Three Spoons

Their work was hard and the seams small. Their fingers, knuckles and arms showed years of heavy toil. Each had leathered skin and seasoned muscles. No one knew their age because few knew of their existence. Those that had chanced upon them on the hill rarely spoke of them for fear of being thought mad.

Day after day they quarried at the face each pursuing their own silvery path. Each knew a time would come when their work would be over as the feint veins through the rock grew smaller and smaller.

What they did with their treasured spoil no one knew but for them it was a matter of life and death. At the end of every shift they each took their own precious metal to fire, beat, caress and polish it into a magnificent spoon of their own – a spoon to eat with, a spoon for life.

Each evening, deep in their mountain cave, they would sit around a frothing pot of gruel and dip their spoons to eat. The biggest spoon produced that day would, by right, have the first mouthful of gruel and would take as much as they could much to the resentment of the other two, this despite the fact that there was enough for each. So every day they would strive hard to mine their seam to its maximum to make sure that theirs was the largest spoon bowl at the evening meal.

Eons had passed when the seams finally ran dry. Sloping home that day bereft of purpose their last meal assumed an importance like no other. Each heated their silver, beat, caressed and polished to a spoon as if their life depended upon it.

Together they sat, their precious spoons hidden behind their gnarled and bent backs. As the gruel reached its heat they revealed their silver treasures to each other and rocked back in shock.

Three unique spoons yet each with matching bowls. With a look of fury in their eyes they thrust their spoons together into the pot. Their anger was such that none would let another’s spoon leave the gruel. The strength that had been built over centuries now wrestled with each other to prevent any taking advantage.

No one will know how long the struggle lasted or could explain what happened. Whether it was the heat of the gruel or the fiery temperature of their fury who can tell but the bowls melted and formed together.

Now each held a handle connected to one giant single bowl. Now you and I would work out that the only way for any of them to eat was to work together and share. Sadly, where there is hate and anger, it doesn’t matter how much food there is or what is best for everyone, people cannot think beyond themselves.

And so they sat, three ancient miners, slowly fading and wasting back into the very rock they had mined and each clutching a silver handle.

......

Three brothers owned a farm on a hill. One day the youngest took shelter from the midday sun in a small cave and took out his lunch. Lifting his knife to polish it a ray of sunlight caught the edge and danced across the rock. There, illuminated for a second was a streak of silver. His eyes darted towards his brothers in the distance.