Don't go alone

Boom-boom,

Clank

He wants to go home

Boom-boom,

Clank

The Man in the stone

Clank-clank,

Boom

Don't go alone

Boom-boom,

Boom-boom

He'll make you his own

Bones pound the earth. I don't sweat. It's too cold this time of the year. Mist puffs from my hot mouth as my feet skirt around ice sheets and old snow. The cold bites through my running shoes, but it reminds me of where I am, a distraction from everything else.

Dinner last night—thinking of it makes my insides burst in two. I don't want to go back; they all know it was my fault. Nobody says it out loud. Still, I saw it in their eyes, past the pleasant smiles dragged across their faces. They blame me for what happened.

The old village, scattered with new construction, disappears behind me. I pass the small chapel where I married my love, and the memories roil my stomach. Suppressing a nauseous wave, I keep going. My feet grapple with the earth, and the sun lays a warm hand on my cheek, reminding me that I am here, that things carry on.

The road becomes steeper, the trees taller. Gravel crumbles in my wake. I let my legs guide me. My fingers extend and flex as I try to warm them. I want to lose myself on the run, in the forest and mountains, just for a little while.

There's an old quarry in the foothills beyond my house, abandoned before the first war. We used to go there with my cousins in the summer, my dad and all of us girls. I remember hiking through the grasses that grew past our shoulders, smelling sweet red and yellow wildflowers dotting the green slopes. It rained, and the damp earth squelched beneath our feet as we climbed. Our sing-song chant echoed the men's hammers that cracked the rocks, "boom-boom, clank!"

I'm alone today, and everything's gray and brown. All the leaves have fallen into a rotten mash. It smells sour.

My fists pump. They clench and squeeze with every advancing stride. I will see the Man today—the man who lies in the stone.

The trail narrows, switching from side to side. The trees turn spindly and shift into tall shrubs. It's like running through a rabbit's thicket. Branches form a tunnel twisting this way and that, but always up.

I run by the heaps of dirt my dad identified last summer where the boars overturned the soil. Their noses and tusks up-rooted the grubs beneath. A branch cracks from above. Brief worry fleets through me, thinking the wild things might be roaming now. Then I remember it is winter—one day after Christmas, and the larger animals avoid this part of the mountain.

A bird chirps. My eyes pinpoint the sound. Its tiny legs hop on a bare stem, its red belly blaring, telling me to stop. My pace slows, but I continue.

The scrub's boney fingers recede, and I see the first stone slab, then another, and another; their large rectangles clutter the slope. Wooly green moss and lichen coat each gray rock. Some have an inch or two of snow piled on top. Bodies that have laid down after a long laboring day at the quarry, so tired they never bothered to rise.

I'm not there yet.

Approaching one of the side-lying slabs, I distinguish it from the others. It isn't the Man—not all of him at least. Dead leaves hide a carved footprint, nestled and squished inside the lone impression from rain and snow. I scoop them out one by one with my gloved finger.

Something moves.

I jump, dropping the leaves. Taking a breath, I steel my nerves to peer back. 

Small white worms wriggle in the sole. They stand out like chalk on a board, a stark contrast to the black grime— their bodies writhe, deprived of food.

Swallowing, I wipe my fingers down my leggings, removing the last bits of debris, and leave the worms to squirm in the chilly air.

"Dong, Dong, Dong," the distant church bells toll mid-day.

I should head back. My brother and his new boyfriend will be at the house for lunch. They'll want to see me, but they know, too—about the accident—and I am not ready to face their condolences, their judgments.

My eyes sting with the cold, and my cheeks are wet. Despite the sun, it's colder here—this junction between mountain and valley.

I shouldn't keep going to see the Man in the stone.

None of them know I am here, and I left my cell phone behind, buried under my sheets—to turn it all off, all the calls, the buzzes and beeps, all these unwanted reminders.

I gaze ahead to the parting of stones and up to the main quarry, where the Man rests.

No one knows how he got there, forever branded into the old rock. The story goes, if you place your face into his chiseled one, bend your knee where he bowed, and pierce your fingers in his hold, you'll see what became of him.

We did this as kids. Of course, nothing happened—just cold, moldy stone squeezing our cheeks.

I close my eyes and remember that feeling; I need to see him today. My legs move me forward.

It is quiet. I can no longer hear the highway stretching across the valley. The small quarry levels and its high stones create an amphitheater blocking out the rest of the world, enshrined.

My eyes follow the rockface where climbers marked numbers: five, six, seven. Yellow arrows point the route of the half dome, forty meters high. It's forbidden to boulder here—too dangerous—but people still do it.

