Fancy was a small pebble. Fancy lay in a bubbling spring river where their once rough surface was brought to a gleaming shine by the rushing motion of the water. Fancy spent each day laying motionless in the spring river. Fancy was happy. Fancy was content. When Fancy would look up into the reflection of themselves on the underside of the still water, Fancy would burst with pride! Look! How deep the colors of Fancy’s skin were! Look! How the stripes of the different minerals that composed of Fancy’s body leapt and circled and undulated in defiance to rhyme or reason!

And in the evenings, how Fancy loved the evenings. When the wide-open mouths of goldfish would suck Fancy into their mouths, sucking off the accumulated algae, adding to Fancy’s already lustrous shine. Fancy wished they could thank the fish for the evening cleaning, but sadly Fancy could not speak. But Fancy could think, and Fancy could dream. Fancy didn’t know if this was a common thing, for Fancy couldn’t ask another pebble what they thought of the matter. 

Once, for a brief and terrifying moment, Fancy thought of the thousands of pebbles in the river that could think and dream and how they would never realize they were not alone. Imagine! Terrifying solitude amid thousands!

Fancy decided then to put their considerable talent for thought and dreams into making a device to allow all the pebbles in the river to read each other’s thoughts. How wonderful that would be. How exciting to hear other thoughts and dreams and compare them to their own. Fancy worked on the project day and night, creating more and more elaborate devices to realize the dream of uniting all their fellow pebbles in conversation. 

For a time, Fancy realized their surroundings had changed. The familiar feeling of water was replaced by two new sensations; rough dry fabric and warm moist hands. Fancy realized that they couldn’t “see” anymore. Perhaps the water awakened that sense, or enabled it somehow. As Fancy tumbled in on one environment, as other objects course, soft or wet scraped against Fancy’s skin, Fancy hoped the luster of their skin wouldn’t be tarnished. Fancy continued to think and dream. Ridiculously it seemed that someone was listening. but that would be impossible, wouldn’t it?

One day Fancy was abruptly aware of a change of their surroundings and was suddenly surrounded by the rush of cold water, and could “see” again. Fancy looked up into the rippling surface of the water and was happy to realize that their skin was still as beautiful as they remembered. Fancy was filled with joy later that evening when the goldfish arrived to suck them into their mouths. As Fancy swirled and spiraled and felt the soft inner flesh of the goldfishes mouth against its skin, Fancy was content again.

Alas, as the days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, Fancy was worn down smaller and smaller until the rushing river picked Fancy up, and ground them into dust.

This is why, after thousands of years, the pebbles in the world have done nothing other than lying on the bed of rivers or litter the soft sand on the shores of those rivers. All the deep creative thoughts and extravagant dreams mean nothing if you have no hands to build them.