It had no memory. When did consciousness dawn? When did the first stirrings of life begin? When? After the realization came the question, why? Now, each moment hurt, rattled and left it exhausted. The realization in its intensity was too deep to fathom it left a big empty hole at the core and was as heavy as its weight. Two dead entities in a dead land. Beyond its knowledge, long before the awakening, his dead friend felt the first elixir of life.
His roots felt it first; the first breath. The rot of the land had worn away the rough scabbed exterior and found the soft white flesh inside. As with everything it came across, it tried to lay them waste. But life willing to live, gripping hard at tomorrow fought till it was left on its own. They grew slowly, over years, grew stronger, giving life and strength to the dead branches above.
Alone for eons, he lived in solitude with only the wind as his friend. Change was in the air. The wind sang now. Life danced in the lyrics. The sky broke one day and cried, light crashed and the wind thundered. In its wake, the storm left a black bundle at his roots.
Over time, his roots embraced it to his bosom. The crust wore away, and day after day, the dark affair turned fairer. It finally took the form of a stone; a stone moved from its place of rest to another where it would remain, remain stone dead. Whence it had come no one knew, in particular the friend.
The roots grew bold and strong, going deep, growing under and over. Heat and cold had their hand at the little fissures that grew on the rock. Clothed in green moss and other little life, one would not recognize it as a rock. Little flowers grew at the sides afraid of disrupting the harmony between the two friends. Timid as they were, they flourished, as flowers are wont to, and soon lay a thick carpet over the rock.
Many an evening a gentle breeze would blow the pollen into the cracks, where soil collected over time encouraged propagation. A bird flying over saw this oasis in the midst of this miasma of a landscape, landed on a branch, and breathing in the sweet fragrance, let out the sweetest poetry.
Did it start with the roots? Which lent their life through their gentle touch? Or had it started with the flowers, which rubbed their flimsy petals and permeated their perfume into its pores? It had no idea. All it knew was it could feel. It willed itself to move, it couldn’t. I can, I can, it repeated. And willed. It remained, dead as ever, save for the faint realization gnawing within its very depths.
It felt movement only to know it was the flowers’ doing. They had begun dancing to the song of the only bird on the branch of the only tree in this blighted world. The roots moved too, mocking. A crack in the heavens cried a few tears. A few sad pearls made their way into a small crack in the stone. For once it cried, cried at the futility of its life. Nothing mattered; matter meant nothing. It was just a stone after all; a stone suffering the knowledge of its atrophy.
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