The Boy Who Talked
with Rocks
R. L. McDowall
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, lived a little
boy who talked to rocks.
“What a silly little boy,” I can hear you say, just like his
mum.
“No one talks to rocks,” I can hear you say, just like his
dad. But not only did he talk to the
rocks, they talked back to him.
They didn’t talk back like people do, with voices and
words. They didn’t talk back like
animals do by barks, or squeaks, or squawks, or even by rubbing against your
hands or faces or looking imploringly into your eyes. They didn’t talk back like plants do by
drooping sadly when they want water, or stretching thinly when they want more
light.
“Silly boy!” his friends said when he told them, in spite of
all this, that the rocks did, indeed, talk to him. They “talked” to him in feelings, emotions,
and pictures. They told him how sad they
were and how lonely. They were sad and
lonely because no one paid any attention to the land. No one noticed that the dirt needed to be
cherished and replenished. That without
the replenishment of returning unused plants to the soil, the soil would die
and future crops could not live.
They told him covering every bit of ground, as the king did,
when he wanted more rooms in his palace or a place for his knights to play at
war, meant that the rains could not nurture the soil, either. But the rains meant to nurture the soil
could, instead, wash it away, perhaps to other places where it could be
cherished.
The little boy feared that if people didn’t start to listen
– with their hearts and spirits – to the rocks, the rocks would get tired of
talking quietly and would begin to shift around. Rocks and soil would slide down
mountainsides. Rocks and soil would turn
to hot liquids and explode from the ground, turning the sky dark with ash. The people would starve as without the sun
and without the soil the plants would not grow.
The rocks had done this before.
They remembered, even when people didn’t.
“Silly boy,” the king said when the boy tried to tell him. “If this had happened, the troubadours would
have songs about it and they don’t. The
bards would have poems about it and they don’t.”
So the boy went away to write songs about it and poems about
it. He asked the rocks about it. And this is what they said…
–
—
The rocks showed the boy pictures of places he could not
even imagine. They showed him places
with water so vast he could not see the edges of it. And under that water, swimming, creeping, and
crawling in that water were a multitude of creatures. Strange creatures with eight legs, or pincers
to grab things with. Swimming things
bigger than the houses in his village who breathed air out in great spouts from
holes in the top of their heads.
Creatures with soft shells and creatures with hard shells and creatures
who lived in shells discarded by other creatures.
The rocks showed him pictures of the edges of the water
where sand met the water. But not the
tannish, sandy-colored sand the boy saw around his village. There were places where the sand was pink, or
purple, or green, or even black!
There were places where the trees were so very old and their
trunks were so big around that his family’s house could have fit inside them.
There were mountains where the earth could send showers of
sparks into the air. Sparks of different
colors rivaling the stars above.
And the boy composed poems about these marvels and learned
to play instruments so he could sing his poems wherever people gathered. But no one wanted to hear them or believe them
and they died with the little boy.
–
—
Now, we know these marvels exist. There are so many people here on this
beautiful planet that we have explored many of the places the rocks showed to
the little boy. But we still do not talk
to the rocks. We still do not listen to
what they could tell us. And the rocks
are still sad and lonely. They are sad
and lonely because no one pays any attention to the land. No one notices that the dirt needed to be
cherished and replenished. That without
the replenishment of returning unused plants to the soil, the soil will die and
future crops will not live.
They are sad because we are still covering every bit of
ground, as the king did, when he wanted more rooms in his palace or a place for
his knights to play at war. They are
still sad because the rains cannot nurture the soil, either. The rains meant to nurture the soil, instead,
wash it away, perhaps to other places where it might still be cherished...
–
The End —
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