"The Value of Simple Things"

Transcript
Page 1. Panel 1. The World On A String. Volume 3. Number 2. CC BY-SA Ken Alleman 2020. We see a sprawling mountain vista from overhead. Mr. Long is narrating. He says, "When I first started playing guitar, I learned from riff-driven hard rock." Panel 2. Much closer in, we can see a human being in the distance. This is Mr. Long. He says, "The basic skills involved were within my beginner's grasp." Panel 3. Close enough now that Mr. Long stands as tall as the panel. He's dressed in nice slacks and a shirt with a cross-threaded V-neck. He looks contemplatively into the distance. He says, "The music was exciting to my teenage mind."

Page 2. Panel 1. Mr. Long crouches at the edge of a river and touches a wide, flat rock about the size of his hand. He says, "Then, as my skills and tastes advanced, I saw beyond riff rock." Panel 2. Closer in, he picks the rock up out of the wet sand. Water laps at the shore from the edge of the panel. He says, "Its simplicity was now juvenile to me." Panel 3. Mr. Rock tosses the rock into the water. It skips away, bouncing across the surface. He says, "I came to view riff rock as a thing of my past."

Page 3. Panel 1. We get a close in look of the splash pattern made by the rock as the water foams and spreads through the air just above the surface. Mr. Long says, "Building a new identity often means rebelling against the old one. Panel 2. The splash pattern evolves, taking a loosely gathered sort of shape. Mr. Long says, "After growing secure in my skills, I saw riff rock anew." Panel 3. The shape is still hazy, but it is clear enough to see the same sprawling mountain range from panel 1 in the whirling and foaming of this small splash in the water. Mr. Long says, "I understood the value my youngest self placed upon simple things."

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