A short story by Ruby Kloskowski
I stand amongst the earthen mounds, the rolling hills, and the luscious meadows of a land as old as me. Like a palace of rubble and solitude my presence beckons curious wanderers to ponder my mysterious origins. My kind are now shadows upon the land and only dwindling to the meandering path of time. I stand as an obelisk of rituals left by your ancient brothers and sisters. An eerie place where time has stopped and where human roots entangle so deeply back to their druidic origins. As our facades wash away and bodies crumble, we become sinister reminders of the transience of time to travelers passing by our lands. With the spoken word of your ancestors hushed into silence our purpose is muddled into obscurity. Leaving only old folk tales that speak of stone circles made for sacrifices to the gods or as portals to other realms. Yet I can speak of myself more fondly. Eons before this present day, my body was built by your people as a vessel for the youthful humanity to connect with my lands and to unify the two. I stood as a towering monolith of their greatest aspirations, a place where your ancestors celebrated the beauty of life and shared their love with one another. My limestone arches encompassed your kind as you danced and feasted your dawns away while I protected your weary minds from the uncertain futures of your tomorrows. By now your traditions faded and with it your knowledge of our pasts as you looked towards the stars in iron clad ships in pursuit of more than what I could offer you. The memories of my loyal makers long now dead and forgotten and with them the love which they imbued me with.
Yet as my body decays and overgrows with lush foliage I do still feel your love’s presence. Your youthful beauty is still intact within the generations of your future. Stumbling uncertain love of gullible teenagers as they look for escape in the past of their ancestors. There is a pair of young lovers that visit, and their presence reminds me of your innocent curiosity, as they sit on my cold stone lintels looking at each other with a shy infatuation. The scene of the blossoming love illuminated by the ember sunset only subtly interposed by my stone pillars and arches transports me back to the days of old. The days where young maidens would sit around my stone throne and hum soft melodies twisting together reeds as gifts for their lovers. When my body was covered in petals of wildflowers to celebrate a bountiful harvest or the elopement of two lovers. Their youthful modern love reminds me that I might not just be a pile of rubble after all but a monolith of the love between humans of old and new. An existing epitome of the persistence of the human spirit and its indomitable journey for love. The two lovers sit amongst my stone skeleton conjuring up to themselves what many before them say in my lands. This yearning to reconnect back with their origins and the death of ancient traditions is but a cycle in your human lives. Their love is not much different from the predecessor that built me, only shaped by their world’s new oppressions. Yet lovers are resilient to the impacts of the world’s convulsing society as they gather around every sunset detached from all but their love. My purpose is reignited through them, and their love echoes amongst my pillars refueling the enchanted lands once more just as their ancestors did so long ago.
