The lost creature decided that asking random individuals that he may come across was a waste of time. They each seemed to wear blinkers fashioned by their own prejudices.
E chose to find a shiny surface that might give e a true reflection of eself.
E said to eself as e went,
What shall I be when I find myself? How many limbs adorn my carapace? Do my scales scintillate in the sun? Is the musculature of my shoulders threatening? Can I vibrate any part of my anatomy to make music? Do my claws look to grip the branch or are my hooves cloven for rock? Can I run across the field like the wind, my hooves throwing great clods of turf high into the air behind me? Can I swim upstream and leap the thundering falls to the place of my birth? Do I hang from a thread of silk and build traps for unwary strangers? Can I write a poem, make a dam, swing through the trees and walk through the forest unseen, despite my size?
And so e travelled far as was necessary to continue the story, till he came to a body of water, let us call it a pond or small lake, bigger than a puddle anyway.
The Sphinx interrupted at this time, Enough of this navel gazing, I was promised a story, a tale of adventure, please deliver.
Well, said the knight, please be patient as this story develops in some unexpected ways. Please don’t interrupt again. I was just getting into the flow.
When the lost creature finally looked into the surface of the water, all he could make out in the ruffled surface was a great dark orb, placed high in the air, with no apparent support. A flying or hovering rock if you will.
I am then a Floating Rock thought the creature, that is unexpected, just as the author predicted.
I was and I wasn’t about it with hard surfaces. I look down to see the ice and I look up to see the sky. Am I a conglomerate rock or an igneous rock, thrown up from the very depths? Was I laid down shell by skeleton at the bottom of some great ocean or was I laid down in incremental layers at the heart of a meandering estuary wherein mysterious footprint might store their histories?
This is an exciting development indeed.
It is more likely to fall off unless you make sure that it is steady.
There is one trouble in this, thought the creature, as far as I know, rocks are not in the normal course, sentient beings. Therefore, I must be some kind of spirit or consciousness trapped or placed into the rock. Maybe I am a sacred rock, the centre piece for mighty religious ceremonies. It is certainly unusual for a great rock to float in stillness above the earth and might consequentially instill awe in those beings that come into my presence.
So, not just any old lump of rock then.
Perhaps I am some mighty King, Queen, Warrior or Chef who has been enchanted by a passing magical practitioner and thrown into this rock. Perhaps I shall never know, or perhaps that is another story.
Whatever the manner of my becoming, I must now take what I am given and make the most of it.
I shall be the best Rock that I can be.
The Guardians of the Cave 