My reign was getting boring. Really, it hadn’t ever been incredibly exciting. I sat on top of a tiresome little hill, mostly by myself. The view wasn’t bad, I could see the valley and neighbors, all refusing the leave their own summits. Sometimes, just staring at another person would set them off and they’d start yelling at me to leave them and their hill alone. These people, like me, refused to leave their place.

A lot of us never really left our mounds. We just stayed in one place day and night, sleeping and living but not ever wanting to leave because they were our hills and nobody was allowed to get near them, let alone get to the top where they didn’t belong. There were random people who ran in the low places between my neighbors and me, they were always going somewhere else and looked much happier than the rest of us were. I refused to talk to them. I didn’t want to invite some stranger into my space, he might do something to it or even take my place.

Every now and again, a girl or dream would come along and try to push me out of the way so they could run the place, but I wouldn’t let any of them. I wanted to have them around, but I knew that they’d take my hill over and I couldn’t handle the thought of it, couldn’t live with someone or something else having control of what had always been mine.

I lived like this for a long time, more years than I could really count or remember. I just sat there, guarding, watching the sun crawl from  east to west every day, sitting under stars, clouds and blue skies. One day, I saw one of the free people, roaming through the valley. He wasn’t running and He wasn’t going anywhere. He kept asking people if they’d let Him have their hills. Most of them cussed at Him, threw stuff at Him and told Him to leave. I watched one neighbor give up her space. She just gave it to Him, crawled down to the valley and began running in the same direction all the other free people seemed to go. The next day, her mountain was gone and He was walking around asking more people if He could have their space. Most of them refused.

I was getting nervous because He was getting closer to me and my hill. I needed somebody else to give theirs up, maybe it would placate this wandering Man and I wouldn’t have to leave. I had spent so much time building my mountain. A long time ago, this area was a flat, plain field. Someone had come here to hide their most treasured possession from the others, but a lot of people had the same idea. Seeing each other, they all grew nervous and began to heap up mounds of dirt, trash and anything else they could find. They built hills and mountains over their treasure, then they stayed with them. These people wanted to protect their most valuable items and somehow, got stuck in the process. For some reason, more and more people kept coming. I haven’t been here nearly as long as some of the others.

He continued on His way toward me and everything I knew. This man could take my garbage, but he couldn’t take my wealth, after all these years, it had basically become me and my only reason to live. I didn’t know anything else and had no other place to go. He continued walking my way, day after day. I watched others give up and leave. They seemed to be happy. I didn’t want to have to make this decision…