There was a rat, once. He had a name but it became forgotten. You see this rat, he worried about things all the time, until his worries were all he had. His ambitions and friends, like his name, faded away into the background, lost somewhere in the sewers beneath the road, or between the dry-wall of a stranger's house. But it wasn't always this way...
"Fanger! Paws! Come check these gems out," our young, nameless rat exclaimed.
One replied with disdain, "They're just stupid rocks, ****. Get a life."
The other added, "Yeah grow up, get your mind out of the gutter."
Our nameless rat picked up a pebble and turned it over and over in his tiny hands, looking at it in awe. Quietly he said to himself (and the pebble), "I wonder where you've come from, little gem. What stories could you tell me if you could speak?"
With a resolute look on his face, our young rat carefully deposited his pebble into his knapsack, lugged the bulging knapsack over his shoulder, and walked away from those who didn't understand him in search of a place that did.
