Today's #flashfiction Hardcore Rock

 “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

King Arthur* #quote

I wonder what the exchange rate for crossing the river Styx is. I want to know how much I should ask should be buried with me when I die. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Hardcore Rock

            Nathan, a little gray rock, laid on the side of the hill while Lewis and Clark passed nearby. A few decades later a pioneer decided Nathan would make good building material. So the rock became stacked together sloppily by the pioneer into a house. No binding agent stuck him to the rocks nearby so pressure held the house together, along with the pioneer's prayers.

          Generations grew up inside that poorly made house. Nathan saw the birthdays of every child in the lineage of the pioneer. A sickness struck the area and the family died out. No one claimed the land for building until the roaring twenties. Build, build, build! The deep pockets of the rich called for demolition of the little house for a new property. Nathan saw other rock brothers destroyed in the process but he was thrown aside in the construction. A little rock next to a huge mansion.

          The economy collapsed and the rich worked hard to hold onto what wealth they could. The son of the owner of the mansion didn't have any toys to play with so he came outside. One day he found Nathan and threw him. The boy couldn't play with a ball, so he used the rock pretending he got “outs” by throwing curve balls on the best baseball players of the day.

          Nathan kept the boy company for quite some time, though was eventually forgotten like many toys. The owner eventually sold the mansion and the land because of property taxes. With the hill nearby being a pretty place to visit the land changed hands a few times until it became a humble little home.

         In the year twenty fifteen a pretty white dove, exhausted from old age, landed on the hill and took its last breath. A very young girl saw this dove and decided to bury it. She dug a hole on the hill and put the dove inside it, covering it with dirt. She noticed she didn't have a tombstone for the dove. That's when she remembered Nathan, that tiny gray rock in front of her house. It would fit the dove's resting place perfectly. So she went and took Nathan and placed him back on the hill to serve as the tombstone for the little bird.

        And Nathan laid there on that hill, content in his own inaction.