I carry a collection of rocks, a lifetime deep, in my many pockets—pebbles, boulders, some busted to smithereens, and a variety of sizes in between.
My pockets have become helpful for hiding, toting personal possessions of no value beyond their heft, grounded I am. So I was understandably dismayed when cargo pants went out of style. Cargo? I should say so. All aboard, welcome to the traveling penitentiary, you sedimentary stowaways, and welcome to the show.
I have tried to jettison my ignominious igneous concealments over the years. I plummeted a particularly large sarsen, a druid stone, down a pitch-dark well, and like those ancient mystics, it was never heard from again, a splash never recorded, and I waited, and I waited, and some would say tarried too long, the outcome fated. Make what you will out of that, but you choose: better to be a bottomless pit or a forever plunging stone? Be the best version of that after you pick, be that.
I chose to labor unapologetically, grinding stone on stone. With each footstep, a brick laid.
For too long, all who knew me could hear me approaching a mile away or more. The thumping and clatter and thudding foreshadowed my coming, and who could blame them if they scattered, hid, and turned down the lights when I clod-hopped to the front door, sagging their porch. I sensed them breathing inside. I rang the doorbell just to rub it in. I knew they wouldn’t answer, and they knew I knew they wouldn’t answer, and they knew I knew Jeopardy started in three minutes, but I’d still be ringing that bell. They knew I knew they loved Jeopardy and that I came by to hear them huff and puff before I left, ruining the opening for them—we all like roaring, ecstatic and electric applause, even garbled through a tangle of copper wire and pleading vacuum tubes. All the guys wanted to be Trebek’s magnificent mustache, and a few women.
“I’ll take reruns for a hundred, Alex. I was carved in rock, this looping episode, a merry-go-round I had become. I couldn't be coaxed to safety, fixed—the only solution was to unhinge me from my moorings and spin me off into the trees, an ancient carnival attraction, cuisine for the weeds. So, while I could, I tied a white handkerchief to a long, sharp stick and marked the spot. Here, I surrender. If you choose to watch, this will be graphic.
Culling me, I began.
First, I removed my rapacious feet, and the greedy fiends marched on without me, with no regard for the manicures I provided or the thick socks I appropriated on their behalf. It seems it was their way or the highway all these years, and you can see them hoofing it down I-9A if you hurry.
Next, I unscrewed my hands and laid them in the grass. They complied for a bit. Then, clawed, clenched, jerked with angry abandon. Frogs legs in a hot skillet, of that I evoked, and the smoking oil. I enjoy not having my (rented) hands about my throat now.
Finally, I sliced my head clean off. I knew the guillotine I purchased years ago would eventually pay out. It cost me an arm and a leg, but you can't place a price tag on a fresh start. Unfortunately, I neglected to buy a basket, so my head rolled down an incline, a hollow jack-lantern with a bit of fire still in its flickering eyes. More feed for the weeds—and the worms, I.
It was all disconcerting, to say the least. There I was, disassembled, dismembered, and dissociated.
Yet, I felt much lighter, even hopeful.
Get it together. How many times had I told myself that, heard that hollow advice from the hordes of sutured mummies that I see, gauze flapping, asses dragging, arms outstretched, stiff-legged, mumbling about personal growth before turning to dust?
On second thought, I'll take no fucking way for three hundred, Alex.
I immediately began gathering stones. I was no quitter. Feet, hands, and head be damned.