down. A large shadow is cast upon them, and a large eyes appears above in the skies. He looks with precision around the stones and sticks, until the eyes stops upon the stick in the mud. A flash blinds them all, the light gets through even to the muddy stick, scaring him. Scared, confused and lonely he starts to jump and thrash in the mud once more. Seeing this, the eye got closer, he could not believe what he just saw. A claw descending from the clouds grabbed the stick. Seeing this, the other sticks and stones attacked the claw to stop trying to hurt the muddy stick. But, as it’s nature’s will, they could do nothing to help him. Now mudless in the eyes, up in the heavens above, he could hear the talk of the trees through the wind, he could see the eye that was closely inspecting him. That which scared him even more.

After another flash and another claw appear from thin air, to take him by both ends. As the eye drew nearer, through one of its greasy claws, the stick escaped free to poke the eye. A thunderous scream is heard by all the sticks and stones on the ground as they see the muddy stick falling down from the heavens and feel the ground beneath shaking. The stick has fallen back where it was taken from, and all the other sticks and stones jumped in to get him. The eye returned, but red, to see all those sticks and stones muddied and dirtied. With a giant swing of his claw he hit the rocks and stones and threw them far away. You see? Where sticks and stones may break your bones, ‘cause they don’t see nor hear, eyes and claws may break you all. I see to you all this, as I sit here, drinking a beer. Alone, at a sit in some random bar in the middle of this town. Make of this story what you will, not like my will will persuade you otherwise. And now I go home to sleep next to my angry wife.

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