I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them. Could I break the window with the yellow drapes? No--I'll just kill someone down below. Maybe they deserve to die. What if I kill someone on their way to kill their boss. I could be an unsung hero of the potential future--but what if the boss deserves to die?

What if I killed her. . . The Her. The Her that bought the stupid little fountain that trickles over the rounded stones I was now holding. What if she died? I want her dead but . . . I don't want her 'dead' dead. I wish I was dead. No, I want to live.

I still don't know why the fuck she left.

I poured over all the reasons and nothing makes sense. We fought . . . We fought about how I don't take risks, I was too safe, she needed more. She needed more?

I can do more. Here's a risk--

My arm swung and a little stone flew into the air, glinting in the light. It was black with green veins streaking through it. I always liked that one. Damn.

I hold stones in my hands

and I lucidly wonder

where to cast them

Should I throw it over the vast sea

and test how deep the water is?

Or should I climb the

high mountains and

see how far it goes?

I closed my eyes as I reminisce

my early childhood days

I remember being asked

What do you want to be?

And I never really answered it

Up to now I couldn't answer

Too coward, terrified that they would just laugh at me

If I followed my heart

Will I be where I am right now?

Will I be able to attain what I wanted to achieve?

Will it change how they perceived me to be?

I never followed my heart

And though I am not satisfied

I am happy with how my life turned out to be

I still hold the stones in my hands

I still have the chance

and I lucidly wonder

where to cast them

Is this the right time

to take the risk of losing them?

I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them. Yet still am I confined to this ghostly setting were trees walk by with clawed root. What horror is this that shambles past with nary a glance. I look out as a stream trickles gently past and on some lost whim I toss the stones with no thought for where they may fall.

The first sinks into the stream causing it foam and rage as if in anger, I step back. The second stone hits the far bank and rolls where it will, coming to rest over a leaf.

I gaze at my handiwork as the sky darkens in ominous retort to my carelessness, and I sense an impending gloom is about to befall me in my peril.

The remaining stones clatter as they fall into a deep hole that has appeared as from nowhere. I take a further backward step, for does not a stairwell lead down into the hole, as the stream now roars at my affront. But no, I am no fool to trust myself below ground with no escape from the beast which beckons me to follow.

I surrender to the torrent.

I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them. Two stones, one small and dull, and one large and colorful. On the first stone, the pale grey color seems bland. But it blends with the color of my mood.

On the second stone, the bright glow of color blinds me, and I imagine splashes of paint on creamy walls. Stones shouldn't be colorful, lighting up in the darkness like the jealous sun trying to steal the fame from the moon.

They told me these stones represent life and death.

They told me to choose one.

In a time where I drowned myself in emptiness, they gave me two stones and instructed me to decide between life and death.

They intended for me to be drawn to the second stone. They expected me to choose life.

I throw the beautifully simple first stone into the deep ocean water, and cling onto the second one. I can almost feel the pulsing of my heart in the seemingly meaningless object. It's heavy in my hand—a temporary but burdening weight.

I hated the second stone and loved the first, but even so...

They were right. I choose life.

I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them, knowing that the direction I throw them in could effect every known dimension, and every world within them, and every known period in time for good or for bad.

I'm standing in a darkened room with seemingly no end in any direction, little dots of light, some bigger, some smaller, scattered everywhere; some small spheres floated and spun around an invisible orbit. It wasn't until I had dropped a stone by accident and heard what seemed like thousands of screams echoing inside my mind when that stone crushed one of the small floating spheres, that I realized that I was looking at the universe in miniature size, as if I was monstrously large, even larger than that of stars. And I realized that the stones that I held were Death, and that I was the Reaper, the Harvester of Worlds. With horror the stones slipped from my hand, crushing stars and worlds, even universes, and in the end causing a chain reaction that made the room explode with light, and then go completely dark.

- Michael Hall

I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them, these heat-glowing earth-bones burning my hands in the odd shape of sins. The pain keeps my mind sharp as razor wire, hyper-sensitive to every nuance of subconscious reality unfolding before me.

