A/N:
Surprise! isn't this the weirdest thing ever? i'm publishing something LOL.
Just wanted to say this is for Stormyinco and itsrpattzbaby, because I love them more than words can express and I know they wanted me to write and share something. They're both incredible ladies whom i'm so blessed of calling my friends. This is probably going to be read just by you two but I couldn't care less because you're the only ones I care about reading my shit.
Maybe after this i'll attemp to write some smutty fic, not promissing anything though! Here it is.
P.S.: all rights reserved and all that shit, don't steal my shit you fucker.
The Ambulant Rocks
Movement. What a bliss and a disgrace at the same time! I shouldn't move: it's not logical for a rock that weights over 600lb to be able to move so easily. In this extreme weather – hell on earth – I live with my equals. Do we move? Yes. Because we want to? We don't know. In fact, we don't know what was before and what will be after us, but one thing we're completely sure about is the movement.
Dead Valley, Racetrack Beach. That's the name of the place in where we move eternally. It has nothing of beach but everything of death. A lot of people come, watch and leave; their fragile and incapable bodies can't handle these extreme surroundings. In summer is so hot in here that the ground beneath me starts to crack dryly, and when the winter comes the cold is so intense that I froze, inside and outside, so much that even the little cracks on my surface fill completely.
I have no explanation for this. I'm just one among many that, slowly and rigorously, take our trip without meaning, without direction and without guidance on this forgotten beach in the world. I still remember when it happened to me for the first time, a long time ago.
I was contemplating how, under the serene light of a moon at dawn in winter, a small crack began to form in the ice. I could see, from where I was standing, the point where it had started to form. Minutes later I noticed that I was closer to the beginning of the crack."Did it grow to where I am? Is not possible, it was cracking to the other side." I watched it grow in the opposite direction as I approached closer to its beginning. I fell into despair. Suddenly, two voices spoke to my right.
- "It's ok, don't resist".
- "What's happening?" I said, alarmed.
- "Oh nothing, you're just moving" said one of the rocks.
- "Congratulations, you're born now. I've been watching you for a long time, waiting for the moment when you decided to move" said another.
- "I haven't decided anything!" I said utterly confused.
- "Oh! Yes, you have. Look how you move!" Said one.
- "How graceful! How elegant! "Added the other one.
I noticed behind me a trail meandering on the sand. It was mine.
It took me a while to get used to the feeling of lightness, to feel the tiny grains of sand that sounded loudly under my weight, smalls amounts of sand piled up at my sides as I went my way.
- "Where do we go?"
- "Wherever we want" said the first rock.
I had no particular desire to go anywhere. This valley was all I'd ever seen, I didn't know what was hidden beyond the mountain walls that enclosed us.
- "Where are you going?"
- "We don't know".
- "So why do you move then?"
- "Just because! Aren't you happy with just moving? Did you know that it makes you special?"
- "Yes… I guess so… last week a couple of hikers stayed for the night. They had a small bag full of rocks that they brought from other places. I tried to talk to them, ask them about their valleys, but they didn't answer. I thought they were afraid to move and alert the hikers, but at night, when I tried again to speak to them they remained there: motionless, silent, dead".
That couple of hikers picked my curiosity, without realizing it.
- "Remember these white rocks?" she said, pulling them out of the bag "We took them from la Cordillera de los Andes, a year ago".
- "Yes… I remember" answered him, thinking about everything they've gone through. Tentatively he opened his mouth to speak but closed it again hesitating. Finally he took a deep breath "listen... after this trip… I really want to stay home, I don't want to travel anymore".
- "Seriously? again with this? This is the most exciting thing we've ever done!" she became exasperated "I don't understand your desire to settle. We're young; we'll have time for that later".
- "You always say that we'll have time… but I won't continue to drift around with you" ignoring her surprised expression he continued "I'm no longer satisfied with just going from one place to another. Yes, we've enjoyed beautiful sights and the most amazing places in the world, incredible nights in which our bodies couldn't get enough of each other… but… is this what we'll always do? Is this what we'll always be?" he couldn't hide the frustration that was seeping through his voice; this was an issue that was nagging at him for a while now "I want more… I want a life, a family and a future, but with you..."
- "With me the future is always uncertain" she accused.
- "That's not what I meant" he sighed heavily, feeling as if his throat was trying to choke him, swallowing hard he continued "what I'm trying to say is that… maybe your future doesn't match mine"
- "That's because I don't want to plan my future!" she snapped, being the frustrated one now, but she had to admit that he was right, and that realization saddened her deeply "it hurts so much, because I love you… but I can't give you what you want from me… I don't think I can be what you want me to be."
- "You're already everything I want you to be!" he felt helpless about the whole situation "I'm not trying to change you... but if you can't give me the rest of your life with me then I can't give you my life with you from now on, because it's the same" he replied.
- "But I'm willing to love you with your joys, your pain, your secrets, your past..." she pleaded.
