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Aubrey

For my inaugural post on Chromatic Conflux: Wix Edition, I wanted to tell you a story about a stone very close to my heart: my dearest, deceased pet rock Aubrey. Check out StuFLaW as well.


Sweet but a Psycho Donuts

Like many stories, this one goes back to elementary school. My third-grade class took a trip to see this improv troupe to begin an investigation about comedy. However, to get to the theater where the performance was, we had to go past a store called Psycho Donuts. Psycho Donuts had a sign that banned all pets except for a list of pet types that were permitted; for example, service dogs. On that list was pet rocks.


Harold

Fast forward to fifth grade. There was something going on at my school involving decorating rocks that I was marginally invested in. Anyway, I found a decorated rock.


I took him home, and named him Harold. He became my first pet rock. Harold was a special rock. He learned some rock commands, such as “sit.” But, most importantly, he was my precious darling rock. I never formed that special bond with Harold that I would come to create with Aubrey, however.


Eventually, Harold passed away.* His memory will live on in all of our hearts.


Memory

Last year was my last at my elementary school, Helios, that I had loved and treasured for a total of seven years. Suffice to say that that was not my first choice, but my first choice was not honored in the matter. Anyway, I knew I needed a keepsake to remember it, a small artifact** that I could treasure. That was where Aubrey came in.


Aubrey eventually joined Harold in hell,**** about December of 2018.


The Naming of Rocks

When I named Harold, I'll confess that I didn't put a lot of particular thought into these names. However, names people generally think of heavily skew male, traditional, and Anglo-Saxon. Think of Bob, Joe, or Fred. So I wanted to establish contrast with Aubrey by using a hyper-modern female name. I like the name Aubrey, as a matter of fact. It never did seem to catch on in a major way, though.***


Dear Aubrey

While Harold was a pet, Aubrey was special. I will never forget her. She symbolized, in some ways, all the great times I had at Helios, all the memories, all the important parts of my experience. In fact, I should probably just paste Dear Aubrey, my poem about this, here, instead of anything else to memorialize her. This is technically accessible from a previous post on this blog, Homework, Homework, Homework.


“Dear Aubrey, you may only be a stone;

You represent, though, every memory

Of Helios, my former school and home:

For that, my rock, you are a treasury.


And when you died you kept your thoughts intact,

So when I search, and seek a thing I left,

I try, but I cannot, in time, go back;

Instead I must go on, yet I'm bereft.


I constantly wish for your soul's return,

Although your death has not really caused pain:

I cried; I thought; I asked; I mourned; I learned,

It overall might not have been maintained.


Dear Aubrey, I forever mourn your death,

But, finally, my rock, I've caught my breath.”


A memorial inscription for Aubrey.*****

Thanks for reading what I wrote. And Aubrey, if you're listening, goodnight.


–beautifulthorns


Next: Addenda


*If you want to know how, you're out of luck. As with Aubrey, it would not be in Harold's wishes to discuss the gruesome details. I still possess his corpse. Rest in peace.


**For the record, I don't believe that rocks are artifacts, since they are parts of nature; however, it serves many of the purposes and effectively fulfills the role that an artifact would. In other words, you get the idea.


***Not sure if stats back this up. This is based on a rough guess based on the people I generally interact with in daily life.


****I love you, Aubrey. Enjoy your stay in the after! I hope you remain there, in all its glory, for all of eternity.


*****Transcript:

My dear

Aubrey,

Rest in Peace:

Thanks for everything.

You may have died, but your spirit will live on;

and I will forever love you.

HAGS


The whole "Aubrey" gag (don't tell her it's a gag) very much relies on the whole absurdist humor of having a pet rock. It's all done rather seriously, except for a few random words that undermine it. In this entire post, there are two (setting aside, for the moment, both the premise of a pet rock and this paragraph, for fear of infinite loops on the latter.) Bonus points for locating both, though it's probably fairly easy. One is in this footnote.

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3 Comments


mathygirl1
mathygirl1
Sep 02, 2021

I'm so confused about the words. There's at least one loop, isn't there? Given that you said to ignore the paragraph, and then mentioned that one of the words that needed to be changed was in the footnote? --IK

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mathygirl1
mathygirl1
Sep 03, 2021
Replying to

Ah, that clears things up. Should've noticed that, I completely missed the discrepancies and everything. Also for some reason I kinda want to mention that I'm familiar with rot13 and didn't use the website. :) --IK

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