Crystalline Discovery

Stepping out from beneath the mail flap, loose gray gravel shifted beneath my boots. Each stride demanded balance. Along the border of damp earth and crushed stone, a rough quartz fragment caught the midday sun. I crouched, bracing one gauntlet against a cool boundary rock to steady my line of sight. The mineral possessed clean, hexagonal facets, fractured yet remarkably ordered amidst the wild soil. I ran a fingertip along its sharpest ridge, clearing away fine grit. A solid, unyielding point of reference.