There was a time, long long ago, when the depths of the Earth were filled with the most precious things one could have imagined. For thousands of years, animals, plants and people lived on the surface, mostly unaware of the beauty, the richness and he power buried under their feet, occasionally being surprised and amazed at the hints that surfaced of such precious things.
One day, a small skinny man tripped over something hard on the forest ground. His toes hurt and he grunted, upset at what had caused him so much pain. As he turned back to see what had caused him so much hurt, he saw a bulk of sparkly yellow stone. Like a spell, the stone drank from his attention, glistening in between the shade, calling for him.
Enticed by the stone's shimmer, he dug around it with his barehands. When most of it was lose, he pulled the sparkling stone off the ground. It was so big, he had to embrace it with both arms, and yet he still stumbled back with its weight. He took the stone back to his humble settlement, always holding onto it.
Soon, the other people in the settlement had heard about the man's shiny stone. Some had seen him carry it, some had heard rumours about it, and some had taken glances at it, seeing only an inch or so, for the man had stayed inside, wrapped around the stone, keeping it to himself and as close to his chest as he could. He did not want to part away with it, not even for a second. He stopped eating, he stopped working, he even stopped showering.
Some fo the people in the settlement thought that was very selfish of him. They too wanted a piece of the shiny stone for themselves. One woman visited him and offered him tea seasoned with a poisonous herb to try to kill him. But he wasn't eating or drinking so he didn't take the tea. She left, disappointed. A young boy tried tickling his feet in the hopes the man would drop the stone, but he clung tighter to it. One day, as the settlers gathered on the street complaining and envying the man's shiny stone, a strong man spoke loud above the crowd. "It is time we take that shiny stone from him and share it among all of us! And if we need to do it by force, so be it!" The crowd, full of envious people, rowred at his words. You see, they were driven by envy. And even though they had lived thousands of years without the yellow stone - and did not have any use for it - they wanted it too. The stone's shine has transformed them and glued itself to their attention. As if under a spell, they acted without thinking.
Two other men joined the first one and, together, they entered the skinny man's quarters and tore the stone away from him, leaving the man weakened by the lack of food and water, hurt by their brutal manners, and empty of his soul which the stone had slurped, curling alone on the floor. They came out to a cheering crowd, jubilant at the thought of having a piece of the beautiful stone for themselves. The large stone was broken into pieces and each settler got to have their own.
At first, they were entranced by the shiny yellow stone they were given. Each piece fit into their hands and people carried them everywhere. Some hanged the stones on a cord and made a necklace out of it, some attached it to their finger and made a ring out of it... people attached their stones to different parts of their body, each following their preference.
For the first days, everyone was happy. They cheerfully compared the different shapes. They laughed and shared in each others' happiness and joy, marvelled by the different places everyone attached their stones to. Some even attached them to their homes, on the walls and by the door.
Yet soon the wind started to change.
Seeing all the places where you could have a shiny stone - your earlobe, your nose, your ankle, your wrist, your finger, your neckline, the door to your place, the wall to your place, on your hair, on your clothes, and so many more places - the settlers wanted to have more of the shiny stones so they could have it everywhere. And so they began to steal stones from each other. At first taking one stone here and there, when no one was looking, and eventually trying to gulp for oneself as many stones as one could, as many as there were.
People started trading their food, their shelters, their clothes for these stones. Such was the enchantment of it, the beauty of it, everyone wanted some. But of course, the whole village had to make do with the broken pieces of the big stone the skinny man had stumbled upon some time ago. To have enough for everyone, they broke the pieces down, smaller and smaller, some to the size of sand, to go around for everyone. Still, it wasn't enough. So some men decided to go into the forest and find more of the stones.
They cut the trees down so they could see better. They dub big holes in the ground so they could find them better. And they took all the beautiful stones they could find: yellow ones, red ones, green ones, blue ones, silvery ones, brown ones, purple ones, white ones, and black ones. The more they found, the more people craved for them.
Entranced by the beauty of the stones and their shine, people abandoned their homes, gave away everything to own a piece of them. And then they held those pieces close, feeding them their attention, their care, their love. Silently, slowly, the stones fed off the human souls, and there was no attention, no care and no love left for each other, or the animals, or the trees, or the bushes, or the flowers, or the rivers, or the mountains, or the oceans, or the swamps.
Other settlements learned about these precious stones and soon began to crave for them as well. They started fighting each other for the stones each had, and for the forests, mountains and rivers that were still alive, that still harboured within themselves those shiny hidden secrets. They turned every stone, carved out every mountain, drained every river and cut down every tree, looking for more of these beautiful stones.
Soon enough they found other things the Earth harboured: iron, copper and other metals. They melted and shaped them into tools that helped dig stones faster. Spreading across the land, people settled in once sacred natural places and dismembered them until every shiny stone was dug out of the guts of the Earth. They found dark, thick liquid and millenar wood inside Earth's belly and burnt both to power their stone searching and Earth gutting machines.
More and more people had pieces of shiny stones. Yet, all stones were not enough. Human creativity is a fabulous thing. It can be used in such fun, encouraging, lively ways. It can also be mischievious, dangerous. People started thinking of new places to put shiny stones, of how to show them off in new ways. And the more ways they invented, the more stones everyone wanted.
They built factories made of stone and steel close to places where they found the sparkly shiny stones. And those who had a lot of stones enslaved others. Making them work digging the ground, gutting the Earth, for many more hours than people were menat to work. Blinded by the promise of small pieces of shiny stones many people accepted the terms of this willingful exploitation.
They stopped attending to the forests, rivers, oceasn and fields that had once fed them, so entranced they were. To avoid mass starvation, people started being promised equal grains of sand if they tended to the valleys, the fields, the oceans, the rivers, and the forests. No one did anything to support their community anymore. No one did things because that's how they could help or because it was needed, or because they enjoyed it, or because that's how they showed love, respect, and veneration, or because that built connection between souls, human and non human alike. All of this was forgotten.
Everything on Earth was gutted.
The beautiful stones in its core, the metals running across it that could be melted and shaped into anything, even its veins and arteries with its black clood got sucked out, emptied, to fuel the search for more shiny stones. Gutted, murdered from the inside, the Earth could no longer feed the long trees of the forest or the animals in it. Sucked out of minerals, it could no longer build mountains, or enrich the waters that ran across its surface and fed the fish.
People got creative. Found different ways to feed the animals and the plants. And for a while that worked. They had once known that there should be a cap on their greediness. They had once thrived. But now, they were enchanted by the beautiful stones and the increasingly miniscule graisn of sand they were given in exchange for buriying their own heads in the ground. For livning disconnected. All to show each other, with as much pride as they could gather, how many grains of grinded sparkly stone they had.
They kept living like this, extracting all they could from the Earth and each other. Until there was nothing left to extract. No stones, no metal, no fuel, no water, no food, no life.
The shiny yellow stone that man had stumbled upon, thousands of years ago, the one who enchanted those first settlers, had been magical. It seemed it had cast a beautiful spell that made everyone's like brighter and fascinating. Only it hadn't. It hadn't been a beautiful spell. It had been a curse.
carolina caetano, April 2023
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