The worker stretched out his hand and grabbed the stone on the other side of the river. Did I forget to mention he wasn’t on the same side as the rock? How careless of me. Oh well, it made that chapter more intense. It works.

The worker flipped the stone around a few times and found several flat sides to it. Obviously, the stone hadn’t been in the river as long as the rock was. That is, if it ever was in the river in the first place. Perhaps, the old fisherman had found this poor stone in the woods, separated from the larger pieces that created it, and decided to take it in. Maybe, it was wrong to blame the stone and treat it as an evil captor. After all, the rock was doing the same thing now. It was all a matter of circumstance. However, karma does not care for circumstance as the stone was carried off towards the bridge.

It was placed in a pile of other similar stones, but that was not the end. Another worker came along, put a stick up against it, then suddenly hit it with a pick, breaking pieces off it until it matched the stick. Conformity. These workers were like dictators, making sure their subjects were as similar as possible to lower the chances of unpredictability. Not only were they dictators, but they were thorough dictators, as the one that picked up the stone glance in the rock’s direction and started crossing the wooden framework.

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Halfway across the framework, the worker slipped and almost fell into the water. Alas, no such luck, as he recovered and continued on his way. Even if he slipped, it wouldn’t cause much harm nor would it prevent him from the task at hand. It’d only delay the inevitable. It seemed no rescue would come as the worker headed towards the rock with an axe in hand. Despite being aimed towards the net beneath the rock, it was still intimidating and the rock would’ve be scared if it was anything but a rock.

The net became loose and all of its captives were freed. The prisoners became free while the wardens became the prisoners. The worker picked up the rock and examined it. He quickly found it to be unnaturally smooth and somewhat of an oval shape. The rock was perfect in a way. However, the worker seemed to disagree and tossed it to the side.

Was the rock not good enough for his needs? Nonsense. The worker realized how special the rock was and how much of a waste it’d be to use it for a bridge. The rock was overqualified for such a job. Surely, the worker would state as such if he hadn’t been distracted by a voice coming from the nearby woods.