B’s Green Stone

Walking down the beach, he felt the sand pushing up between his toes. A had had a long day, with mud in his hair, sweat on his back and blood under his fingernails. It was, however, okay – he knew he could get home. He knew others had it worse. On the way back to rest, he could just take his time, and maybe feel a bit less bad. One way to feel less bad, one way he had been working on for some time now, was to do things that would make the people around him happier.

By the side of the path, he saw a rock. It was a little rock, smooth and shiny, and about its edges was a distinct green hue. Immediately, he was reminded of his friend B, who spoke to him from time to time. She quite liked green things, and she did collect rocks!

Crouching down, reaching to take the stone, A paused. If he brought the stone to B, C would probably see it, as he and B were friends. And C might feel excluded if he did not have a gift as well. Not to mention that D and E were also having bad times, and so seeing B receive a gift might make them feel bad, as if they were not worthy of gifts. If he could find a rock for them and for F, perhaps he could share the rock with B, though he had to make sure he approached F properly, for G did not like seeing him talk to F, but if he did not include F, she would be very upset. H and I were also very keenly interested in ensuring A did the right thing, and would tell him when he did things wrong, so if he assorted gifts for everyone else, but not them, it would bring with it lectures. J was not likely to be offended, but she would be sad, in a very legitimate way, because she was so shy, and would never put herself forwards in this way – not to mention that she had worked up the courage to tell K that she was glad of the support A had given her, though she could never tell him directly. K was a good person too but would fight him so hard if K thought A was doing something wrong by J – because J would never stand up for herself, and she might feel slighted. If he gave it to B in private, though, L would get wind, because L shared a home with B, and that meant it became a secret, something with some implication, and then poor L would be burdened with stress of trying to imagine what that stone meant. Not to mention that M would then extrapolate that there was something going on and she would be even more upset when she was wrong, because then she’d be mad at herself for not understanding A as much as she thought she did. N liked green but didn’t like rocks, and O liked rocks but not green, and they were both going through their unpleasantness at the hospital, so they really did deserve something special to help them handle the struggle they were going through. But if he gave something to O, P would be very upset, because P believed O was terrible, and that meant he needed some cover, like, perhaps some sort of event where giving something to O was just something everyone was doing, because of O’s troubles. Q would normally keep P balanced but Q had been sick and tired of P lately and mostly had spoken to A about such things. If A did this, it would only exacerbate Q who would probably demand he understand where Q was coming from, not to mention that this also would infringe on the time Q was getting to spend with his boyfriend R, who was by all accounts totally stand-up and great and really, for all of his kindness and his stability, he deserved something too, a sort of ‘thank you for not causing problems’ gift, but then S and T might think it was a bit weird, and then that could drive a wedge between A and those two, since they were much closer to R and probably would see the gift as an attempt to curry the favour of their friend. U would probably think it was a lovely little gift and not be bothered by it even with all the time spent apart from B after their breakup, but wasn’t it a bit rude to put that kind of wedge between them? Not to mention that being nice to B could leave V feeling isolated and alone, since B and V had had a falling out some years ago, even though B had grown up a great deal since then. Worse still, W X and Y had had to move away from their old home recently, and that place had been green, so if they saw the stone they might be really upset and A didn’t want to cause that. Z was also in a bad place, and xie didn’t like rocks or green, or the beach. It could be seen as very insulting to not consider Z’s feelings.

A stood up slowly, and put his toe on the stone, pushing it down into the sand, and walked on home.