"I'm aware of my dreaming," my dream-self keeps thinking, tightening her grip on the stones, just an itch-of-a-throw's away from being cast into another pond of plenty-to-be-sickened-by. "Let it steam. Reveal what hides beneath. Confess like I burn and bleed."

The pain feels cleansing, kissing earth-bone to human-bone and still, my dream-self calculates where to throw each stone. "Tell me where you belong," she hums, unconcerned with her hands, no more than bones blackened and browned by the stones; she has no desire to hurry them along.

"One for profit, one for pride, one for the cowards who always hide." I find my dream-lips singing, those bones letting go of the stones almost fleetingly, "one for pollution, one for destruction, and one for humanity's 'ownership' notion."

In surprising revelation, I saw my own hand's regeneration, once the last stone was cast. And in that reality, I came to see, those stone's weren't mine to begin with.

I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them. "I know this is a dream." My voice wavers, and the backdrop holds.

A breeze stretches through, seems to whisper, "And what good does that do?"

I pull my jacket tighter and soldier on. I know what happens next; it's a different dream, but still, the same. I know this dream. I know these trees. I have scraped my hands on their skin, climbed their limbs, cut confessions in the wood. My fingers trace the ridges, rough declarations emboldened in the oak. With my other hand, I slip the pads of my fingers against the smoothness of the rock. Stoic, cold.

"Forever," the tree says. My lips curl. Not the tree, I remind myself, me. I did this. I stripped the bark, cut lies in the flesh, me. Still, it's the tree that bears the punishment and it stands resolute as my fingers curl, as my hand shoots forward, as I beat the stone against the surface, again and again, until my fingers are bleeding and pulp sticks to my palms. I look up, blink through tears. Not enough.

"never," the tree sneers-- no, not the tree.

I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them. I have nowhere to throw these burdens that I hold, nowhere where someone will pay attention to the stones thrown.

So I continue to hold them in my hands. In all that I do and in all the places that I walk through, I don't release these stones. Instead, I press them deeper and deeper into my hands. They are the nails that attach me to my cross. They are the ropes that bind my wrists to the wooden planks.

Oh, how I aspire to finally find home, to finally find a place to cast the stones I hold. I hope to one day be able to release them from my grip and let them fall to the ground. I hope to have someone there to watch me throw them and come help me toss them away. Until that day comes, however, I must continue to hold on to my stones.

Over time, they grow heavier, and their weight begins to crush my hands. I don't know if I can keep this up. I don't know if I can keep holding onto them until someone saves me.

I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them.

Oh, there he is.

Crack.

Crack. Crack.

I hold no stones in my hands because I lucidly cast them.

Damn, that felt good.

Haha. Look how mad he is.

Oh, wait.

Slow down.

Man those lights are bright.

Umm, no officer. I don't know.

Impulse control, right. I know. I know.

Wow, he's strong.

Hmm.

I want those stones back.

I held them in my hands. They were right here.

Yes. Right to remain...

Yes. Cannot afford...

Yes.

Zip ties hold my hands and I lucidly wait for my phone call.

I hold stones in my hands and lucidly wonder where to cast them. Nine stones that decide all. One fire, one water, one wind, one earth, one skull. Death by nature.

One a bloody knife, one a cracked steering wheel, one a noose. Death by humanity.

The last I place in my pocket.

Blood, the color of my dreams, blackness, my heart.

Girl who acted as parent to friends? Old age.

Boy who lived with passion? Fire.

Girl who helped all? Water.

Boy who judged fairly? Earth.

Girl who was a tempest, always changeable? Air.

Kindred.

There were others.

Boy who made enemies everywhere? Murder.

Girl who was too careless? Accident.

Boy who killed for joy? Justice.

I look at the profile plate.

Aaron Shang, 13

There was a picture of him. Black hair, dark eyes, peach skin.

I skimmed my hands over the words:

Lonely. Help. Considering death.

Then I set the eight stones down and reached for the last stone.

I hid it because it was not a death. It was pearly with an angel.

I slip the stone into the groove where it is to be placed.

Living, read the inscription on the profile plate.

I smiled.