My Time with Shoal

At the dawn of the world, I take out my shovel
And dig and dig and dig,
Like the early pioneers would do
finding resources that the earth lain
And I continued throughout the entire day
finding my own resources in order to live through the night.
Oh how awful the night has become
With the crawlers and creepers infested over the twilight land

But alas, day is not their time
and I must collect as much as I can
Except for shoal
Unbearable, unspeakable shoal
Oh, why has the creators invent such a useless resource
Neither coal nor sand
It can not be crafted for other purposes
Your so close to being obsidian
I can’t even bear to carry one around

But that’s where I was wrong

I had not noticed said shoal
upon my inventory or belt
And there appeared only my sword, my axe, and tree bark
But twas the nightfall
Shoal was present, and I did the most respectable thing
I threw it out hastily
And it wobbled up and down
spinning around
Dancing upon the pixelated ground floor
Why have you forsaken me, ole shoal

“Out and away with you, I’ll tear you apart!”
My anger said
And I took the shoal with me to the depths of the mines
Where lava was to be found
And that’s not all I intended
I’ll find all of the shoal in the world
And burn them too!
That way I’ll never have to see one again
But it wasn’t easy;
the shoal had disappeared

The anger has flustered me to no ends that I made a huge mistake
I was in the wrong home
Well not even a home but an open cave
Open for the dark lurkers intending to do me harm
And I rushed out into the dark despair
Running as fast as I could to Hideout D
So I took off, trying to avoid as many enemies
But in no time, I was surrounded
And I had a dull blade and no back-up supplies
So I did the most logical thing
And I dug as fast as I could

The shovel took me as far down as another cave
And I once escaped my enemies
But now I was in another enemy territory
With only one light to illuminate my space
And I heard groaning in the seemingly still space
“A creeper,” I thought
The noise grew louder and louder
And I just stood there. Afraid.

As the acrid sound touched my ear drum
I felt fear, and other tingling sensations
How was I so powerless
Not being able to defend myself
It was unbearable; but I didn’t want to surrender
I saw the creeper and I leapt away as it noticed me
It charged toward me and then
And then, and then, the end?

Shoal came from the hole I dug earlier
And landed on the creeper
Exploding on impact.
Shoal split into a thousand pieces
And it disappeared
Before my very own eyes
Thank you shoal
For saving my many lives
I take back everything I said in the past about you
I take back all the times I left you hovering in those caves
Shoal, I liked our time together
And you have a purpose

Morning came, and I escaped the cave
Going back to HQ for resources
Carrying with me a bag of shoal
For safe keeping.

—a by Jeremy Wong