There once lived a people named
"Choice". They lived in a valley that stretched further than
knowledge would allow to understand, mainly because people lost their wits
trying to explore its ends.
These people had one thing in common (other
than being alive); they were born with a rock in hand: a small pebble shaped
like a cube that was one inch in size, on all sides. No one knew why they were
born with a cube, and the Choice never questioned its strangeness because it
was the only thing they knew.
The people named Choice also had something else
that made them particular: they did not have to eat or drink to live. They
simply lived for an amount of time similar to you and I, but without the need
to live off the land. They simply lived on it – But they did face an issue.
The "Inevitable."
The Inevitable is similar to our concept of
death, but at the same time it holds an essence of life: change is the ending
of the past and the start of the present. In the case of the people of Choice,
the "Inevitable" represented their parting with their pebble; for you
see, when a person of Choice lets go of their pebble, they can never pick it back
up. But the other part to the Inevitable is that if they do not let go of their
pebble for many years, the pebble will crumble into dust, along with the life
of the owner, without fail.
So the people of Choice lived their lives with
this knowledge: they are born and live with a pebble in a land without end, and
they will eventually face the Inevitable.
But, one day, something unexpected occurred: an
earthquake (as we call it) had split the ground upon which the people of Choice
stood, forming a large crevice. The Choice decided to explore its length, since
the width from one side to the other was too large to jump across, and the
depth seemed as deep as the land was infinite. But after many years of
exploration, some of the Choices began to think that there was no point in
continuing to seek the end of the crevice. So they stopped walking and let the
other Choices continue their search.
Eventually, the Choices that stayed behind
began to lose interest in crossing the crevice. They created a philosophy
called "Complacence," and, as the name suggested, they went nowhere.
But as time passed, the Inevitable happened and Choices began to wither - along
with their pebbles - until very few of the older generations that had first
decided to stay put began to die, along with their philosophy of
"Complacence."
The new generation of Choices became the
majority, and with a large change in population came a large change in
ideology; the new philosophy was called "Eventuality." The ideal of
"Eventuality" came from trying to figure out how to build a platform
across the crevice in order to get to the other side. The Choices would finally
decide to use the only material they had (their pebbles) - even if it meant the
death of the life of a Choice - as the foundation for the platform.
They left the possibility of getting to the
other side to the future Choices.
So thousands and thousands of the Choices began
to throw their pebbles into the crevice and, with it, their life. At first the
pebbles only fell into the darkness, with the swish of the wind gliding past
them as the only sound they made. But as the thousands of Choices continued to
be sacrificed towards the goal of "Eventuality," a different sound
began to be heard - the sound of rocks hitting another - which further inspired
the future generations that had now taken up the responsibility. Generations
continued to be born and continued to die with younger generations taking up
the mantel of the previous Choices, but with much greater fervor, since now the
sounds of pebbles hitting each other became visible; the platform was almost
complete.
But with the rise in dedication to the goal of
"Eventuality" came the fall in the number of Choices. The higher the
platform rose, the lower the population fell, since, by this point, the Choices
had become so rash with desire to complete the task of building the platform that
they stopped focusing on rebuilding the population equally as fast as they were
finishing it. This trend continued until the platform and
"Eventuality" was achieved. But with it came a new realization.
Only one Choice remained.
This one being had experienced the result of
Eventuality (not that it was going to lead to the satisfaction the founders had
imagined, but that "Eventuality" was actually a disguise of
"Inevitability").
The single Choice was crushed by this
realization, but in honor of the previous Choices, they began to cross the
bridge. As the Choice came to the final step before reaching the end of the
crevice, they saw something: a small space that was one inch in length - on all
sides - right between the platform and the other side of the crevice. But
something else appeared: a sound, a bunch of sounds, the sounds of other
Choices appearing in the distance. The Choice, standing on the platform, looked
to the direction in which the older generations that had not stayed behind had
migrated, and were now returning, on the side of the crevice that so many
Choices had been sacrificed to get to.
The Choice simply stood there and looked in
complete silence and watched as the migrating Choices approached until they
stood right across from each other and looked into one other's eyes.
After some silence, they began to speak and
tell of each other's history, now that generations have passed. And after the
conversation was over, the Choice from Eventuality got down on their knees when
they had filtered the information from the long talk.
It turned out that while the Choices of
Eventuality (that were once the Choices of "Complacence") had gone
through many generations of Choices trying to build the platform, the Choices
of "Possibility" had only gone through two generations since the
start of their journey. Because of the desire to reach the other side of the
crevice using their pebbles, the Choices of "Eventuality" had gone
through multiple generations at a much faster pace than normal – thousands were
gone within a couple of years.
With the "Eventuality" came the
"Inevitable," so the final Choice from the philosophy of
"Eventuality" that remained looked down and placed their pebble into
the final empty space of the platform, and as they let go of their pebble they
looked up and smiled kindly at the other Choices, finishing the Bridge of
Eventuality.
By: Rafael Migoyo (Ravimi)
Edited by Eric
Staab and Mercedes Flowers
