Chester

Chester


Chester

Born in the searing heat of plastic melting stoves and shaping presses, I was born. Loud, mammoth fans and torrents of cool water form my first memory.  I would never forget such comforts. Next, I was plucked up by a mechanical suction cup.  I was held so tight and was moving so fast I could hardly understand what was going on.  My memories here have a distinct gap.  I last saw a small cylinder heard and felt others like myself being dropped in a pile then another wave of heat as a cover was sealed on.  Then, as I said earlier, a gap. Nothing.
         
The last time I left what I now know as ‘the factory’ thanks to some loud mouthed freight counters I overheard. I remember deciding I was afraid of that roaring fast place.  A naivety I will never forget.  The next part of my life started when I was unceremoniously dumped onto a field of green, stick like organisms and burning sunlight. I was then set onto a pedestal and would never miss the place I was as scared of so much in my life as I did that moment.
         
While still reeling from my abrupt change in atmosphere, I was smacked hard by a huge stick. Who could, or would have wielded such a weapon, and who abused me for seemingly no reason for so long I shall always wonder, and never know.
         
Time and time again he would set me up, hit me, watch me fly high above the green abyss and if I didn’t land, then roll exactly where he wanted he would howl and cuss then smash me into the beautiful turf. I was soon resigned to my painful high-flying existence. Forever to be smacked and be bouncing and rolling on the earth’s green carpet till the master threw me into the pouch with his many, carefully selected weapons and my silent beaten brothers. The only emotion I learned how to feel was pity, as I saw a new collection of shining new brothers. Confused and untouched as I had been, quietly awaiting the vicious fate that knew nothing about... I thought there was no escape for the, in a way I was right for the only escape is where the master sets you free.  He set me free.
         
One day, he dropped me, set me on my pedestal, smacked me, made me fly and I landed in a cool, deep pit filled with water.  It reminded me of the cooling rack in the factory.  He never came back for me.  I am free even as I write, in my aquatic paradise and wonder the purpose of my terrible existence.  After all the years settled on the soft floor, I finally know.

         It is to teach you.  No torture is fruitless, I now know my limits but more importantly I understand my life.  All life. All purpose. You are born of fire, bathed in existence, live in pain and ignorance then sit in the same existence you are forced into years before.  When here you act, think do invaluable things like write your story.  You do this in the hope that if the next brother to join the pool arrives before the story rots, and you are covered by silt he can pick up where you left off for he too survived.  He did not split under the pressure and found that in his agony, existence awaits.

         I am Chester. I am a golf ball.  I survived.