Thursday, March 15, 2007

Conversation with a Stone Man


Note: I wrote this is my normal prose, and tried incorrectly to lower the photo and the whole page went into text heaven. I decided that was a message from the writing god that I should never write prose again because it all looks the same.

She said this is a beautiful place except for the dead people.

Who's dead? I asked. Are these tombs?

No, she said, they are just all dead.

Who's dead? I said.

My dad's death certificate said he's dead, yet he talks to me day and night.

Dead is when no one thinks about you.

I went up to the stone man to talk. I was surprised at how tall he was. I stood on a boulder, and then on my tip toes, looking at his stone face. I still didn't measure up, reminding me of when I was a short kid and they called me "mouse."

Some get bigger than life when they die that first death—the one that comes in old age, in battle, or when the scooter rounds the blind corner. Pow!

I tried to look in his eyes, but he was stone and didn't want to talk to me. Maybe he was dead, after all.