A Rock’s Song

I was once a rough stone sitting at the edge of the sea.  Beaten by the seas, washed by the seasons.  That was before my life began.  That was before my ears were opened.  I was picked by a wandering man, he had hard hands.  He walked along the shoreline searching for stones beaten smooth by the waters, for rocks that stood proud after the storms.  He found me.  I rode in his bag for days, in the day and at night.  While he walked and while he rested.  We went a way together, me and my finder sitting at the top of a bag of stones I watched the world go by.

 

I marveled at it all, the roar of the metal caterpillar, the whisper of the grass.  Seeing these new wonders and wondering at it all.  Most wonderful of all was my finder.  I had seen men come and go.  They had passed over me and stepped on my brothers.  They had stepped on me and passed over the others.  Dropping refuse in their wake.  That was what I knew of man, loud raucous laughter, half empty green bottles and uneaten food left to waste.

 

He was different.  Our whole journey he sat and prayed every morning and every night before he put his head to the earth.  He muttered a word of thanks anytime the rains and the winds let up, he gave praise for every night we survived.  I wondered again and more than ever at his faith.  That he would pray to an unseen God, to one whose entire existence was an endless mystery.  Still, i prefered his faith to the unpredictability of drunken stupor, to the filth of forgotten latex.  He was a peaceful breeze after the storms of the seasons and he carried within him a light that I did not see but that I could sense.

 

Eventually, we reached our destination, it was a small city on the side of a hill.  As we walked into the city, he again spoke words of  thanksgiving and though I could not pray, I shared the gratitude he felt.  In the weeks that passed, he sat at a work table day after day, taking out the roughest of our edges, shaping us with skill and love talking in whispers the whole time.  As he leaned over me, knocking me into shape with hammer and chisel, he whispered to me.

 

“ You are a lucky one” he said, “ You go into the walls of the Chapel, the home of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, you will hear of His goodness forever”.  I was overjoyed at the thought, I could already imagine the opulence that this home would hold, and that I, a simple weatherbeaten stone would be a part of it?  He kept talking to me about this God as he smoothed out my edges.  He was supposed to be a merciful and loving father who possessed great strength and was protector and provider to them that loved him.

 

Another day he was a complete wrath, who destroyed cities with flames and the world with water.  Who gave his people up to destruction over and over, delivering them through one of his prophets only to once again empower their enemies against them.  It was hard to believe that for the sake of this people he had sent his only son to die.  It was the greatest act of love possible.  An emotion even above the wrath.  He was a father, was he not, he had to chastise his seed, but he loved them still.  I longed for the home of this King, to hear him speak and watch him act, to witness him.  I could not wait.

 

Many a morning came before we were ready and when we were, my finder loaded us unto a cart dragged by a mule and led us to this home.  It was a sand pit when we got there.  It looked too small to hold this palace of the King of Kings.  Still, I had no lips, I could not complain.  Over weeks, stones were laid over each other and in time, my turn came as well.  I was placed at the edge of a window in the back room.  This room was empty for a while, till a small table and desk were put in,  followed by a bearded man who dressed all in black, with just a touch of white at his collar.

 

Was this the King of Kings?  Everybody called him father, even the elderly and he was even younger than my finder.  I soon learnt different.  He was not this King I sought but he was a messenger from the King to His people.  I heard all the messages the King sent, all the instructions, the admonitions, I even heard of the Kings son who had been sacrificed to save all.  This King must love his people so much.  I soon came to know that the King was not human but divine and my longing for Him grew and everytime the bearded man, sat behind his desk and scribbled down the messages, I willed him to leap up and scream ‘AHA!’ as he was oft to do and let out a torrent of the Kings word which he would crosscheck in the Black Book.

 

For years, I watched and listened to this messenger, while his thick brown beard became tinged with grey.  He had grown a little bit of a belly now but his messages were still frequent.  I was content to be this close to my King, i had been fortunate not to be set in the foundation.  Then one day, after his message was delivered, father returned to the little room with a young girl.  He dashed acroos the room, belly jiggling to shut the window above me while the youngster unbuttoned her frock.

