Blank Stone

Shane lay in his bed at night, kept awake once again by those stupid late night television shows his mother liked to watch and by the equally loud accompanying snores that were coming from the bedroom across the hall here his father slept. He turned his head so that his right cheek lay on the pillow when he heard the slight snick sound come through the thin wall.

“Ha, well it looks like Stacy is finally home.” He thought bitterly. The young man waited until he heard the window close and latch again before turning his gaze back upwards to the skylight in his ceiling.

That was one thing he had no complaint about. Dylan was very into the at home, do-it-yourself jobs he could find in those Guide to so-and-so for Dummies books they got at the library. And that they racked up fines for, as the books never did seem to get returned, only stacked in a corner of the back room – “for future reference” Shane was always told whenever he bothered mentioning them.

Fixing the rotting boards and shingles on their past-demolition-stage house had not been the best place to start experimenting after reading the How to Roof a House for Dummies book. But his father never did listen; always so sure of himself even when more than half his DIY projects never worked out.

Shane hadn’t really thought about it when he saw his father climb up and stagger on the roof beyond a vague thought that he probably wouldn’t’ feel remorse if they old man fell. He’d been on his way to school then, he remembered, and had glanced over the shoulder he had his bag on to look back at the house. He hadn’t thought he would, but he did.

It was during second period when the principal called him out of class. It had confused him at the time and he’d hurriedly checked his bag, notebook and then patted himself down surreptitiously before following her into the hallway where she only deepened his confusion by not leading him to her office, only slightly down the hall so they would be out of earshot.

Ms. Basque had taken both his hands in hers and looked him full in the face with her eyes full and over bright as she’d said, “Shane, your father is fine but he was in an accident this morning.”

He grinned to himself in bed as he remembered that he’d just stared at her, probably with a stupid blank grin that had unnerved the nice lady because she continued with a few more details, “Your mother told the ambulance medics that her husband had been working up on the roof, trying to repair some rotting boars and broken tile,”

Ms. Basque had stopped there to look at him questioningly, but he had just shrugged, “Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like your father had that much experience with rotting wood because he stepped right into the middle of it and his foot stomped through.”

Shane had interrupted her there, “Let me guess,” he said with a malicious smile tugging at his lips, “He tried to pull it back out or kick his other foot through and knocked our whole roof in.”

The principal just looked at him, trying to judge the hidden look behind the shade in his eyes, “Close, he tried to pull it back out and apparently the area he put his hand down to support himself in was another rotten board and his arm got trapped there as well. Your mother said he seemed to thrash then and that is what caused the rest of the rotten area to crash.”

As Shane continued to look at her with his arms crossed she threw out the last piece of information she’d been told, in hopes of getting a response from him, “I was told he broke his leg in two places and that one arm as well as multiple fingers were broken and that he’d twisted his other shoulder when he fell enough that surgery will be required. Your mother informed me that he has been taken to the Greenwoods Medical Clinic.”

When she’d finished speaking Shane shook her hands loose from his and sauntered back into the classroom. Ignoring the questioning glance from the teacher and the snickers of the other students, he grabbed his bag from the back of his chair and stood upright. As he had straightened he gazed steadily around the room until the snickers and giggles were quieted and his classmates stared at him in silence before turning his head away again and heading back out the door.

His teacher made some move that may have been to detain him but by then the principal had collected herself enough to tap her arm and shake her head minutely, an indication that they should let him go. He’d been halfway down the hallway when he heard her call out to him, “Are you going to see if he’s okay? I’ll allow you to leave without a pass this time only because it is an emergency.”

Shane turned partly on one heel to look at her, “I’m going to look at how much of a mess he made of himself this time.”

He said his tone one of boredom. When she just stared at him, seemingly horrified, he’d turned fully back forward and continued walking out of school, he raised his right arm in a mocking, backwards farewell wave just before he got out the front gates.

He had caught the bus to get to the Clinic where his heart resumed its normal, slower and softer rhythm once he saw his father laid out on the cot, leg, arm and fingers bound and wrapped with an IV stabbed into one arm. He’d touched the glass viewing window he was looking through softly on level with the place his father’s head was before leaving the Clinic and heading back home. As an upshot to that whole incident, his father wasn’t allowed to do anything for awhile, he was mainly ignored as his family fussed over the old man and the construction workers his mother had grudgingly hired had decided the hole in the roof was too big to repair and had put in a skylight of clear glass instead… without consulting with her on it. Well, that’s was she got for hiring cheap labor Shane thought to himself.

Personally, he hadn’t objected to having a new skylight put in over his room, he still didn’t as he lay in his darkened room and crossed his arms behind his head on the pillow and gazed at the somewhat cloudy view that obscured the stars outside the glass.

