Smooth Stones

A mineral retelling of Ether 3

I was born in darkness. Surrounded by the folds of my Mother Earth, I grew slowly as all my family do, safe and comfortable in my somber cleft. Over the aeons of my early crystalline lifetime, I didn’t even know the meaning of light. The creatures of the soil spoke of it — some feared it, some sought it. Fixed in my matrix, just below the surface of a world I didn’t know existed, I never thought to wish for it; never imagined it would come to me. The day it did changed me forever.

I was perplexed by the dull, grinding sounds I began to hear. A far-off avalanche? A flood of groundwater shifting course? Soon, I felt tremors permeating my home. Was it one of the burrowing animals I had heard tales of? My siblings and I could not tell, but we agreed that the sensations seemed closer and closer.

Earth and rocks suddenly shifted, showering down around me and leaving a bright hole in my world. The form of a giant creature was silhouetted against a magnificent glow. I felt myself tingling with the reflection of the new experience. The earthy knowledge of the scattered debris that had fallen into my cleft whispered that this was light pouring in.

More gently now, the creature carved away the opening until he himself could climb into our cave. I sensed that he sought something. I reached my awareness into the collective knowledge of the Earth and learned that this was a mammal, a human man. A creature who used stones and plants and other animals as tools. My luster paled and fear rattled inside me at the thought that this unknown being might take us away from our comfortable home forever. But at the same moment, another hope hummed in the very molecules of my structure that I might be chosen — carried, moved out into that substance called light. And he did.

Chiseling out the matrix we were born in must have been painstaking work, but in my crystalline perception of time, it felt like only a few moments. Once freed from the rock, his pliant hands placed me into a thick leather pouch with many of my siblings so he could carry us outside. I was disappointed to be shut out from the winsome light but as we clattered along with his regular movement, I realized that I still perceived it, as a different warmth than that of the man’s hands. It was a comforting sensation.

After some time had passed and I became conscious of significantly higher air pressure than I was familiar with, the movement stopped. Soft, weary sounds penetrated the folds of leather — the man was communicating with others like him. The sounds died away and all became still. If I hadn’t been jumbled up in a pile with my siblings, I could almost imagine myself home. We trembled with excitement, but doubt crept in as the stillness lengthened and the sense of warmth I associated with the light slowly faded. Unfamiliar with the cyclical nature of the outside world, I wondered if my adventure had already come to an end.

But eventually the light grew once more, and sound and movement resumed. We were tumbled on to a large, flat plank of wood and I found myself staring up into an endless vault filled with light of the most calming frequency imaginable. An orb of piercing intensity hovered far to the East, just above the surface of the earth. The plank that was once a tree murmured to me that this was the sun, the source of all Mother Earth’s light. I was filled with wonder and felt myself reflecting the glorious brightness in every facet of my being.

And then the man lifted me up and, for the first time, I began to experience pain. Fiery, cracking, scraping pain vibrated through me as the crumbling bits of my matrix were removed, impurities were carved out, and my surface was sanded with floods of grit and milky water. Light blazed across the sky and I longed for the stillness of the dark. One by one, my siblings and I were worn down and exhausted. Finally, the man wiped us dry and cleared away his tools. As the sun sank to the horizon, the frequency of its light changed to a variety of colors and I suddenly noticed that my siblings were reflecting that light in a new way. No longer were we irregularly shaped with raw and jagged edges; we were perfectly smooth. Our luster no longer had waxy or greasy patches; we were vitreous, like drops of molten glass.

Long after the sky darkened, I stared up at what seemed to me a myriad of asterisms, wondering what extremes of joy and pain the next cycle of light would hold in this boundless outside world.

Just after the sun peeked over the horizon, we were returned to the leather pouch and the man’s repetitive motion resumed. Smoothness felt different. Interacting with my siblings was different. I was different. I could not understand the purpose of the change.

In time, I sensed rarefaction in the air around us and perceived that the man was breathing heavily and gradually slowing down. At one point, he stopped and lifted us all out of the pouch, holding us gently. After examining us for a few moments he continued onward, still carrying us in his cupped hands. Finally, he turned and stepped into a small copse of trees. His breathing slowed until all was quiet. He knelt to the earth and spread us carefully on a large slab of stone.

Then I heard him speak. I knew no human language but, oh, how I could feel the longing in his heart, the regret in his tone, the awe in his trembling body. He yearned for something, and I knew myself to be part of that something. He feared — I realized with surprise that he feared darkness, a quality as natural to me as breathing was to him. No other human was nearby; indeed I felt that he would not speak in such a way to any mere mortal. He spoke as I might if I were speaking to the sun itself.

Suddenly, something — someone — touched me. The finger was warm and pliant like the man’s, yet burned with an unspeakable glory. Light exploded through me and I felt every atom of my being humming with upconverted potential energy, as if the weight of the universe pressed upon me for a moment, igniting a charge deep in my core strong enough to overflow with light. One by one, my siblings each received the same infusion until our combined effect was blinding.

I heard a new voice, speaking with the intensity of the sun’s brilliance, and every nanoparticle inside me pulsed with the knowledge that this was my Creator, the sculptor of my Mother Earth and the forger of all the lights in the sky. I perceived the history of my Earth flashing past like dancing prismic rainbows: epochs of heating, cooling, tectonic shifting, growth, dearth, and everything in between until in the end the Earth itself shone like a burning crystal as bright as the sun.

Finally, I looked on in wonder as the play of visionary light was condensed into two shining stones, embodied light and perfection. They were smooth and vitreous — like me in many ways, and yet unlike in purpose. While I had been filled with overflowing photonic energy, they were filled with unfathomable knowledge; a gift and a charge from our Creator to the humble, transfigured human before him.

As the experience faded, I realized that the sun had sunk below the Earth once more, leaving the glade in comparative blackness. My siblings and I shone through the dark, illuminating the path down the mountain, and I knew in my core that I had been forever changed, and I understood the purpose of the change. I had been remade in the image of the sun, that light that guided these people’s daily lives, the source of their energy and power. I had a role to play in the Creator’s magnificent plan.

Two light cycles later, I found myself swinging gently from the beams of a curious vessel set adrift upon the sea. I was not afraid; this was simply another kind of small, moist cave, not too different from the home of my birth. But this time, it was filled with light — my light and that of my siblings. I pondered the faces of the humans I served — smiling, eager, curious. There was some trepidation of course, but with one heart they looked forward to the new land they had been promised. I considered them fondly as “my” people. My molecules thrilled to be on this adventure with them.

I received the gift of light so I could bless others who faced darkness. Within my glow they laughed and sang, told stories and ate, slept and prayed. Through it all we were directed and protected from the dangers of the elements. I provided light during almost a year among the great waters; and when we were on solid ground once again, I had done something else I never expected — something that mere rocks weren’t made for: I had crossed an ocean. In our promised land, generations of my people cherished us as long as we let our Creator’s light shine.