The Boy Who Lost, Day 1

I noticed it was missing one afternoon, reaching into my pocket for something or other, while sipping tea on the back porch of my parent's home, a glass in my hand and nothing in my head. A sliver of fear shot down my spine when my fingers hit the bottom of my pocket without finding the familiar tick of its smooth surface against my change and pens. The feel was like the feeling of unpacking for a vacation and discovering you've left something you intentionally meant to bring, like the pillow you cannot sleep without.

I had always thought it would go missing, but also never doubted it would be there. It was one of those things you take for granted but couldn't live the same without. (You know the things: health, wealth, parents who will bail you out of jail.) I had to keep it in my pocket, available, dangerously loose; to lock it up would have made it useless. Over-prizing things makes you captive; yet to loose something so reasonably and imperceptibly (had long had it been missing?) felt like a violation of my assumed safety. If this stone could slip so easily from my pocket, what else could slip away, with or without my knowing?

I can't remember when I found (was I given?) the stone. It was a pebble from a beach of some lake, fresh water and symbolic of things I'm sure you'll pick up on sooner or later. All I know is that I got it sometime before 10 and lost it sometime before 20. I think my father gave it to me, though I may have found it myself, on one of those pre-existential walks along my grandparents property (at the beach in front of their summer home.) Maybe it was formed by geological processes deep within my jean pockets, compacting lint and flakes of dead skin into a sedimentary, metamorphic rock. If so, was then polished smooth by the walks infinite between my house and the church, two miles away, rustling in my pocket between the change for the offering plate and my after service soda.

Despite the shot of fear, I did not flinch. I'd learned how not to show alarm in these situations. I'd lost many things in the past and I'm sure I have many more to lose, so I stifled the scream, the squirm, the shake and quiver. I forced stillness, carefully, and, with the training of an actor, raised my glass to my lips and took another sip.