Sample:

One night a shingle falls from the roof of the farm store. It's raining and the water carries the shingle down to the ground. It lands with a tiny insignificant splash next to the drain pipe. The shingle sits there until morning, waiting. In the sunlight of the next morning the shingle dries off and waits. During the nights mold grows on the shingle. It lies there on the ground next to the drainpipe. It watches the customers come and go. They buy squash, raspberries, and radishes. They buy all sorts of things in that store, even honey that the bees in the farm beehives have made. The shingle gets kicked sometimes by people, sometimes by animals. The shingle makes its way around and sees things, like sunrises and sunsets. The shingle lies where it’s kicked. The shingle never gets used again. It just gets wet and falls apart. The shingle breaks into a billion pieces and spreads everywhere. It spreads on the bottoms of people’s boots, in blue jay poop, on pollen grains and ants’ backs. The shingle spreads and spreads like a disease until it’s part of everything. It travels into space on a shuttle and spreads out into the universe. It explodes into a million pieces, a million stars. But nobody knows about the shingle, not even the people who kicked it. Just a little shingle.

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Copyright © 2003, Daniel J. Trask, All Rights Reserved