Once upon a time there was a pecan. It was a simple pecan, smooth and brown shelled and intact. It was a happy pecan, hanging from its tree and looking way down at the ground, surrounded by its family pecans.
But one day its father pecan suddenly fell from the tree, left on the sidewalk below until someone came by and carried him off. Rather than being sad, the little pecan was confused. Where had the father pecan gone, anyway?
And then more family pecans began to fall. Eventually the pecan was left totally alone. And then, one day, it fell, too.
The sidewalk was cold and hard, but at least all of the pecan's family was there, except the father. The pecan wanted the tree back, but the wind suddenly began to blow, and most of the pecan's family scattered again. The pecan was left rolling along the sidewalk.
Rolling, rolling, rolling. Sometimes the pecan joined with others from its family, and then it would lose them, then find them again. It was confusing, and this made the pecan angry. Its shell began to turn black, streaked with it, marring the nice smooth brown.
The pecan rolled for a very long time. Down the sidewalk, around corners, until it lost all direction of where it was even going, or what the point was. Where was the rest of its family? Where was the tree? Did the tree even exist?
And then, just like what had happened with its father, the mother pecan was suddenly scooped up from the sidewalk and carried away. That was called death, the pecan learned.
The pecan rolled on, now with its aunt and uncle pecans. Its shell got blacker and blacker, as it rolled on, rotting from the outside in.
And then, one day, as it was rolling, it turned a corner and bumped into something strangely comforting.
The tree! It had finally caught sight of it again!
The joy at seeing the tree was so great that the blackness began to peel away from the pecan's shell. That left the shell fragile, and a small crack split it in a question-mark shape, around the top and down the middle, revealing the beautiful golden interior. Other pecans looked at the pecan in a strange way, in a way that made the pecan feel exposed and embarrassed, but it didn't matter. The pecan had found the tree, the very tree that had created it and loved it. There was no way to get back into the branches, and that was okay. The pecan was content to lie in the green grass between the mighty roots and be happy.