A Cool Bob Studios Tale
Cool Bob, master silversmith, lived where the mountain kissed the sky. His workshop, carved into granite, overlooked a valley where wildflowers swayed with the seasons and snowmelt traced silver veins through the earth. No sign hung above his door. None was needed. Those meant to find him always did.
They called him sage, mystic, hermit. Bob just called himself a craftsman.
One summer dusk, storm clouds boiled over the peaks. Thunder growled, deep as the world’s own pulse. Barefoot in his workshop’s doorway, Bob sipped his beloved pine needle tea, its hint of wild mint curling warm in his chest. He watched the sky fracture, rain falling like a judgment. He had no hurry, nowhere to be. When the deluge hit, he ambled to his truck—an old red relic, more rust than paint—and climbed into the bed. Under a weathered blue tarp, strung with maps, feathers, and a six-inch battery-powered TV, he made his shelter.
That night, he played a tape worn soft by time: Stargate. The screen flickered, edges warped, sound thin. Bob didn’t care. The story was fine, the actors solid—but it was never about the plot. It was the symbol. A pyramid, ancient and grounded, crowned by a sun. The Point of Origin.
He rewound the scene three times, leaning close, the TV’s glow silvering his weathered face. That symbol wasn’t just artifice. It sang to him, a note struck deep in his chest, like a truth cloaked in fiction. Not a copy. Not a replica. A handmade homage, pulled from memory and reverence. Bob had seen that symbol first in an old sci-fi film—the kind that made you feel like maybe the universe was bigger than it looked, and maybe you were part of it. Not a fan tribute, not merch. Respect, done the only way Bob knew how: in fire and silver. He never claimed it. He honored it.
“Not where you stand,” he whispered, setting his tea aside. “Where you began.”
Sleep came restless, not from the storm but from ideas prowling like wolves at the edge of his mind. In the small hours, a dream took hold—not images, but forms. Geometry spinning in the dark, sharp as starlight behind his eyes.
By dawn, he was at his forge, a fresh mug of pine needle tea steaming nearby, its wild mint tang grounding him.
No sketches. No blueprints. Just fire and instinct.
He chose a bar of silver, pure and quiet, mined near the old trail above Twin Sisters Peak. He set it on the anvil like a prayer, silent for once—no murmured “what do you want to be today?” This silver knew its shape.
His hands moved, hammer and thumb coaxing the metal:
- A pyramid, low and wide, its edges smoothed not by tools but by time’s patient touch.
- A circle, raised just above, glowing like dawn’s first light, reverent and alive.
It was precise, but not flawless. Bob didn’t chase perfection. He chased what breathed.
As the piece cooled, he did something new. From a tin by the forge, he drew a turquoise cabochon—blue-green, rough-hewn, threaded with cracks like ancient riverbeds. He’d found it years ago in the Uncompahgre’s dry washes, kept it for no reason except it felt like kin. Some stones are like that.
With steady hands, he set the turquoise into the pyramid’s heart—not above, not below, but within. The silver curved to hold it, like earth cradling water.
And it was done.
Bob cradled the pendant, silver warm, turquoise cool as a moonlit stream. He nodded, slow, like a man who’d waited decades for the right words and found them in silence, his tea cooling beside him.
Everyone has a point of origin, he realized—a root, a spark, a place where the soul first kindled. But sometimes, when we’re lost, tangled in the world’s noise or our own doubts, we forget. This pendant, silver and stone, was a reminder. The turquoise, with its quiet power to cleanse negative energies, cleared the way, guiding wearers back to their beginning. Not a map, not a destination, but a whisper: Look inward. Find your origin.
“You don’t wear this to find home,” he said to the empty workshop, steam rising from his mug. “You wear it to remember where you started.”
The Point of Origin wasn’t a place. It was a bearing, etched in the heart’s quiet. That turquoise didn’t point north—it pointed inward, its energy a soft balm against the weight of the world. No matter where you stood, how far you’d roamed, it murmured: your origin lives in you. When you’re lost, it’s there, waiting.
He wrapped the pendant in leather, soft and sun-faded, dyed with bark and clay, and tucked it into his drawer of sacred things. He’d make others—maybe. But not many. This was a call, answered in metal and stone.
In time, a few found their way to those who needed them:
- A city-born woman, unmoored under endless skies.
- A pilot, certain of his course but blind to his roots.
- A cartographer, mapping stars she couldn’t name.
Each, in their way, said the same: “It feels like I’ve been here before.”
Bob didn’t explain. He just smiled, handing them the pendant, his fingers brushing the rim of his tea mug.
“It’s not a key. It’s not an answer. It’s the question you forgot to ask.”
Back in his truck, rain drumming the tarp, Bob cued Stargate again, a fresh brew of pine needle tea warming his hands, its minty edge sharp in the damp air. Not for the thrills or the memories, but for the reminder: stories endure. Symbols hold. Sometimes, a spark of movie magic lodges in your soul and becomes something true.
Somewhere, a pendant rests against a beating heart, silver warm with memory, turquoise cool with clarity, cleansing the weight of lost days. Together, they murmur:
Everyone has a point of origin. When you’re lost, let this guide you back.