 

I was no messenger of the King, neither was I human, but I was sure that this was wrong.  If i could turn away, I would have, rather than watch the father with his pale mottled skin sit on the edge of the table while playing with her ripe bosom while this lady buried her face in his laps.  Was she crying?  Did she need to be comforted?  If that was so why did they have to disrobe?  The weeks passed and every message day, the lady returned, sometimes to repeat their initial practice while at other times she’d lie on the table and he would lie on top of her, making little jerking movements.  Were they so cold that they required the other’s body heat to survive, I had seen wild animals act similarly, though when in heat.  Where they in heat?  Wasn’t man different from other animals?

 

I suffered in silence till the fire came.  For a while it had been tense in the town.  I could tell from the tones of those that came in to be blessed, all of them bearing some grief associated with the word,’war’. I did not know what it meant till the fire came.  In little burst and big bursts from magic sticks wielded by men all dressed in green followed by metal behemoths with long straight trunks that spat fire as well with a loud roar.  They ran over the town, even our little palace to the King of Kings, they came in and led father away in chains their dark skins glistening with sweat.

 

Someone replaced father in that back room.  A little man in green but with a lot of stripes on his shoulders.  He seemed gentle, he would sit for hours poring through another Black Book while the behemoths roared and the sticks spat fire.  He went on his knees 5 times a day in supplication facing the eastern wall of the palace.  He had his own King I presumed, one who was divine like that of my finder.  This one seemed better, the short man was utterly devoted to this creator and his black book.  I began to listen whenever he spoke of the creator to the other men in green.

 

This creator admonished all men to be good to one another.  Asked them to take care of the widows and the unfortunate.  This was missing in the father’s list of ten things you must obey.  I was once again close to satisfaction, watching him on his face before the creator, I felt like his devotion equaled mine.  In the midst of the storm outside the window, I had found peace with this striped little man.  Then the lady returned.

 

She was dragged in by the men who stood outside the door.  I remembered her though she appeared older now and dirty.  She squinted in the face of the sun and her once ripe bosom seemed weighed down by hunger.  My little striped man got up from behind the father’s desk and looked her over.  He spat at her feet and muttered ‘infidel’.  Was that her name.  He barked out an order and the lady was dragged out.  After a little while she was returned, still thin and hungry but scrubbed clean then the men left.

 

My little man put a knife to her throat, dragged it acroos her bosom and used it to rip away what little clothing covered her frame.  Again, i was forced to watch as he pushed her onto the mat he knelt on to pray and jumped on her the way the father did, only this time there were tears pouring out her eyes and she did not purr like a well fed jungle cat.  I lost my faith in this new creator.  In all creators.  In every King that looked on while this happened to one of his people.

 

 When he was done, he pushed her through the doorway, still unclothed and i heard the muffled thud of her form hitting the ground and the hurried shuffling of feet to where she now lay.  For hours afterwards she sobbed as each man repeated the little man’s actions till she was still.  The little man got up and shut the door and the last I saw of her were  the little puddles where her tears had touched the earth while he quietly returned to reading his black book.

 

I sat there once more quiet and uncaring while the drama of life played out before me.  The little man left eventually as did his green men.  As he left, he placed a ticking case on the table.  At the door, he spat into the dust, turned on his heel and marched from the room.  As the last behemoth rumbled out of sight, I begun to hear the ticking in the silence that followed, not just on the desk but in the room beyond, in the house across the way.  The entire town was ticking.  Then came the fireball and the palace was destroyed from within.

 

I flew several yards and once again, I lay in a pile of rocks, this time not even with the benefit of the seas to keep me cool.  The town had been ground to dust and in the silence of this new existence I shut my ears as they once had been.  The seasons passed.  I watched no more, I forgot all the wonders i had come to know.  I became just another rock.

 

I was picked again, by an aged woman.  For days she stumbled through the ruins of my finder’s village picking things here and there.  Saving what she could from the utter desolation.  When she picked me i was blackened from the fireball, cracked at the edges but I had survived.  For days again, i rode in her saddlebag.  The donkey she pulled along was as aged as she was.  This time  i did not fret, i had been here before.  I did not look to the future with expectation or wonder.  Only the resignation of old age.

 

When we reached her home, it was another stone shack.  Small, simple.  The same as the palace of the King of Kings i had known in my youth.  This time i was not made a part of the structure.  This time, there were no strong hands to make me beautiful.  She dumped her bags on the floor of her bedroom and dropped to her knees.  

