Boulder

I had another dream last night. I was a hunter, living in the age of the wooly mammoth. There was a massive flood that killed many of the mammoths. I watched it from on top of a mountain. The pile of bones I lived in floated past me. Once the flood left, I climbed down the mountain to see if anything was left, but the land had been swept clean. There was no more grass. There was no more snow. All that was left was the dirt beneath me and the mountain which kept me safe.

I spent days looking for other signs of life, but nothing was around me. I tried to make a small tunnel to sleep in with the dirt surrounding me, but it wouldn’t hold. I couldn’t even find a regular source of water, having to satisfy my thirst by collecting rainwater in my hat.

The land grew cold overnight, and so I was stuck sleeping on the ground with nothing to keep myself warm. There were sounds that woke me up every few seconds, but nothing ever seemed to be there. Nothing is a force with a terrifying presence. I would wake up wondering if I had slept at all.

On the third evening, I saw a dead rabbit half buried in the sand. I didn’t know if this creature was any good to eat. It had been dead for a while, so I tossed it on the ground in disgust. Underneath the rabbit were a pool of worms, so I washed them in a nearby pool of saltwater, and ate them instead, shoving them into my mouth, trying to ignore the taste. I chewed them up, but it still felt as though they were squirming in my stomach.

On the fourth day, I still hadn’t found anything, so I returned to the mountain. I searched all over the mountain to see if anything lived there. I didn’t find any animals, but I found a giant boulder being held up by giant stones on both sides. I dug a little underneath the boulder and was able to create a clearing where I could sleep. As I searched outside my makeshift burrow, I came upon a shrub growing wild bilberries. Those berries might be enough to last me a few days.

The sun started to set on the mountain, so I took a minute to watch as the light disappeared across the empty landscape. I tried falling asleep, but all I could do was watch the boulder above my head, wondering if it would collapse and kill me in my sleep. I crawled out for a moment, and taking a small stone, I carved some words into the boulder. I couldn’t read the language in which I had written, but I knew what it said.

“God lives inside this rock.”