Stone: A Christmas Story

© 2004 Beverly Forehand
All rights reserved.

It's hard to be stone—no pun intended. But to sit and watch without movement, without action, but full of all the hopes and dreams that any creature of flesh holds, is agony. They talk a lot about hell here, and about redemption. I don't suppose I can hope for either. I don't even know how I came to be. Are the other stone creatures around me as alive inside, as I am? Do they watch my motionless face and wonder if I am thinking, dreaming, despairing? Or am I alone in the entire world—some fluke of nature or fate—a creature of stone with the heart of a man? Do I have a soul? I wonder. I hear them speak of souls and sins often in the rooms below. Sometimes, when men come here, to think, to cry, to meet others, they speak of such things. Sometimes they even speak to me—the perfect listener, silent and eternal. They'd never speak such secrets to anyone they thought could actually hear them. I am stone. Another hideous face in this panoply of faces. One of many and yet, I think, unique.

Unable to move, I cannot speak. I cannot turn my head. I know the buildings across from me and the streets below me as intimately as any lover. I've watched them change over the centuries, and yet they seem very much the same. Stone giving way to more stone. Buildings rising, shrinking, fading to dust. Another takes their place. And there are always the birds. They stay the same, even though they are always different. I envy them, sometimes. The things they must see on their tiny flights. From studying them for so long, I know they, like men, see nothing. They see the nest, the tree, the worm, all the myriad scurryings to and fro gathering twigs and food. They see the next thing in front of them and before they know it, it's all over. I see one thing every day. I hear the same songs, the same confessions, the same sordid secrets and despairs. It amazes me that men believe their sins so singular. One says very much the same thing as the next. I envy, I desire, I hate. The same tired litany throughout the long years.

There's snow on the building across from me. It doesn't have gargoyles. It's a very plain building, though in the last hundred years they've tried to liven it up with a bit of curled molding on its corners. The winter birds are here and the pigeons. They never leave, it seems. Tomorrow will be Christmas. They speak of it constantly. Men. I hear the carols played in the streets. The traffic rushes more frantically. They are preparing for it below. Christmas Mass. The miracle of it. There will be so many people—more than any other time during the year. If I listen carefully, sometimes I can almost hear them kneeling. I hear the voices and sometimes I can smell the incense. It is the same as it has always been, as long as I can remember. I remember every day with precision. Each moment is engraved, as it were, in stone in my memory. On duller days, I like to play back the more dramatic moments. A girl weeping at the edge of the building. I never knew if she jumped or not. She certainly debated it for hours. I couldn't turn to see. Maybe she crept away downstairs after losing her nerve. These days, there would've been sirens, but those were quieter days.

Once there was a nun who used to come here to pray. She came for many years. Sometimes, after she had grown old, she would fall asleep, her rosary beads still wrapped around her hands. One day she stopped coming. I waited for many years before I gave up hope of seeing her. Children have hidden here amongst the stones. A boy hid behind my wings for nearly an hour one day before his friends found him, and they all ran screaming to the other side of the roof. Painters come here often. I was painted once. I didn't get to see the finished work, of course, but I hope it was a good likeness. The painter liked to hum under his breath. I remember it was cold and I could almost see the music on the air.

A few years ago someone tried to start a rooftop garden. It didn't work. Too much sun, too little rain, and the birds were very greedy. It was nice while it lasted. The plants, like myself, live without a voice. I liked their small selves. The flowers would lean toward the sun, their little leaves reaching up like children's expectant hands. But the plants are gone now. I am alone with my thoughts.

I'm not usually one for superstition. I've seen beliefs come and go. Men speak of the sameness of things, but to me, they seem as fickle as children. They forget, you see. They have no sense of history. You can hardly fault them. Their lives are so short and so busy. How can they take time to really remember? They remember what they need to, like the birds following their paths from the rooftop to the park and back again. Still, there's this nagging thought ... something I heard one of the children say years ago.

He said that on Christmas Eve, right at the stroke of midnight, if you see the Christmas Star, you can make a wish and it will come true. How silly! As if stars could grant wishes. Still, as the sky grows dark, I find myself hoping against hope that if there is such as thing as a Christmas Star, it will appear in the patch of sky that I can see. I hope that, if I can see it, the child's rhyme is true, that you can make a wish and that it will come true. What will I wish, you wonder? What would you wish? To fly, to be free, to be flesh—or to be stone, truly stone, blessed stone. Stone cannot speak or see or hope or dream. True stone doesn't weep without tears or laugh without sound. What joy could I know, a creature that has always been stone? What more could I see in this world than I have seen in my long life? Would moving a thousand miles or an inch make a difference—would men be different? Would they want something more, fear something less, hope something more or less profound? I don't think so. I think that this is all there is. I want to be stone. Just stone. Nothing more. No sight or thought or hopes. Stone.

Its dark now, and the first stars are winking onto the inky sky. One seems a bit brighter, more merry. Is it the Christmas Star? I can hardly look around to compare. Should I wait or make my wish? What if it works—will it happen all at once, or will I fade from consciousness slowly? I won't know, will I, until I wish. The boy said you should close your eyes, but I hope that's not written in stone, either. I stare at the star and I notice it's blue. Blue. I whisper my wish to the night and hope that someone, something, somewhere hears. "Let it be over," I murmur to the night.

Let the star decide what that means.

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