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The Big Boulder in the Back
The biggest boulder irritated the married couple the most. Toiling, pleading, fighting, verbal arguments and cursing did not make it budge. The others were annoying, too. They wanted them all gone from their back yard and didn’t care about leaving the lot scared with deep, dark holes. The ground would need time to recover, but eventually green grass would grow on a smooth surface. The vision was clear when they looked at the diverse stones and the one most disconcerting boulder spread in their forest-like lot.
In the winter, when they had bought the house, shining snow covered the rocks. In the spring, the promised beautiful lawn proved nonexistent and the melted white revealed a bumpy back lot and the one distressing boulder.
In the summer, looking at the yard grew unendurable. They moved stones they never thought would move, trying just to know they had done what they could. Sand and grass carefully filled the empty holes until planted new grass sprang up and grew. The boulders were pushed and piled in one end of the yard, the stack growing impressive and house guests wondering, A Viking grave? A pyramid from Egypt? Stonehenge?
It was something meant to be, they said, raising their proud chins.
But the one boulder would not budge. When fall came they had long stopped rocking the stone. It didn’t move before and it wouldn’t move now, when its roots had grown thicker, rain sunk it deeper.
By now it was a part of the landscape, something both, through their different reasoning, agreed fit. He mostly admired the flourishing flowers needing its shade. She admired the solid strength of a rock refusing to be moved. They stood together, watching their back yard with their arms around each other as the first flakes of the season fell upon them.
Louise Ostling was born and raised in Sweden. She lived there until she was nineteen when she moved to the United States to pursue her education.
She is currently a freelancing journalist and a tennis coach in El Paso. She has just finished her MFA degree in creative writing at the University
of Texas at El Paso. She has previously published short stories in CrossConnect and BorderSenses. She is a regular contributor to The El Paso Times,
What"s Up, and Sun Tennis.
Email: Louise Ostling
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