 

I thought her ill, then  she began to sing.  Her voice told the stories i had heard throughout my existence, tales of a Loving father who cared for his creations.  She gave him no names, she did not scream ‘AHA!’ and deliver any messages, she did not face the walls of her building  and bow, stand and bow again.  She just sang.  She sang her thanks, sang His praises.  She sang her love for him.  A love that seemed greater than any I had seen.

 

When the sun rose, she lifted her little bag of rocks and draggged us out to a field.  The weight was far too heavy for her to bear.  She managed to get to where she was going without falling.  I waited in my saddle bag, waited to be pulled out and placed in a wall to witness yet another existence i cared nothing for.  But i heard no sounds, there were no voices.  I opened my eyes to the world.  What a world it was.  

 

Half the field that lay before us was covered by mounds of dirt.  Little mounds and big mounds.  As she walked through the field, she picked an item out of her bag.  Sometimes a rock, other times a trinket.  Once or twice a child’s doll.  At the end of the field when i was alone in the bag, she picked me out and placed me at the head of a mound, right next to a cap i recognised, it was father’s black cap.  The one he managed to balance ‘just so’ on the back of his head.

 

I saw the field for what it was.  A graveyard.  A city of the dead.  But it could not be.  Had she alone buried the dead from the village.  Alone she had dragged their bodies back and honoured them by placing with them a little bit of their old lives.  As she walked down the path to her home, i looked at her in wonder.  And when her voice came out that evening carrying praises to her God, i listened with new ears.

 

Days passed and each day she would do some new thing, plant flowers, pull ot weeds, till the graveyard was not so solemn.  When flowers bloomed she would sit among them reading a book.  In the winter she would watch from her porch.  I was content in this new tranquility.  Hearing only the music of the birds and the exultation in her songs every evening.

 

On a bright day i heard a rumble.  The ground shuddered in response.  It was a rumble i knew.  One i could  not forget.  It brought images of little green men with striped shoulders.  In time i saw the vehicles approach,  i saw the metal behemoths with their long spouts follow.  I remembered the desolation and my being ached for this aged woman who would surely die and there would be no one to dig a grave for her or plant flowers for her sake.  

 

The first vehicle roared past without so much as a glance at the path that led up to the house.  Then the next and the next and the next.  Till they were all gone.  If i could turn to watch them go down the way i would have.   I wondered at it, i wondered till i saw a man, not a little one sitting on the gate post.  He was dressed in white.  A white that glowed a little more than i knew cloth to glow.  He sat there picking at his nails.  

 

He sat there for the rest of the day as lone vehicles passed back and forth, picking at his nails or digging his toes into the dirt.  I wondered about this stranger.  Why didn’t he go into the house or leave?  Why did he bear an unsettling resemblance to picture on the palace walls i had come to know?  He sat there till the old lady begun to sing.  As the sun set and her voice issued forth, i saw her words.  I didnt hear them, i saw them, white vapours, wisps of praise.

 

The vapours collected around the man in white, gathering in a cloud at his feet.  He stopped picking at his nails and raised his face to the darkening sky.  I knew who the man was!  The son, the son my founder spoke of.  The one that had been nailed.  I wished i had limbs to leap from my place above the messenger and tell Him how i had sought him all my life.  My every particle felt alive, if only i had lips i would have joined her song.

 

I heard her song slowly wind to an end, an end i knew too well, i only yearned more for this King that i now knew lived and loved.  He lived and loved.  He had saved her from the fate of the young girl from the village.  He lived and loved.   As the last of her words poured out of her soul i thought the words with her.  On the last phrase, His name, i felt myself shift and a wisp left me.  My own praise, my own adoration.  I knew what that wisp was.  ‘El Shaddai’.  The wisp joined others and the cloud rose, lifting him into the night sky.  A light i would never doubt to the end of my existence.  I had found the King, on a gatepost, picking at His nails.

THE END.

I wrote this story years ago. Only 3 people including myself had read it before today.  It is a story of praise, of worship and of devotion. All these things I feel when I think about the past year.  I go into this new year grateful for the old and thankful for the new.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Oladimeji Ojo