Fire Stones

e took the long path, my father and I, that took us through the pasture and behind woods finally merging with the road that leads to our house again. The path was wide and littered with smooth white stones of varying size. The sun was low in the autumn sky. Occasionally, as we strolled we would pause to send a rock whirling through the air into the long shadows of the trees. It was a time to just be; a time to feel an independent kinship with my father.

We came to a grove of cedar trees on the left side of the path. The center of the grove held a pile of smooth white stones. It was not a neatly organized pile pretending to be a fence or a tower but a random gathering of stones larger than those on the path. My father hurled a stone into the pile. Sparks shot out on impact, bright in the twilight. I delighted in seeing the fire from the stones. We lingered a long time while father tossed stones into the pile one after the other. I thought the woods would catch on fire. I was in awe. Father was amused.

I asked my father where the fire came from. Although wise for his years, my father was not an educated man. He satisfied his curiosity and developed an understanding of how things worked by using his imagination and by making comparisons to things he could observe. He said that the fire was inside the stones and that when two hit each other a tiny crack would let some of the fire out, but the heat from the escaping fire would seal the crack back so not too much could get out. My new independence would forced me to think it through for myself.

It was almost dark when we walked down the road to our house. I told mother about the fire stones.

For days or weeks later I pondered the fire stones. I imagined that the pile of rocks was really a gate to hell and that the stones were brimstones that had bubbled up to live by the path. Why else would they have fire in them so anxious to escape? I reasoned.

One bright sunny day I wandered down the path by myself. I came to the grove and tossed in a stone. I couldn't see a spark and as I stared in to the grove I saw something raise up from the pile. I heard the stones roll and a rustle in the leaves. I could feel something looking a me. I ran but it followed. I could hear it behind me! I stopped at the road and looked back; there was nothing there but I could feel it looking at me.

Today, more that fifty years later, I sometimes feel that something looking at me, just watching and waiting. Then I remember that independent kinship with my father and experience that feeling again. I suppose that if there is anything watching and waiting it is the ghost of the little boy I left behind that day father and I found the fire stones and I grew up a little bit.

Copyright © 1997 Charles Prier

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