Finding a small yellow marble in the river.

This is not a story about the time I found a small yellow marble in the river. No — nothing so simple as that. It’s not a tale that dwells upon the rich, mustard yellow swirls of pigment in that little glass orb, the smoothness of the surface despite the buffeting current across the rocky riverbed. This is not a story about the moment when my eye discerned a concentrated little jaundiced globule among the slate-gray shards and knoblets of water-worn basalt. No, that is not this story, and you should be ashamed to insist that it is.