Shane took a deep breath as he rolled over and up to a sitting position leaning against his headboard. He didn’t like remembering events like that. The truth he admitted only to himself was that he had been worried that day, and it hadn’t been about his stuff or the roof, as he’d expected. He’d actually been worried about if his father was severely injured or not.

Shrugging those thoughts away he listened intently to the rest of the house; the television was finally off, his dad was still snoring across the hall, and the creaking coming from the room next to his told him that Stacy had brought her boyfriend over again for the night. His lip curled in disgust that she would sneak him into her room just for that. These were the normal nightly routines his family had developed; all were asleep or preoccupied so now he could begin his routine. Slipping out of bed, he padded over to his closet and removed the footstool he kept in there now. Placing it beside his wall, he stepped up onto its surface and, with that added height, raised the glass in the skylight to swing it all the way open and levered himself up through that body sized opening. Crouching down, he closed the glass again but not enough for it to latch completely; he needed that to get back in again later.

Taking a few steps sideways, Shane stepped off the roof and landed in the overgrown pile of thick grass and mushy dirt that had build up against the wall. After rolling to his feet and brushing his shirt off unhurriedly he strolled down the faint path he’d worn in the past month towards the small dip in the ground he came to every night.

Shane sat down cross-legged onto the smoothed area that had come into being by this repeated nightly action and pulled the stone into his lap. Turning it over in his hands he found the spot he’d left off at yesterday and, with the corners of his mouth smiling, set back to work. The stone was about the size of a small headstone, oval in shape and made of a rough material that was a deep grey shade in the moonlight.

As soon as he’d discovered the skylight could lift up, he’d taken to having a nightly stroll in the empty field behind his house, it was a nice time. The field has been abandoned for awhile so all the plants grew wherever and everything was piled haphazardly where it had lain for years. Shane had found this particular stone about a week into his nightly strolls and had picked it up on a whim to begin his project.

He was just finishing a last stroke on the top part of the stone when he looked up, alerted by the internal alarm clock that he’d developed. Dawn was a few minutes away; the sky was just beginning to lighten. He held the stone up to that light, turning it around and looking for flaws in the surface he’d been smoothing and cleaning for a month.

There were none that he could detect, Shane grinned widely now, almost done, he thought as he wrapped it in his shirt and, more quickly now, walked back to his house and clambered back onto the roof and into his room. He stashed his bundle beneath his mattress before climbing into his bed and going to sleep for a few more hours.

The crash of metal pan on metal stove woke him out of his short nap and Shane gazed blurrily at his ceiling and the blue sky visible through the skylight for a few moments before scrubbing his face with his hands and sitting up on his bed. He clasped his hands behind his back and stretched his arms over his head, grunting softly in satisfaction as he heard the cracks and pops that movement caused. Rotating his shoulder blades to loosen them, Shane swung his head around and cracked his neck in both directions and followed that by twisting his body to the left then the right to crack all the vertebra in his back.

With the morning warm-up finished, he stood up and stripped off his pants while searching among the clothes in his closet for a clean shirt and pair of faded jeans. He grabbed his bag from the corner of the room where he’d tossed it last night and, after stuffing his feet into his shoes, opened his door and walked down the hall. Shane placed his feet carefully, the carpet used to be an inviting tan cream color but after years of use and abuse the color was more of a dang grey brown and unseen obstacles lay in wait for the unwary footstep to trample them. His father left cigarettes, some occasionally still smoldering, mother dropped pins and scissors while the rare bottle was known to have been smashed against the wall and the glass left concealed to cut open an unshod foot.

Years of habit led him safely into the kitchen where his mother stood by the stove, once again trying to make bacon, eggs and oatmeal at the same time. Stacy sat blank eyed at the table eating apple slices she was dipping in the peanut butter jar and beginning to look more awake with each sip of coffee she took. Shane ignored both beyond a murmured, “It’s morning again.” in their general direction before grabbing a piece of bread, shoving it into the toaster and picking up a mug in his other hand. While his bread was toasting, he took a few quick gulps of the caffeinated and chewable liquid before dumping out the rest of its contents into the sink and grabbing the toast as the machine dinged. Crunching into the browned toast, Shane gave his usual backward half wave as he let himself out the front door and onto the sagging porch.

Slipping around the side of the house he switched his bag from his right shoulder to his left and bent down to scoop up half his project. Only half. Shane smirked to himself and set the other half to the program he’d created it for. After picking up the rest of it; the plastic case, metal tubing, and bag of materials he put them in the crook of his right arm and headed out to school.

“Mr. Dumond, where is your completed project today?” Mr. Roland looked at Shane over the top of his glasses which his hand automatically went to catch as they slid down the brim of his nose. Shane looked up at his teacher, this guy wasn’t so bad and the class was fun at least.

