Hello, My Name is Gold
By Ethan
On October 15th, 2013
Usually, life stories begin with something cliché like “It all started on July 19th, 1988, on a
cold and windy night”, but not mine. I don’t even remember my beginning. I’ve just existed
since the dawn of time. During my first few millenniums, all I did was sit in my rock and wait.
Of course, I have my two best friends, Copper and Silver, so the wait isn’t too horribly
miserable.
Sorry - where are my manners? They seem to disappear when you’re a piece of rock. My
name is Gold, but elements call me seventy-nine. To be honest, I’m not sure why. So, every
day I wait here, for anything really, and I talk to my friends. Of course, conversations get a
little dry when they last thousands of years, but it helps.
But it all changed on July 19th, 1988, on a cold and windy night. The evening went as
usual, with all of my regular waiting exercises, but then the sky moved. The grey slab of
graphite we know as sky was lifted away, and we were exposed to the world. That’s when we
saw the humans. At least, I thought they were humans. They were tall, and disgusting, and
they made too much noise; they must’ve been humans.
It was a horrifying day. Hundreds of rocks were torn from their homes, sent flying, many
falling down a deep dark crack. I was frozen in the corner, terrified, when a human hand
lunged toward me, its fingers spreading like mechanical claws. Once it closed around me, it
felt like it was squeezing the electrons out of my valence shell. I was gasping and screaming,
and then it dropped me. At first, I was terror stricken, but then I realized I had never felt the
air on my body. I had never seen the outside world. It was huge. But then it disappeared,
and I was devoured into a red velvet sack. I was surrounded by other pieces of gold, who
comforted me and tended to my wounds. We gold are very ductile, always willing to spread
our resources out to others. Despite the fear in our nuclei, we fell asleep that night.
When we woke, we were lying in the bottom of a glass pan. It wasn’t so bad. I looked
around, and all of the gold appeared to be there. A glint of something shiny caught my eye,
and when I looked closely, I saw that it was Silver! I ran over, and we stood together. But
then we felt a strange heat radiating from the bottom of the pan. At first, it was pleasant,
but then it started to burn our valence shells. It was the most unusual sensation I had ever
experienced. We all started liquefying and forming together. And then, everything went
black.
~ 3 DAYS LATER ~
Hello again! It’s me, Gold! Things have changed so much! Let me tell you everything.
After I blacked out, Silver said that we had been crafted into a ring. It had been a long,
tolling day of metal-working. We were transported to a local jewelry shop, where we were
set up on a glass display shelf. That’s when I woke up! Our next few days were filled with
people flowing in and out, and we caught many a glance of admiration. We even had our
very own sign! It read: $79.
One day, though, a man walked in asking all kinds of questions about us. He ended up
taking us home. We were inserted into a small, red case, before we drove up to a hill in the
park. Our owner was with a lady. After a few minutes, he bent down on one knee and gave
us to the lady. She had water pouring out of her sockets. It was quite amusing. We slid onto
her finger, and I knew we had found our place. Of course, it will not be our place forever. We
will never die, the same way we were never born. I’m looking forward to the adventures.