For their smallest act is durable.
— Horace
I think every little boy intuitively understands hunting gathering; I know I did. I’d watch crows swoop down and pick up something shiny off the street and think, they’re just like me—they like neat stuff.
I’ve grown up, but I still like neat stuff. I’m a treasurer—not in the usual sense of the word, but more like a collector of precious items—neat little things that matter only to me.
I’ve got a pocket full of pebbles. I know it sounds weird and maybe a bit childish, but these aren’t just small rocks—they’re stones of significance.
Men are always using stones to write their poems—sometimes they’re monuments more lasting than bronze, sometimes they’re a circle of Saracen slabs—but whatever they are, from statues to henges, they’re full of magic and meaning and the fetishistic foolery that marks our lives.
“When did you stop loving Sarah?” Britt asks.
––
We’re standing on the shore skipping stones and it’s one of those moments I always dread.
“I never did stop,” I say off-handedly, but my fingers in my pocket fumble until they find her stone—a flat green heart-shaped one that water in its simple way has worn smooth. It’s warm to the touch, like her—like she was…before we grew apart…before she knew I was not the one.
Britt bites her lip and looks sad. I watch the sea breeze punish her dark hair and wish love could just be simple and free, but it isn’t. We all have a past and are left carrying our own luggage. No celestial valet is going to be summoned to shoulder the burden, or take it away.
I wish.
Can Britt understand what I was before, has made me who I am now?
If I had a purple ray that could expunge the hurtful past, I still wouldn’t use it and destroy the offending part. I can’t deny who I am or who I was.
So, I carry stones—not many, just a pocketful.
“I just wish I had been the only one.”
I wish she were too. I often wonder how life would have been, if there were only one, but as Hamlet said, ‘That way madness lies—let me shun it.’
Britt and I are close—she’s my second self. Souls sometimes fit together like that.
We talk about everything—hours and hours, just talking about the most trivial and insignificant things. But I don’t tell Britt about the stones. I want to tell her, but she couldn’t bear it and neither could I.
The long, lonely white waves roll in. Britt has shown me the sea. I never knew how big it was until she dragged me to this shore and made me stare until I got dizzy. I love her for that.
The horizon is red with the setting sun’s blush. It’s like Britt’s sunburn and it makes me smile. She leans into me away from the wind and I inhale the fragrance of salt water and sunscreen and hope the moment will last forever and never end. But it will.
This time I will not carry Britt’s pebble—I’ll bury it in the sand.
She looks up at me innocent and trusting.
Blood must be shed till the seas run red and the innocent die with fear in their eye.
I hate this role. I don’t want to be one to make the sacrifice. I don’t want to live and take lives.
“You were born to this,” Merit said. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.”
We’re a small group—you’d scarcely notice or be aware we’re here. We mean no harm. We’re not primitive like Aztecs, or compulsive about slaying like some slaughterhouse sect. We follow our ways and once in their lifetime someone pays the price.
Except for me.
I’m the Seer. No one knows that but a select few—Merit and a few elders—but beyond that, I’m anonymous—the fate that strikes without warning and cleanses the earth.
The problem is I’m becoming nauseous. I hate it. The burden of being the only one is too much.
My task is simple. Reproduce my kind—another Seer born and until then, I wait and occupy until he comes.
But I want it to end. My pocket is full. I want to bury the stones in the sun-warmed sand and walk out in the waves and not come back.
I want to spare Britt. I want to live alone. But they’d hunt me down and throw me across a stone. I can’t save myself, but I can save her.
We build a fire on the lonely shore—a circle of stones to bound its edge. Britt is gathering driftwood backlit by red sky. I watch her carrying out the timeless ritual of hunting gathering.
The sun is now beneath the waves and we murmur in darkness, sharing our dreams. As the fire dies, Britt sleeps and I gently remove my arm. I lay her head on her backpack and prepare to leave.
The six pebbles are lovingly laid to rest.
I gently kiss Britt and turn toward the undulating blackness.
I walk out in silence to the sea where the water welcomes and gathers me.