A short story written for a creative writing class... apparently my instructor thought it was good. How about you? :P
Dirt
Three hundred years ago, my great-great-grandparents uprooted themselves and left their entire world behind. With nary a backward glance, they boarded a ship and simply left what remained of their families. On that long journey into the unknown, my forebears seemed to forget every single particle of their former lives. I could hardly care less about who my ancestors were--as long as I knew where they came from. I know a few disjointed stories that my great-grandparents remembered from my family's forgotten homeland; but what I want most is to be able to picture the landscape of those stories. What color was the ground that the hare ran over? How cold was it when reindeer lighted upon the roof at night? My family didn't know the answers. So, I decided I'd learn everything about that distant land and find it.
I began by talking to every person in my small town. Some of my neighbors had old stories that detailed that old world. They would often revolve around giant mountains that hid their rocky bulk with tall trees and snow. There were a few stories about beautiful meadows full of vibrant green grass; grass that would dance in the slightest of breezes. But the one story that had always captivated me the most involved a yard of dirt and rocks.
Mrs. Carroll, a neighbor I had never spoken to before offered up the story. It was midday and I had spoken to at least seven people already; I was tired and slightly discouraged because of my neighbors' lack of useful tales. Mrs. Carroll was my savior that day. Her story was a simple one that had been retold in her family. Mrs. Carroll's family had bought a small house on a large piece of land. Instead of lush grass or pretty flowers, the lawn was just rocks with some dirt in between. The family spent months digging out every single rock, large and small, so that they could plant their dream garden. Those prior visions of mountain tops shrouded in crisp green and lithe grass evaporated. Now, I could feel the gritty dirt beneath my fingernails as I searched for the next elusive pebble. I smelled freshly turned soil and heard rocks hitting one another as I threw them in a bucket full of their brethren. Rocks that weren't the bitter red of my home, but a gray that stole it's color from rain laden clouds. And after all the rocks were dug out, seeds were sown and tiny pricks of new green grass pushed up through that wonderful dirt. I knew, with absolute certainty, that I had to search for a yard full of dirt and rocks. And that's what I did.
I left my family and home in the same ship that had once carried my ancestors away from my dream land. As I flew into the deep darkness of space, I whispered a goodbye to my home planet. Once my great-great-grandparents had marveled at it's uniform redness, but I could only see the beauty that awaited me elsewhere in this universe. A beautiful patchwork planet of brown and green.
I have yet to find that planet. The bright stars have become monotonous on their vast blanket of black. My days grow more lonesome as I begin to realize I'm not immortal. My hair is turning the gray that I imagined was the color of Earth rocks. Ah, yes, I've forgotten; in all this writing, I failed to mention the name of my dream land: Earth. The planet of grass and trees, rocks and mountains; where the future is built upon the past, just as everything else there is built upon the dirt that holds rocks and the bones of my ancestors.