The Rock of Ephyra
This is the story of a single rock. At first there was only plasma, then the universe exploded. Individual atoms found each other one by one and became stars, became planets, became mountains and seas and great slabs of tectonic plates. Storms raged and the mountains threw fire. The ground shook and tore itself apart, forming massive islands with cliffs rising up white and stark and bold.
The humans came with their sacrifices and offerings, bringing their artists and thespians, their thinkers and engineers, building a wondrous city high on the hill. They hewed great blocks of stone from the earth, carving fantastic shapes. The rock was one of these. Freed from its stone bed, birthed in the stars, grown in the seas, torn from the earth and carved into a huge sphere, the rock was a fusion of shining marble, rough granite, a single soft line of sandstone from sea creatures swirling through it.
One day hands laid themselves flat against the rock. The rock could feel warmth, different from the sun, pressing close and soft against its surface. The hands pushed it, rolled it, to the top of the massive hill that overlooked the city. At the top the hands slipped, and the rock rolled, gaining speed, faster and faster, wheeee! until the ground leveled out and the rock slowed to a gentle stop at the bottom, landing among much smaller boulders. That was fun! This is what life was meant to be! The rock wished it could do that again, but darkness had fallen.
After a while, the sun came back, the hands came back. The hands pushed, rolled, pushed, rolled to the top of the hill then let go. The rock carved a new path to the bottom, stopping when the ground leveled out. Tumbling against the hard ground rubbed off some of its rough edges. So many new sensations! Then darkness fell. How nice life is.
One day it was raining, so the rock thought the hands would not come, but they did. The sensations in the downward journey were a bit different this time. In the rain, the roll was softer, perhaps warmer. Not as much fun, but more serene? More contemplative? The sun was shining the next day. The rock got pushed up the hill, then rolled down into the semi-dry mud from the day before. The day after that it rained again. Then there was more mud, then more sun. The rock was beginning to understand that each day would be different, each day bringing subtle changes in the experience of being rolled up the hill and released to forge new trails. Autumn came and the rock crunched through crisp, burnished leaves. Winter came and the rock glissaded down slick, cold runways of ice. Spring returned. Summer returned. The seasons revolved in their eternal cycle.
Why does the sun go away?
Where does the rain come from?
Why are the hands doing this?
Why do trees grow and then topple and disappear into the earth?
How does water break apart and get into so many little spaces?
What else falls apart?
Am I falling apart?
It was seized by the idea that its own substance was rubbing off against the ground, and realized this was true. Now, with every trip, every rotation, the rock imagined it could feel itself getting smaller, atom by atom. Diminishing! How much time did it have left until it no longer existed at all? How much time did it have left until it could no longer wonder how much time it had left? It stopped thinking about how nice life was.
One rainy day the rock stuttered in the mud for a moment before breaking free. One bright day a huge log bumped it sideways, the remains of a tree which the rock had knocked down not so long before. One day it went over a little bump, just a little bump. Practically nothing. A creature’s nest perhaps, or some dried mud crusted against a branch. The rock bounced upward, then dropped. It had gained so much speed that the next bump launched it even higher than the first.
When it landed, a jagged wedge sheared off, slicing through the air into a rivulet of water coursing along nearby. Sunlight blasted the newly revealed gouge, shocking the rock as it lurched unevenly downhill. A fracture line. A swirl of sandstone. The rock had always known it was there but had ignored it. There had been so much time. Once there had been so much time. It cursed the gods who had set the human to pushing and rolling it. It cursed the hands which were the instrument of its disintegration. How much time is left? Reluctant, resigned, resentful, the rock acknowledged the answer to its question. The answer it had always known. Not long enough.
Soon the old rock would disperse completely. Disintegrate! Soon it would fracture and scatter along a long-forgotten path. The rest would lie, unmoving, with the small boulders at the bottom of the hill. Were these, in fact, older rocks that had rolled and diminished before? A new rock would take its place: a bigger rock with its entire mass to give to the tasks of rolling and diminishing.
The rock wondered where all the rest of its glorious, fused shining marble and rough granite had gone. A flake in a rabbit’s burrow, holding up the walls? A shard anchoring a flowering bush? Some dust floating over the mountain ridges or inhaled by the humans? Certainly most was buried under mud and mixed with dirt, just part of the mountain, supporting the rock that would replace it, and the rock after that, and the rock after that. It would be nice if some of my atoms have bounced into the air and returned to the stars. Yes, that would be nice.
/. / /
Authors’ note: This story grew out of a conversation between the authors regarding the notion that if Sisyphus is condemned to roll a rock up a mountain for all time, his punishment makes him immortal. The rock, on the other hand, is still subject to the laws of gravity and physics.