To me, this is just a nice little piece about people never changing their roles, even as they dream of doing so, because they think they aren’t capable or because they are afraid.
A solitary particle of dust sat on a lonely street corner in the shadow of a building one early afternoon and wept. It looked from one end of the street to the other and could see nothing and no one and its sobs bounced off the walls of the empty banks and dry saloons.
“What’s up, buddy?” said a voice from above. The lonely particle of dust looked up and saw a small dust mote floating on the warmer air in a shaft of sunlight.
“I can’t stand it anymore!” cried Particle to Mote. “I have dreams of being more than just this. If I could find away to cover a fine plate in a fancy cupboard or film over a stained glass window in a church, I would be happy.”
Mote landed softly a few inches from the solitary particle and said, “Really? Just a covering for a dish? I have bigger dreams than that! Imagine! I might one day be the grit that makes the keystone stick. Watches and clocks would pass all time with me on their face! Our legions could blot out the sun! Even if I only fill a pothole in a busy road . . . all that potential — right? Along comes the wheel of a cart and boom! I’m all aloft again and on to the next thing.”
A rapid thudding vibrated through the still air and boardwalk, causing Particle and Mote to shift slightly and look for the sound. At the far end of the street, flying towards their corner, a horse and rider thundered along the dirt road. The rider wore dusty grey clothes and a big black hat with a ring of coins set around the hatband. His horse was a quick brown and white steed. Behind them in hot pursuit were a half dozen more riders, whose approach was like the pounding of a thousand mallets on a thousand stakes. All those horses were blindingly white in the sunlight and, on the chests of the riders, sharp brass stars flashed as they bounced and jostled at gallop.
As Particle and Mote watched, the fleeing rider twisted in his saddle, ripping a large revolver from its holster in a fluid, practiced movement. He fired three shots at his pursuers. One of the lawmen grabbed at his stomach and slid from his saddle mid-stride, slamming into the road to lie crumpled in the dirt near the corner. Immediately shots were returned, and the dust heard ricochet-whine echoes between the building facades. Particle and Mote were knocked backward by the buffeting wind of the passing horses still in pursuit of the fleeing rider, and as the final horse rounded the corner, a chunk of road thrown from the hooves flew high into the air and skipped along the dusty boardwalk to rest near Particle and Mote.
“Whew!” exclaimed Mote. “Do you see what I mean?! Look at that! I can’t wait to fill a pothole or maybe to line the ruts of wheel tracks! What a life!”
The chunk of road dirt grunted. “Don’t get too worked up about road life, little dude. What’re your names?” Particle stayed very still and realized he didn’t have one.
Mote said, “What’s it to you?”
The dirt chuckled. “Don’t matter,” it said. “I’m Clod.”
Particle couldn’t speak, so Mote did.
“Clod, what do you dream about being?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” the dirt clod cracked and shifted a little. “Tell you the truth, I dreamed about being enough for a landfill. Imagine being enough to extend the land in any direction. To make water get outta your way, to make a difference! Yeah. I heard y’all talking. Earlier. Before the excitement.”
“Yeah!” Mote shouted. “That was something!”
“Whoa, there. Why, I been waiting in that road for nearly ten years and that’s the first piece of action I’ve seen ever. And lookit. S’all gone and over in a few seconds.”
At that moment, they heard a coughing and gurgling from down on the road. A blood- coated hand scraped upwards from the gutter. Blood dripped from the fingertips. And as the marshal struggled to drag himself away from his death, his grasping fingers left five streaks of blood in a zigzag pattern that terminated at the edge of the boardwalk. Clod, Particle, and the Mote counted the seconds afterwards by watching the movement of the building’s shadow as it drifted away from the sun. When the shadow had crept over all of them and crouched over the dead man too, Particle spoke.
“That’s what I hate,” it said. “The world goes and goes. I wish something would happen.”
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