The Adventurous Rock Emma Corcoran ’24

The Adventurous Rock

Once upon a time, there lived a large, strong rock that was almost the size of a boulder. The rock lived peacefully atop a mountain where it could constantly view the beautiful world that surrounded it. Despite being able to see whatever it wanted, the rock longed for adventure. The rock grew tired of the daily routine of sitting atop that mountain and looking out on the horizon. One day, the rock saw something different from its usual landscape of mountains and trees. On a small, flat patch of land that had been left untouched by the forest, appeared a human. The rock was astonished as it had never seen a human before. As the rock gazed at the human in amazement, the human then signaled into the forest. Upon the human’s gesture, three more humans emerged from the trees. The rock, although confused, was excited to see something new. It wondered why these humans were traveling to the middle of a forest in the hills, but quickly abandoned its hesitation and moved on to the feeling of excitement as the change it always wanted finally arrived.

As a couple of days passed by, the rock watched the humans use the resources around them to build houses. Although the rock was unhappy with the humans taking down a number of trees in the forest, it remained curious about what these humans were like. The rock constantly remained both confused and amazed by the humans. For so long, the rock wanted to get closer to the humans and grew sad when it realized that it could never happen, but little did the rock know his dreams would soon come true. One day, a storm rolled through that was stronger than any storm the rock had experienced before. The storm was so strong in fact, that it caused a powerful mudslide to form. As the combination of mud, stones, and water pummeled down the mountain, the rock began to move with it. The rock, who was overtaken by fear, closed its eyes and hoped the storm would soon pass. When the rock finally gained the confidence to open its eyes, it became overwhelmed with happiness as he had finally been brought off the mountain. Despite the terrifying experience of the mudslide, the rock had been brought off the mountain and down to the patch of land that the humans had been building on.

For its first few days being around the humans, the rock was in awe since its view of mountains and trees had changed to watching the humans talk and construct buildings and tools. The rock was convinced that it had finally found its happily ever after, but what it did not know was that its life was about to change for the worse. The rock’s newly formed routine of watching the humans was interrupted when the humans approached the rock. The rock began to panic as the humans approached it with tools. Then, one by one, the humans began taking strikes at the rock which caused pieces of the rock to fall onto the ground and the humans used the fragments of rock to make better creations. Although the rock was upset about what the humans had done, it remained intrigued by the humans and their lives. Every once in a while, for the next few days, the humans would strike the rock and use its pieces for their needs which caused the rock to question whether or not it enjoyed being among the humans. Finally, the rock was so broken down that it became the size of a small stone, but yet again the humans came to break off pieces of the rock. When the humans discovered that they could not make the rock any smaller, they used the last piece of stone to make their final creation. From that day on, the rock, which had been turned into a jug, sat in the house

made by the humans, wishing to be back on top of the mountain. The rock realized that although its time on the mountain may have been boring, it could always view the beauty that surrounded it rather than being stuck looking at the wall of a house.

Emma Corcoran ‘24