I was standing in the field at my mother's house, nearby one of the hickory trees. The grass was short. The air was pleasantly fresh and cool, bespeaking spring. I surveyed the field, head cocked, and said quietly, clearly "I want a house of stone."
With those six words I said so much more - I want a house unassailable, a house solid, a house that will hold generations safe within its walls, a house that even nature would admire and respect. With those six words, I made something happen.
The ground beneath my feet trembled a little, a thrumming vibration that rose up my legs, hummed along my spine, and made my teeth buzz the tiniest bit. Up from the earth, just where I had been considering its placement, stone rose. Rooted in, born of, the bedrock, the house rose up with stately grace, settling into itself as if it had always been there, always would be there.
My house.
There were windows, great swaths of glass to let in air and light. There was a porch wrapped entirely around it, an embrace between inside and out. Chimneys spoke of fireplaces within, and I knew they would be large, friendly, inviting hearths suitable for warming nearby spaces.
There were, however, no doors on the outside. The only way in was to know one was home.
~~~~~
Before me was a block of granite. In my hands were hammer and chisel. I could see what the block wanted to be, the lines and curvatures that yearned to be coaxed from the stone. I knew, to the bone, that if I touched chisel to stone and tapped, I would ruin that dream-of-being. I did not have the skill necessary to transform the block into what it was supposed to become. Better to put the tools down and walk away than to dishonor it with imperfect skill. I left it for more able hands than mine...
~~~~~
I was a statue on a plinth. Unseen tools wielded by unseen hands struck invisible blows, chipping away at me bit by bit, slowly turning me to dust. Just before the final blow landed, just before I became nothing but dust to be blown away by an unrelenting wind, I woke.