- "But you're not willing to take me with my goals and my future" he said as she sobbed quietly. The silence fell coldly between them. After a while he spoke again "We are who we are for many reasons, some of them we may never know… but even if we can't decide where we come from, we can always choose where we go from there" he paused and looked deeply into the eyes of the woman he spent the last four years of his life with "we can stay together and do things and try to feel ok with them… but we know that the joy ends fast and I'm afraid that, at the end, what will remain in the background will be nothing".
They embraced each other the whole night. She tried to show him her affection with kisses and caresses that he subtly rejected. In his eyes I could see that, even when he was suffering, he was determined and accepted the pain of things he couldn't change. The rock spoke again bringing me back from my memory.
"See? You're special because you move. Without movement there's no life, why is that important for you to know where we go if just the gift of moving is already enough?"
"Whose gift? If we move then there has to be somewhere to go, or something to do with it, if not then what's the point?" exasperation getting the best of me.
"Stop it! You scare me with your questioning!... I'm worried about you, don't you notice that some of us don't move anymore?" said one of them.
"What happened? Aren't they born yet? Like me at the beginning?"
"No, they're all born… they just stopped moving. Doubt took place in their minds and stopped them. Not knowing where they were going or why ended up killing them. Us, that still move, suffer for our fallen ones. We replay every night the moments we spent with them and cry dry tears over their dead bodies" answered the other one, sobbing loudly.
That night I spent the rest of my trip thinking about intangible places. "Why am I the way I am?" ¿what makes me different from other rocks?" "why do we move?" "what awoke me and made move in the first place?" I decide where to go but I don't know what for. I think and speak, but above all: I want… I want to know the answers. To know the truth.
We moved every night. The other rocks told me to keep slipping, that it's what was natural for us. They warmly praised my stunts, but I noticed the concern that was hiding behind their words. They feared that one night I won't move anymore, prisoner of my frustration. This habit of just moving, following the rest without no one giving reasons or explanations, was starting to drown me, making me feel more trapped than inside my hard body… at least in there I was free to think about whatever I wanted to.
The inquest annoyed me to no end. I felt my privacy in danger "what are you thinking?" "what's that face for?" come on! Move!". Some of them tried to force me, pushing me. Others insulted me, told me I wasn't deserving of moving, I answered every time saying that if I could move than I deserved it as much as them. They threatened me and directed me to move in certain ways… I wasn't that free after all. "Don't you want to move anymore?" the answer, never aloud, was no. Moving didn't satisfy me anymore, the joy of the first slides and the pleasure of the praising that my dancing produced were gone a long time ago.
I wasn't happy, but I didn't have the heart to tell them. They were worried: it was the right thing for them, they don't understand that it's not enough for me. The meaning of their lives is to guide the younger rocks in this useless dance and I'd rather don't say anything than making them suffer. They wanted, mistakenly, the best for me… and I wanted the same for them.
I pretended I didn't mind for a while, that I was sated moving freely on my own accord through our small valley, but how free were we if we didn't do anything with it? Sooner than later, cracks begin to make their way to the surface of the false facade I insisted on keeping. The other rocks didn't appraise my moves anymore because there was a long time ago since I last did my spins. I don't remember the last time that I traced, in the sand, the perfect course of the stars above of us, which provoked elation and envy among the younger and inexperienced rocks. It didn't make sense to me anymore, other than to entertain everyone else.
One night I didn't have it in me to move, not even one millimeter. My friends called me and I tried to answer them but I was too weak. I realized that it was happening, what they warned me about: I was stopping, in fact I wasn't moving anymore. A sudden and fleeting panic surprised me at the thought of not moving anymore, the thought of wasting a gift that was going to be taken away from me, that I was going to spend the rest of my days trapped inside this body watching the others move around me. Then I realized it didn't matter, because I had decided that I simply didn't want to move anymore. Making patterns in the sand, competing with other rocks, the laughter… it didn't satisfy me. I was happier staying still than moving, because if, at the end of the night, moving won't make me different than what I am now then I'd rather have the freedom of choosing how to react by deciding not to react at all.
Since that night, my still moving friends walk next to me. They whisper words full of encouragement and hope, whishing that one night I might wake up and join them again. I listen and keep staring at the sky. I think they believe I'm still alive, and sometimes when the longing takes over me, I analyze everything again and decide that they might just want me to move to kill their fear and confirm that our gift is so magnificent that we don't die and we can't reject it completely. But my decision is as clear and strong as the hiker's. I know that I can move if I want to, I haven't tested that theory but nothing says I can't, that's why I decide not to. My limited freedom as a rock is based on that, using it in the most motionless way. I had never felt so free, happy and satisfied in my entire life.
The motionless –and human- rock of Death Valley.
A/N: Soo... that was it! this was a final project for my antropology class. I failed, not that it matters though cause i'm pretty proud of being able to write such heavy shit.
This is actually based in a true fact. These rocks move! here's some info and cool pics (remove the spaces) http : / geology. com /articles/racetrack-playa-sliding-rocks. shtml
Thanks for reading!
Deb =).