If I Go Back, They’ll Beat Me
I have a dark grey rock in my pocket. I used to have a black rock, but I gave it to James. James has blonde hair and possibly an old, depressed skull fracture and he really needed a rock.
At first, he didn’t understand. I explained that older people often say someone has been ‘a rock.’ To them, a rock is someone you can lean on when difficult things are happening.
If you’re twelve years old and the only two older people you know beat you regularly, a person will not work.
I use an actual stone. I’m no longer twelve years old, but the principle is similar. The darker the surface, the more of your anger, or fear, it will absorb. If you hold a black rock very, very tightly, everything you know— which isn’t sun and drops of water shining on the edges of grass blades and smiles from people who don’t touch you when you ask them, politely, not to—will sink into your rock and you will be left somewhat empty, but much happier.
The darker the surface, the more of your anger, or fear, it will absorb.
The rock I gave to James was the color of ichor and well polished. I tried to be sure it hadn’t retained any of my feelings, to take everything back. I feel sure that, now that he depends on it, it wouldn’t let anything out.
I know I’m an adult and all I really did that day was hand someone’s child a mantel ornament and tell him a story, but I felt as if something came back to me then.
I told James he needed to be brave enough to tell people what was happening to him, so they could stop it.
I told them to take him away, and they told me I shouldn’t have let him shower and given him my clothes.
I told them to take him away, and they told me I shouldn’t have let him shower and given him my clothes.
I told them a human wouldn’t have left him the way he was.
I asked them to take me away, and there wasn’t an open shower stall and they didn’t have any clothes in my size.
I know I’m an adult and all I’m really holding is a hard piece of sand, but I think it’s helping.
I have a dark grey rock in my pocket. I have brown hair and something which could be post-traumatic stress disorder and I really need a rock.
When you’re twenty-four and people have just started to notice, a person will not work.
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