There was a little boy who liked to stack marbles in the corner. After
meticulous work, the marbles stood, carefully balanced in their
metastable state. Though without any extrinsic benefit, the exercise
enhanced the boy, as he sat for a long time after with only the wind
rustling his still mind and wondering if there was anyone in the wide
world that was as different as he.

One day, he built the stack impossibly high such that the boy wondered
if he were to meditate on the marbles if he would be enlightened. But
he had scarcely gotten into position when a crazy girl with wild hair
ran through and knocked down the precarious tower.

"Get out of my way!" she yelled to the boy as she made distance
between herself and two pursuers. His concentration spent, the boy
gathered his marbles and went home.

He returned the next day, however. He was building his stack of
marbles when the strange girl approached.

"Why were they chasing you?" asked the boy.

"They were mad because I stole a teakettle back from their father that
they took from me when I didn't have any money to pay at the inn,"
said the girl, "Why are you stacking marbles?"

"When they get five high," said the boy, "I will meditate on them and
reach enlightenment."

"That's stupid," said the girl, "Who says enlightenment is even real?
I'm just going to keep knocking them down to mess with you."

"And I'll just keep building them back up," said the boy, "And laugh
at you once im enlightened."

The girl came by every day and knocked over the little marble towers
which the boy kept rebuilding. Soon, they became very good friends and
spent more time kissing and staring at the river than paying attention
to a stack of marbles.

One day the girl never came back. The boy at first went everyday to
see his impossibly high stack of marbles. As the days then weeks
rolled by without note, the girl that he loved became more of a memory
and the stack of marbles looked so small he wasn't sure why it
impressed him. When he knew for certain that she would never come
back, or perhaps when he no longer had the strength to hope for her,
he undid the stacking and tossed the marbles in the river.