far apart because rings incarcerate castles}shrimp

For much time, he'd remembered what had inspired him for so very long, but now the grasp of how important she was had begun to slip away. For much time he'd thought back to the quite early days where his strange obsession with old fabrics and the ability to turn them into something new had controlled him that short period in his life. For much time he'd contemplated why puberty had been such a turning point for him, why'd he became so unrelentingly distant from his mother. But now, his priorities all were on one thing and one thing only -- rings. Ones that were real, ones that were fake, ones that were ugly, ones that were beautiful. Ones that were his.

For days now, he'd wandered around the District, scanning the ground with his gazers to see if he could spot just one speck of shiny silver material. Over those days his minuscule collection had burst into a much larger, more colorful, fake collection. He wore a lot of the rings, the others stuffed in his pockets. He'd found a few favorites, including a pure gold [this was known by the easy ability to dent] ring with distorted letters engraved on the inside. Despite the dents, he wore it to the best of his ability, even if it was too big for his pinky but too small for all the others.

His senses were euphoric, because the ability to find new things and discover new interests can lead no one but to those senses. Today, though, his ability to find rings had lost, rendering the very slow walks through pathless woods and over moist hills almost useless. He couldn’t give up though! Why would he want to give up when he’d been so successful the days before? Besides, he’d had slow days before, and he’d never given up then! Perhaps the reason he felt so content on failing was because it was just another phase. For most of his life, he’d been riddled with phases where he’d do certain things and then stop after a very short amount of time. It was strange though, because the phase when he used to a lot of phases had long since disappeared. Ever since puberty hit, he’d been a different person.

He still scanned the ground, not even really thinking about finding any rings, but rather why he suddenly felt the urge to quit looking for them. Contemplation still ran through his veins as he slowly decided to quit. Just for today. I’ll just stop for a few days maybe, I can’t stay away from the shiny too long! I still need more rings with green gems.

He lifted his head from the ground, suddenly realizing the pain that having his head drooped so long caused. He arched his neck backwards and closed his eyes, letting his mouth hang open just a bit. He’d began to walk home, where he’d most likely sit in his room, the room he’d grew up in, and seclude himself from both Katheryn, his sister, and his mother, who he never called by her first name. He rubbed his hands together. The metal of the rings scraped by each other, causing goose-bumps to crawl up his arms, like nails on a chalkboard.