“Shh… Can you hear it?”

“No.”

“Listen close.”

Her eyes close. Her ears open. Her heart slows to the beat. A snail slips by. It’s spiral shell but only a way in. It’s eyes stretch out towards the sun. Retching, hoping for today to be the day. Only once will it be the day.

“What am I listening for, Grace?”

“Not sure.” Grace paused to breath in the fresh spring air. “But then again, no one really knows.”

Addie sighed. “I don’t get it.” She said with a bit of a scowl.

“Look here.”

“Look at what?” Asked Addie.

“This stick. Right here.”

“Why? It’s only a broken stick.” Said Addie, unknowingly

“Now that’s, that’s where you are wrong. That stick is not nothing. It could be everything. It’s the universe!” Grace said, beaming at her revelation. Addie only roles her eyes.

“It’s a stick. Not - the universe.” Addie stated plainly.

“How can you be sure, Addie? Did you ask the stick?”

Addie scoffed, “Of coarse not! The universe is what everything is in. The universe is not a stick.”

“No, the universe is everything. It’s you and me and this stick. The universe is that snail and this red berry. You don’t know what the universe is capable of. This stick could have dreams, it could have fears and joy just like us.”

“Yeah, sure, Grace. Whatever you say.” And in that moment Grace began to think about that stick. She thought of it’s hopes and dreams and fears.

“Maybe the stick’s name is John!”

“Wait! - what!”

“Yeah! And John wanted to be a rock star and grow a big, leafy Mohawk but he couldn’t.”

“Oh really. And why couldn’t he?” Said Addie in a sarcastic tone.

“He cannot because he was…” Grace pause for a second thinking. “Because he was attacked!” Grace began to fall into her story, and her glee brought Addie in with her.

“A giant bird attacked John. It just swooped in and broke him right off the tree. He fell six hundred feet to the ground. He went into a coma.” Continued Grace. “He was unconscious for a whole week. None of his family or friends knew where he was.”

“But then,” added Addie, “John woke up. He traveled across the whole yard, back to his tree.”

“John did not need to be a rock star for every stick to know his name.” Grace smiled as she pictured John’s happy ending. She saw John getting embraced by his huge family and all of his friends. She saw the biggest smile she had ever seen on John’s face. There were cries of joy and relief all though the night. “And with that, John lived happily ever after.”

“Maybe you do have a point about the whole universe thing.” Admitted Addie. “At least in the sense that we are all connect and we are all the universe.”

“Only a few atoms separate us. Nothing more. So then why do we act as though we are all a world apart?”