DROP SOUL: An Autobiography

     No, I don't actually remember the Original Whim! I wake up one day, and I'm gas! What can I say? I especially liked xenon.
      Gas was, oh, I'd say 2 billion years, give or take a few million. I wasn't counting.
      Being human flatulence, that was fun, too! Oboy! The practical joker of Evolution! I was a regular whopee cushion!
      So I'm gas, you know, all airy-fairy, flyin' around, dancin with other gas— I'm pretty filled up with myself. I can fly, you can see through me. I'd be gettin' a big head. If I HAD a head! I'm getting a swelled Molecule, I guess you'd say— And allofasudden I'm a rock!      Talk about a bummer! Talk about a downer! I mean, you sit there, and you sit there. And then you SIT there! And you can't even change position! Oy! Unless some kid turns you over.
      Now they have this thing called Rock n' Roll, but then NOBODY talked about us. It's true. They named an Age after us, the Stone Age, you know, but that was later! At the time, they just called everything Ooga!
      I liked Limestone. But then, I'm a citrus freak.
      Igneous is underrated, as far as I'm concerned.
      The Sun comes up, the Sun goes down, an Ice Age comes and recedes. A little clam gets stuck in me and dies. Thousands of years later, scientists think it's a big deal!
     And those Hunters and Gatherers! Pounding with me, making me into EVERYTHING! Shovels, hoes! Making me into arrowheads, plowblades! Corn meal grindstones, laundry stones! The wheel, even! Was I overworked! And believe me, they didn't have any minimum wage back then!
     And Who do you think was the Cave for the Cave Man? And that was before they invented RENT! They talk about a Stone being lucky because a Michaelangelo chisels you into an angel! You know how many schleps you get chiseled by before a Michaleangelo comes along? Don't ask! Where that Nudnnik was trying to chisel my nose, I can STILL feel the hurt!
      OK, so then all of a sudden you're metal! It's like Stone "going Country!" Rhinestones, silver rivets—at last God jazzed it up a little. Finally! Stone in its Dress-up Production Number! I learned to SHINE! No, I don't remember how I learned it. One word, though? PRACTICE!
      Even in Evolution, you gotta have a gimmick! YOU try sittin on the ground for 50 million years. You start to pick up a few things after awhile! You gotta do SOMETHIN' with your time.      Everybody gets to be Gold, too, don't worry. I can't even remember what my Barzag was then. But I was in the first Railroad to cross the continent.
      NOT the American continent, nincompoop! Would I be a human being today if I'd been metal in 1850? I'm talkin' Atlantis! It was something like a railroad. You've heard of a Train of Thought? That was it! The Engineer imagines the destination and the car goes.      Don't ask me how they did it. I don't handle Special Effects. I tell you, I'm glad I'm not Metal today. I wouldn't wanna be associated with Mettalica or Ozzy Osborne. They give our Kingdom a bad name!

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to be continued

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