[ IP ] A trophy shelf under a bridge in Boston -- why is it there ?

Accomplishment are fleeting. Come to think of it, every single accomplishment is either meaningless or vulnerable: if it is not a single milestone with absolutely no impact in the real world past the moment it is reached, it is, as everything else, in danger of being destroyed. 
 When I was ten, I entered a mandatory creative writing contest at school. To this day I remember how the text went, written in twenty minutes about the life of book forgotten on a shelf, and to my surprise it won first place. There was an award ceremony at the closing of the school year, where I was given a plaque in front of the entire school. By that time I was still dumbfounded that I could have actually won with something I had put so little effort on, while my favorite essays got me little notes for my parents. The next day my mother hung the little plaque on my bedroom wall, after she retrieved it from the trash, where it must have been thrown by mistake among some papers, God bless her. 
 I never won any other trophy, besides some participation awards who were allowed to remain peacefully in the basement. By the time I moved out of my parents ’ house I had learned to ignore the silly little plaque but could never bring that thing willingly into my own home. I threw it out of the car window halfway there. 

