There was once a man named Ebert who lived alone. He did not live alone for any particular reason; he just had always been alone. This man’s life was a confusing mix of simplicity and complexity.
Ebert's life was simple in its routine: He always did the same things, all of the time. He got out of bed every morning at 8:00 o’clock sharp. As he stood up from his bed, one or two rocks always fell off his bed onto his foot. He always yelped in pain.
At 8:30 he was always dressed and fixing breakfast. He always had scrambled eggs and toast. He always bit down hard on a small but painful rock in his eggs. He always made a muffled sound of astonishment and pain, and tears invariable formed at the corners of his eyes.
At 9:45 the man would always go out and work in his shed. That is where the simplicity really got complex. He had a special set of tools, made from all sizes, shapes, and sorts of rocks; and he always set out to make the same thing. Whether stone, wood, potter’s clay, or any of the many other materials he tried to use; no matter how great the idea formed in his head, and no matter how beautiful he was just sure it would be, he always made something lewd, ugly, and unacceptable. He always hated what he had made.
His lunch hour was always spent smashing his ugly and unacceptable creation to a thousand pieces with a special rock he kept just for that purpose. The rock was very large, heavy, and unwieldy, so he kept it in a special cabinet by itself. But no matter how careful he was, he always ended up smashing his fingers as he took it from the cabinet, and smashing them again as he beat the project to smithereens.
By 1:15 he was invariably sitting huddled on the floor next to a thousand pieces of stone, clay, wood, or something else, nursing his throbbing fingers and rocking uncontrollably.
Around 2:00 o’clock each afternoon, he decided to have lunch. Lunch was always a sandwich made from smoked ham, Swiss cheese, and Rye bread. It always cheered him up as he made the sandwich. But each day as he started to eat his sandwich, a small rock would catch his attention, and while he decided whether or not he liked this new rock a big black crow would come and steal his sandwich. By three thirty he was nearly always depressed.
From 4:00 to 5:00 he worked on his garden. He would till, rake, shovel, weed, cultivate and do all of the other things a good gardener must do to maintain a healthy crop. But nothing ever grew in his small garden except a few ugly weeds. This was because he never took the rocks out of the soil in his garden. In fact, he usually added a few rocks he thought looked nice. Because of this, everything he ever planted had died, baked to death by the sun.
When 5:00 rolled around, the Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Of the rock in his grandfather clock told him it was time to clean up and take a shower. On the way into the bathroom, he always stubbed his now unshod toe on a “decorative” rock he had placed just inside the door. It matched his décor perfectly, which was easy enough because it was all rocks. Unfortunately, it also got in the way a lot. But, he left it there all the same.
At 6:30 he had dinner. Dinner usually passed very slowly and without incident. It was probably quite delicious, but he never noticed because he was always very, very lonely. He had lots of rocks sitting around his table, but none of them made him less lonely. He would stare at them, and they just sat there. They were wholly silent, as if taunting him with the question, "So, what now?"
Ebert was very lonely indeed. He told himself often that no, he was not lonely, he had lots of rocks. Every Saturday he would go and find more rocks. He always found the beautiful ones, mainly because he thought they were all beautiful.
He did have one other person in his life, however. His name was... well, to be honest, Ebert didn't know him by any name because he had never bothered to ask. He always showed up when he was fawning over a new rock, and usually in the evenings. He would sit and watch Ebert for a while, and then offer to help him get rid of his rocks. When Ebert would tell him that, no, he didn't want to get rid of the rocks; the man would calmly suggest that his life would be much better if he got rid of everyone of his rocks. Ebert would always get angry and storm off shouting that he would never get rid of his rocks and that he loved them very much.
The man would sit quietly for a while, and then sadly walk away. Ebert would watch from his window, not really caring where the man went, but faintly curious as to where he stayed.
Around bedtime, Ebert was always very, very angry. He never knew for sure if he was mad at the stranger, or at himself, or at his rocks -but the rocks always got the brunt of it. Ebert would tire himself out by throwing some of his less beautiful rocks out the window. Big rocks, little rocks, ugly rocks, handfuls of pebbles. All would tumble to the ground in a confusion of jumbled shapes.
About an hour after Ebert had crawled tearfully into bed, he would shamefully slip outside and put his rocks back in the house, stumbling in the growing dark, but filled with some will beyond his understanding to keep his priceless prizes.
Eventually, as they days wore on, the stranger started coming less and less, until six months had gone by without Ebert shouting about how much he loved his rocks. The stranger seemed to have forgotten him. Not knowing why, Ebert became more and more depressed. He continued collecting rocks, he even spent all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday out collecting them; making multiple trips back to his home to offload the latest stash, then continuing out for more. But he was getting more and more unhappy.
One day, as he stooped to pick up a particularly nicely formed sandstone, he noticed a large wetspot on it. "What on earth could that be?" he wondered. Instead of picking up the rock, he continued looking at the wetspot. Suddenly, another one appeared next to it. Ebert was crying.
He went home that day without a single new rock. The next few days he did nothing with his rocks. He did nothing at all except lay in bed and weep. Ebert had realized he hated rocks.