“It’s right here, I did bring it today.” Shane replied. He turned sideways in his seat and bent down to pick up the cluster of objects that he’d brought into the classroom with him. After setting the plastic case on the counter in front of Mr. Roland, he pulled the metal tubing closer to him and connected it to the case. He then set the bag of materials on the counter and lifted out the oil soaked cotton stuffing that had been dried to tinder-like consistency and put it into the container.

He didn’t look at Mr. Roland as he set up his project but he could tell the teacher was surprised and slightly nervous, probably made more so when he pulled the lighter out of his back pocket.

“What exactly did you make, Mr. Dumond?” came the question as Mr. Roland walked around the table to examine the object he was setting up. Shane smiled.

“It’s a flamethrower.” He said quietly

“You may want to step back.” The counter in the science room was built along one wall and made of a fireproof material which Shane intended to make full use of. Half would be enough to impress the people here. Mr. Roland moved quickly off to the side and Shane spun the extra piece of metal on the end of the connected metal tubing and pointed the now open nozzle across the room over the counter. He pushed the container a few centimeters over the edge of the counter and put his lighter underneath it.

The flame flickered on; igniting the cotton stuffing inside the case. With nowhere to go, the flaming material pushed through the tubing and blew out the other end for a few inches before dripping down to the counter top to burn out fully.

“Oh, I must have forgotten my engine fan; the flames didn’t eat all the material before coming out. Didn’t go that far this time either.” Shane remarked to no one in particular.

“Ah yes, and don’t touch that for awhile,” he said as Mr. Roland reached out a hand that was quickly snatched back,

“It will still be hot for a few hours.” Mr. Roland nodded and made a mark on his ubiquitous clipboard.

“Good work, Shane.” He said and backed away from the counter before turning to examine the ring of students who had gathered at the sight of flames.

“You,” Mr. Roland pointed at random into the crowd,

“Show me your project now.” With that he returned the classroom back to the regular workday of demonstrations.

Shane glanced at the clock a few minutes before the hour and then looked out the window facing the other end of town as he tapped his fingers on the desk rim. Tap. Tap. Tap. Fwoosh!

The sky momentarily lit up in a column going from the ground to the sky as a fire roared upwards on the edge of town and then just as quickly died back down again. Everyone in the class had jumped at the noise and as one rushed to the windows to see the cause, but nothing was out there anymore. When Mr. Roland finally called his class back to order he noticed Shane was gone. Boy probably went to go look. He thought to himself and then thought nothing of it for the rest of the day.

Shane hefted his bag onto his shoulder as he stepped off the bus a few blocks from his house. Hearing the chaotic noises and murmurings of a crowd, he smiled and walked the distance to his house until he saw the people gathered outside the police boundary on what used to be the fence line.

All were staring and pointing at the ground and surrounding area and the fine grey ash that lay in soft piles. No one could tell there used to be a house there and, even if anyone had been home, the area was completely dusted with a thick layer of the ash. Fine though it was, it coated everything thoroughly.

Shane skirted the crowd and walked out onto the field behind where his house used to be until he came to the dip in the ground he’d been in the previous night. He let his bag down in the middle of the depression and stretched out on the dirt with his back propped against the mild incline. Shifting around a bit to make himself comfortable, he looked up at the blue sky and slowly closed his eyes. It was time for a short nap to make up for his minor lack of sleep last night.

The absence of noise caused him to fully wake up as a soft breeze blew over him from the direction of the street. He poked his head up over the earth, feeling the need to check and make sure the crowd had cleared before stretching, picking up his bag, and heading leisurely over to the dusted area.

As he got closer he noticed the caution tape set up a few yard from the edge of the ash that was now more finely spread out from the wind blowing at it all day. It looked as if they had been too afraid or were being very cautious about the cause of such an incident and were leaving the scene alone for now.

Shrugging his bag down to carry in his arms, Shane ducked under the yellow tape perimeter and stepped onto the grey dust that held everything he had lived with up to that point. He carefully picked his way among the cleared spaces to leave no foot print, ironically reminded of the dirty hallway this space had been that very morning.

The burnishing caused by the sudden flames and heat incinerating the cloth around it had given the smoothed stone an interesting finish, Shane thought; lifting it out and shaking the piled ash off the bundle.

This was the commemoration they got from him. Picking up the stone, he walked to what was once the center of the property – now only an ash circle, and placed the stone firmly into the ground. It really did look like a headstone now.

Grinning softly, Shane stepped out from the barrier and walked away across the field without looking back once. Yes, a fitting commemoration for his family:

A blank stone on an empty grey land.