STONED
Born as fresh, malleable clay, we’re easily impressionable, soft, and new; our delicate molds subject to influences, numerous experiences, and vicissitudes. Each event pushes and presses, affecting development and formation over time, shaping sediments and sentiments.
Major life incidents and noteworthy moments, people coming and going, carving impressions, and leaving marks; our casts sculpted and manipulated, affected by societal pressure and social impact, forged creations.
And eventually, the plaster ages and dries; it isn’t as pliable, no matter how much force is applied. You find it’s rigid and unwelcoming, our emotions calcified, forms stubborn and resistant; shapes become irrevocable.
After a while, you realize you’re no longer unaffected clay, no, you’re not what you used to be; you’ve hardened, hollowed with memories, tarnished by tribulations, calloused and cold, coarsened and old.
And no dosage of sunlight can thaw the bitter, no amount of care can cure the cracks; nothing seems to give anymore; everything is heavy, because you’re stone.
©2022 Chris Cooper All rights reserved.
An English literature graduate of James Madison University, Chris’s 2020 short story “Finn Almost Buys a Goldfish” won the ‘Emerging Writer’s Award’ at Spank the Carp Magazine, and his short story “The Swim” was recognized as the Best in Fiction for 2019 at Across the Margin. His work has also been featured in Hash Journal, Expat Press, Misery Tourism Magazine, and elsewhere.
Shockingly accurate, how bittersweet life can be.
Ugh this one really got to me. I lost both my parents at a young age and I’ve felt like stone for far too long.
“Shaping sediments and sentiments” —Absolutely killer line.