Hey guys! I know my activity is super...not active lately. I've been thinking about my older stories, so sit tight! NONE of them are abandoned...just super long haitus? Heh, sorry about that...
It wasn't true.
Stan stared at the shimmering sand. It was beautiful. Maybe to someone else, it wasn't so very pretty. Yet, to Stan, the fact that it was all caused by broken bottles made it even more worth loving. Because despite what everyone believed, beauty could come from anything, even worthless shards of glass.
It wasn't true.
Pushing his feet into the sand, he watched it roll off his feet and back unto the ground. The sand always returned home. The sand was never alone. If you took a shower after lying in the sand, you could be certain there would be more than enough sand there to fill another beach.
It wasn't true.
Was he too much like the sand? Sand was loyal, sand was shimmering, glittering, bright. Wasn't it good to be like the sand?
It wasn't true.
No, the truth was, he was exactly like the sand. He was clingy. He was cold. He put off a harsh, agitating light. Not the warm, beautiful light of a falling sunset, no. The glaring light of a dentist appointment. The light of oncoming traffic. Annoying, blinding lights that everyone hated, that people if given the choice, would wish away. He was too cold to be with the light, and too bright to be with the dark.
Stanely stared at the sand. It wasn't beautiful. It was a burden, heavy and hard. Sand was a literal weight. Sand wasn't meant to be beautiful and neither was Stanley. Not that Stanely was ever described as beautiful. If anyone had ever given him a compliment, it was when they, everyone, had called him a tool.
Because, even though the tool couldn't do anything for itself, it was useful for others, wasn't it? Wasn't that true? Sand was used as a tool. It weighed things down. Curtains, balloons. Stanely wouldn't mind being a tool, but Stan was sand without the burlap bag. And a scattered mess of sand, the sand you washed down the drain after scrapping it from your head, wasn't good for anything.
Stan wasn't even a tool. He was sand that his family, and even his teachers, had to carry in their hands, watching him fall bit by bit from the crevices and cracks in their hold.
Stan had scattered. Stan was beneath the dirt and above the clouds, Stan wasn't there and yet he was, a void to take, take, take but never give. The sand never gave. It made itself seem pretty, it pretended to be beautiful, so that maybe someone would stay, but no one ever did. Because all the sand really did was take.
No one wanted to give and never get. So no one stayed.
Stan struggled for a moment to regain his composure. For a second there, he had nearly frowned, nearly stopped pretending. But he could never do that, because that was the only thing he was capable of giving. Maybe the sand didn't want to take. Perhaps it was trying to give by pretending even though the attempt was shallow, ultimately useless.
At least it was trying. Stan was trying.
It just wasn't enough.
"Hey, Ford?"
Stan was smiling, staring at the sand. Ford looked up from his book, swinging slightly as the movement rocked the swing set.
"Yes, Stanley?" Ford asked cheerfully. Good, it meant Stan's smile was good enough. For now.
Stan took in a deep, settling breath.
"What do you think about the sand?"
Ford blinked, large inquiring eyes only enlarged by his thick glasses.
"Well, it glitters like the stars. I suppose it's beautiful. Why?"
Stan's smile inched upward. He rocked on the swing slowly.
"No reason."
Hope I got my angsty point across XD. This was supposed to be...more painful? But it turned into a metaphor about sand...