"What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that it hides a well somewhere."

"The Little Prince" Antoine de Saint Exupery

It was love at first sight. After eighteen years of wandering through asphalt, deserts, and rock desolation, he found it. The well. Small and stony, insignificant enough to be easily forgettable, significant enough to be easily noticed. And he loved it at first sound. He dropped a stone in and found it to be shallow.  Unless one listened carefully, the thud as the stone came to rest at the bottom of the well was indiscernible. He liked this. The masking of the stone's sound as it reached the bottom gave the appearance the well was infinitely deep. And he loved it at first taste. The water from the well could simply be described as real. It excited him without him knowing why. It dominated his thoughts, his feelings. And he loved her at first touch. She touched him in the middle of one of his longer drinks from the well. The emotions that were pulled from the well he immediately transfered to this newcomer. He didn't know where she came from, or how she found him or the well, but he knew immediately that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

All these feelings of life being real, of life being refreshing, he transfered to this girl. Thus, the boy called the shallow water in the well 'love'. And he sat with the girl and shared the love with her and she shared it with him. Boy and girl, sitting by a well, sharing love, in the middle of anywhere. Real. After eighteen years of wandering through asphalt, desert, and rock desolation, the boy was happy.

However, happiness cannot last alone on first sight, first sound, first taste, first touch. This disappointed the boy. He really wanted the shallow water they shared to be enough, but both the girl and the boy knew that the water level would need to be higher to sustain them. Together, they decided to mix experience with their love. Experience would be enough to raise the water level so they could be happy forever.

Together, the boy and girl went off to experience the asphalt, desert, and rock desolation. They saw things great and small. They saw things wondrous and beautiful, and horrifying and tragic. And every time they experienced something together, they scratched it into a rock and put the rock in the basket. Eventually their awe was all spent, and they returned to the well that held their small pool of love within. And together, they grabbed the basket and dumped all of their  rocks of experience into the well, so that they could raise the level of the water to where it could sustain their happiness forever.

The first few rocks raised the level of the water as hoped. Soon, the dust from the experience clouded the opening of the well, swirling clouds of the grittiness of life parading around the boy and girl. And inside the clouds danced the memories of the boy's and girl's experiences. The boy and girl were delighted to recollect on the grand things they had experienced. Delight turned to distress as the dust settled.

With the disappearance of the dust and memories, the boy and girl were horrified to find their water was gone. The level of rocks had risen above the level of water. The water still existed, but below the rocks. It could not be seen, heard, tasted, or touched. It was essentially gone. The boy and girl had so saturated their precious love with experience, that the experience soon outweighed the emotion.

The boy clawed at the rocks, tearing and clawing until his bloody hands fell limp through the cracks of the rocks into the water below. The girl, disgusted at the thought of blood reaching their love water, ran away. The boy tried to reach after her, but his hands were weighed down by tons of experience. As soon as the girl disappeared into the desolation, the rocks cracked and crumbled.  The water became mud, the mud became clay, the clay became the stuff of asphalt, desert, and rock desolation.  The boy stumbled away.

When they found him, he was sprawled face down, blistered and broken. Splattered to his side, written with of his hands, was scrawled a note.

Small and stony, insignificant enough to be easily
forgettable, significant enough to be easily noticed.

Love and loss, insignificant enough to never be
noticed, significant enough to never be forgotten.