Short Story: The Stones

The short story "The Stones" by Richard Shelton is about the life stones have in the desert, what they want, what they like and what they fear of. It starts describing the secret desire of travelingevery young stone has, but which is considered dangereous and and unnecesary by their elders, partly because it involves water. Water, in the stone society, is seen like "a gadfly who never stays inone place long enough to learn something".Despite this belief, young stones move slowly and unnoticed in a position where water can push them far away from where their home, hoping to see the world andstart a new family someplace else. Having had this experience or not, as soon they grow older, they soon get very conservative. Just at night, as soon as the young stones are asleep, they silentlytalk about "serious and frightening subject", the moon, of which they refer as "a stone gone mad" and comment how he constantly changes his shape and pulls at them to follow it.
This story, ifanalized, probably uses the rocks to refer to humans, young and old, with teir respective vision of the world. As in the story, young people are in constant movement, trying things, getting in trouble becauseof their curiosity, etc, what their elders arn't very pleased of. Every human, during his youth, has goals that are not supported by their older relatives, because they seem mostly unreachable andthe path to follow to acieve it is very dangereous. Knowing the negative point of view the older people has about what they crave for, they act without their consent and awareness, putting themselves indifficult situations that will help them move towards what they want, which is what Richard Shelton represents as the young stones that want the water to help them travel.
As soon as people get old,they talk about what they achieved trying to follow their dreams, but they don’t try to reach them any longer.
The moon, on the other hand, is the person that at last achieved to get to the top...