As the town gathered together along the banks of the river, the people could sense the excitement in the air. They thought they had finally solved the mystery of the "special" girl, and today they would test that theory.
She had lived among them for almost twenty years. They found her as a baby the day the green stones fell from the sky. No one knew what the strange stones were or where they came from.
One spring afternoon, almost twenty years ago, hundreds of these beautiful acorn size stones that glimmered like polished emeralds rained down near the river that ran through the middle of the small town. One solitary stone among the thousands that fell that day landed in the soft ground on the banks of the water. The rest ended up at the bottom of the river.
It was not until recently that that town discovered the strange abilities of the "special" girl and began investigating. Their investigation brought them back to that one stone that fell on the ground. "Is it possible," they asked, "that this girl was born from that stone?"
"But what about the thousands of others? No one came from any other stones that fell that day," they argued.
It was decided that they would put their theory to the test. The town Councilman gathered all the people along the banks of the river. It was not a deep river, and all the people were to wade in and pick up a stone. At the same moment, they were all going to throw their stones in the air and let them fall on the ground. Perhaps the water had something to do with it. The "special" girl, after all, had come from the one stone that did not fall in the water. What would happen to these stones if they fell on dry ground?
Little did the Councilman and townspeople know that all the years the stones spent at the bottom of the river had changed them; they were no longer the same stones that fell from the sky. With the Councilman leading, everyone grabbed their stones and raised their arms high into the air to throw them. As the Councilman was grabbing his stone from the river bottom, a new green stone was falling from the sky. Then, as the Councilman threw his arm up into the air and released his stone, the new one collided with his arm. Watching his stone fall onto the soft brown earth, he had no idea that he just knocked the last remaining hope for the town into the river behind him.
**This was what I dreamed last night. I have very strange dreams sometimes**
Today, I arrived at my desk to find a large box in my chair. In the box was a large stuffed penguin! One of my customers orders bulk quantities of Our Iceberg is Melting for his business, and they apparently have lots of these penguins for promotion, so he sent me one :-)
Philip meets Cathy
Philip sends a fax
Philip answers the phone
Philip tries out the office chair
Philip sends an email
Philip checks out the free book piles
Philip contemplates his day at the office.
