Granite, Gravity and Grace

There, upon the rock, facing the stream, Ricky sat. Knees scrunched up against his chest, arms wrapped across his shins with interlaced fingers securing and giving him balance against the northerly breeze, head perched neatly on top of his knees with eyes focused on nothing but the eternal passage of the swift current, he waited and contemplated. Somewhere, birds called to their mates and taxis beeped warnings to impeding traffic, Serbian women chattered in a complicated Croatian dialect while hanging wet laundry on the line, yet not a single sound nor extraneous thought penetrated his realm as it existed today; not rushing water, not thunder, not Elijah trumpeting his clarion call throughout the world.

The rock, huge and round and placed precisely on a promontory he’d selected and designated his own, felt soft and cool to his touch. No outcroppings or imperfections of any sort offended his fingers as they lightly traced the water-and-wind-burnished surface. How many birds, lizards, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes or other humans had shared his window into eternity? Had they shared his quiet awe of this majestic place? Why did the water rush by, seemingly ignoring the upper majority in support of the much smaller and less visually acute base? Do water secrets exist down there, protected from prying eyes by fathoms of froth and algae and legions of water plants? Maybe one day he’d dive into the icy race and try to hold on long enough to investigate, to ply his strength against the current, to search for any hand hold, to feel his lungs threaten to burst against the pressures of the depth and to know the exhilaration of impending doom.

Maybe… but not today. Today Ricky claimed his satisfaction just sitting and wondering if his rock loved him as much. After all, it’s hard to really know the emotions of a ten-ton hunk of granite eroded by eons of wind and water. Had he sufficient intellect to claim comprehension of such complexities, perhaps he wouldn’t be here at all.