Dust to Dust
10/16/00

It promised to be another beautiful day. The sun shone high and clear in the deep azure sky and the slight, chill breeze hinted that fall was in full swing. By my reckoning, it is time for the Stone Woman to make her second visit. She was here about three months ago and after today I won't see her until the weather turns hot again. She has come here twice a year for as long as I can remember.

I rather enjoy her visits. Whenever she stops by, she brings me a handful of the most beautiful red flowers and places them at my feet. I don't know what they are called, but I like them alot. Then she will stay and talk to me for a while. I can't understand what she's saying, but I find the sounds of her words very soothing. Sometimes, she starts to cry as she talks. I'm not certain why talking to me makes her so sad. I'd like to say something comforting or at least ask what was wrong, but she doesn't seem to hear me. Or maybe my speech is as foreign to her ears as her words are the mine. I suppose I'll never really know.

She wasn't always the Stone Woman, you know. My earliest memories have her looking quite differently. Her skin was much smoother and her features finer. The hair on her head fell down in waves of molten gold, much like the narrow band she wore wrapped around her finger. I called her the Golden Woman, then. It seemed appropriate, though I don't know if that was her real name. After many cycles, the gold began to lose its glow, slowly but surely becoming a dull silvery grey. Her face and hands, too, began to change. The lost their firmness, becoming more fluid in appearance. Even seeming to run off her bones in some places. It took me many cycles to understand what was happening to her: she was slowly turning to stone. I came to this realization by observing my neighbours.

As far as I can recall, there have always been many of us out here. And new neighbours would move in quite often. Sometimes it would happen in the early parts of the morning; sometimes late the night. Several men with loud machines would come and place a strangely-shaped stone somewhere in the fields. After setting them wherever they were to reside, the men would use a loud, yellow machine to dig a rather deep hole before them. After placing a pavilion over the whole affair, the noisy creatures would finally leave. A few hours later a second group of people would show up with a long, ornate box and watch it being lowered into the ground. Then they would leave and the noisy men would return to cover the box with the dirt they'd removed earlier. When they were done the new stones would just stand there, silent and alone. Though occasionally they would get visitors to bring them gifts and words like the Stone Woman does for me.

As time wore on, and more of my silent neighbours came to live closer to me, I was better able to study their visitors. Through this, I began to notice how some of them would begin to look like the stones they came to visit. Then I began to understand. The silent stones were the future forms for all the people who came here. That explained everything I'd seen: the drooping flesh, the grey colouring, the hunched forms, the slow movements. Eventually these older people would complete their transformations and become another one of the short, sloped stones that populate the grounds. The boxes that their visitors were burying must contain things that used to belong to the stone-people. They were probably placed underground to protect them from being taken by anyone else.

Of course, this revelation only led to more questions. Was I also one of these stone-people? What had I looked like before? For that matter, what did I look like now? How long do we stay like this? And who was the Stone Woman, really? Should I know her? If so, from where? So many questions, and no answers. The Stone Woman, of course, couldn't hear me ask and my neighbours never spoke. Not to me and not to anyone else.

And then I began to worry. When the Woman completed her transformation, who would come to visit me then? Would I be stuck out here forever with only my thoughts for company? The utter loneliness of this place would be sure to get to me eventually. When I had the Stone Woman's visits to look forward to, it was easy. But this uncertainty makes me anxious.

She's already late today... What if it's happened already? Maybe that was her that the men set out last week!

No. I must calm down. Perhaps she just forgot. Most of my neighbours don't get regular visitors. So why should I expect them? Maybe she will be here tomorrow.....

She never showed up the next day. Or any day after that. It's been three months now. The air is cold, the sky grey, and snow covers the ground. Earlier today, the men and their machine were working in the space next to me. The stone they placed there was a very unusual one. Unlike the others, it was shaped like a young woman in a long dress of some sort. Her hands were clasped before her, and great wings were folded against her back. Her sad face struck me as being familiar, but I couldn't place it.

When her box arrived, there was only one person accompanying it. I felt badly for the new stone-person; it seemed that she would never have anyone to visit her. I'd seen affairs like this before, and never did I wish more that I could speak with my neighbours. A life of total loneliness must be horrible beyond imagining.

As I watched the moon rise that evening I found my thoughts once again drawn to my new neighbour. I wandered what she thought of the white sliver of the moon as it cast its pale light over the stone field. After a while I realized that the light was much too bright for what the sliver-moon could cast. It was then that I noticed that the light came not from the moon, but from my new neighbour. As I watched, the pale glow separated from the still figure and slowly began to take on a more definite shape. As this phantasm became clearer I noticed how much it resembled the stone next to me. It was then that I recognized her... my new neighbour was the Stone Woman. Or rather the Golden Woman of old. This sort of thing had never happened in all the time I stood here. Perhaps, I thought, I could speak to her this time. But she spoke first.

"James?..."

When she called my name, it all came back. My name, my life, my death. But more importantly, I remembered my promise. Before I died, I swore to my wife that I would wait for her, no matter what. And here I've been ever since.

She floats there before me, with her arms held wide. A shock travels through my body and I am finally able to move once more. I rush forward and catch her up in my arms. As our lips touch, the whole world melts into a soft, golden glow.....