Man in the Stone

Don't go alone

Boom-boom,

Clank

He wants to go home

Boom-boom,

Clank

The Man in the stone

Clank-clank,

Boom

Don't go alone

Boom-boom,

Boom-boom

He'll make you his own

Bones pound the earth. I don't sweat. It's too cold this time of the year. Mist puffs from my hot mouth as my feet skirt around ice sheets and old snow. The cold bites through my running shoes, but it reminds me of where I am, a distraction from everything else.

Dinner last night—thinking of it makes my insides burst in two. I don't want to go back; they all know it was my fault. Nobody says it out loud. Still, I saw it in their eyes, past the pleasant smiles dragged across their faces. They blame me for what happened.

The old village, scattered with new construction, disappears behind me. I pass the small chapel where I married my love, and the memories roil my stomach. Suppressing a nauseous wave, I keep going. My feet grapple with the earth, and the sun lays a warm hand on my cheek, reminding me that I am here, that things carry on.

The road becomes steeper, the trees taller. Gravel crumbles in my wake. I let my legs guide me. My fingers extend and flex as I try to warm them. I want to lose myself on the run, in the forest and mountains, just for a little while.

There's an old quarry in the foothills beyond my house, abandoned before the first war. We used to go there with my cousins in the summer, my dad and all of us girls. I remember hiking through the grasses that grew past our shoulders, smelling sweet red and yellow wildflowers dotting the green slopes. It rained, and the damp earth squelched beneath our feet as we climbed. Our sing-song chant echoed the men's hammers that cracked the rocks, "boom-boom, clank!"

I'm alone today, and everything's gray and brown. All the leaves have fallen into a rotten mash. It smells sour.

My fists pump. They clench and squeeze with every advancing stride. I will see the Man today—the man who lies in the stone.

The trail narrows, switching from side to side. The trees turn spindly and shift into tall shrubs. It's like running through a rabbit's thicket. Branches form a tunnel twisting this way and that, but always up.

I run by the heaps of dirt my dad identified last summer where the boars overturned the soil. Their noses and tusks up-rooted the grubs beneath. A branch cracks from above. Brief worry fleets through me, thinking the wild things might be roaming now. Then I remember it is winter—one day after Christmas, and the larger animals avoid this part of the mountain.

A bird chirps. My eyes pinpoint the sound. Its tiny legs hop on a bare stem, its red belly blaring, telling me to stop. My pace slows, but I continue.

The scrub's boney fingers recede, and I see the first stone slab, then another, and another; their large rectangles clutter the slope. Wooly green moss and lichen coat each gray rock. Some have an inch or two of snow piled on top. Bodies that have laid down after a long laboring day at the quarry, so tired they never bothered to rise.