I proceed to the path behind the rocks—the way to the Man. It's slick with ice and decomposing leaves. Ignoring the voice of wisdom, I glide my feet onto the frozen clay. They twist and swivel atop it.

I have to climb a little more. Hooking my hand around a tree trunk jutting from earth and stone, I pull myself up the path. Dirt and snow sink through my gloves, but I move onward. Slightly higher, and there, the Man comes into view.

It's hard to see the stamped shapes in the slanted stone. Anyone could mistake his concaved face for a water hollow; the holes for fingers—old drill marks. But I know it's him.

The site watches over the quarry below, maybe twenty meters down.

I step forward, eager to meet the Man. Hands out, fingers ready, cheeks prepared for the cold kiss.

I can't go back now.

Something catches my sleeve, and the ice is too slick. My shoes lose their grip and slide from beneath me. For a moment, I am weightless, like the drop on a rollercoaster. My back hits first, knocking the air out, then my head. Sparks of light dance in my vision. I see nothing.

~~~~~~~~

"I can't..."

Whimpers, low and muted, rouse my consciousness. The world is blurred, tilted.

Where am I? My eyelids twitch. It's bright. The fog reflects the light from above. Did I fall? Gray rocks edge the scene around me. The snow and ice are gone.

Another whimper.

I right myself, squinting as a figure comes into focus, kneeling. Clear now. His back towards me. My throat clogs, blocking the air before reaching my lungs.

Jules?

He turns his head, his brown hair ruffling. Not to me, but towards the other end, the quarry's entrance, as though expecting someone.

My heart plummets, and sharp air enters my lungs. I see his face. Not Jules. He's too young, just a boy on the cusp of manhood.

His clothes appear unkempt, eyes red-rimmed, hair tousled as if he had been stretching his fingers back and forth through the thick strands. A small chisel rests at his side, aligned with a masonry hammer. His face angles again to look at the half dome in front of him.

Underbrush crunches from the quarry's entrance, and this time, both our heads swing to see.

"Meurtrier!" A man barrels through, shouting. The blue uniform he wears is crisp and newly starched. He waves a kepi in his fist. "My only sister and you killed her!" His movements halt as he eyes the kneeling boy in his disheveled state, the stained undershirt unbuttoned at the collar and the half-empty bottle of amber liquid wobbling next to him.

The boy's head hangs. "She's dead because we left."

"We had to leave."

"I didn't want to. No one was here. No one was here to take care of her. So she died."

The brother snarls. "That bastard infant you put inside her did it. Dead too. Not because we left." He spits. "You weren't even wed."

"I loved her." The boy's hands draw to his face, and his moans grow, expanding outward. It punches me deep. I recognize that pain too well.

A whoosh, and we all look up. Planes fly above; strange symbols decorate their wings.

"Pull yourself together, Poilu." The brother's lip curls in disgust. "We have to go back. The Sergeant expects us."

"I can't. Not after—not after what I saw, the faces won't leave—and Margot... don't make me go back there. Claude, Please."

"You have an hour, or I'm telling the Sergeant you've deserted."

The boy is left alone again; his sobs ebb to uneven huffs. He rises sluggishly on shaky legs, hand clutching the bottle's neck, the chisel and hammer in the other.

I think he sees me but walks right by, headed for the path behind. He climbs the rock, and I follow, back up that same trail. This time, there's no ice, just mud from recent rain. At the top, he sits.

Striking the stone with his chisel, the boy cleaves a final mark. "I can't go back. I can't." Boom. "I can't." Boom-boom. "I can't," he chants—a prayer to whoever's listening. Renewed tears slip down his cheeks.

His suspenders sag around his waist—a tagged chain clinks at his wrist. He takes a mouthful of the amber liquid and tosses the bottle, watching it crash and shatter on the quarry rocks below.

The boy bends to the stone, his knees finding their reverent position.

I feel him brush his fingertips on its rough surface, trace their way, and slide into each hole. We sink.

My face is last, chin cupped by an embrace, fitting into the crevice shaped for me.

The stone grips like tar. It pulls, binding its arms around me, crushing my chest and bones. They want to snap, and I have an urge to scream, but who will hear? Tighter and tighter, it seals me in, squeezing the air out until—

A breath prickles the back of my neck in gentle swells. Another squeeze, but this one is warm; his arms wrap me close. I roll my head to look at the man with brown hair and whiskey eyes.

"Jules?"

Don't go alone

Boom-boom,

Clank

He wants to go home

Boom-boom,

Clank

The Man in the stone

Clank-clank,

Boom

Don't go alone

Boom-boom,

Boom-boom

He's made you his own.