|
The Thrower
I throw rocks from the side of the road into a field. I’m a professional. Tourists come
to town, booking rooms for a night or two, just to watch me hurl stones into an empty
field. What people want to see is the physical exertion I put into every flung rock. I throw
all with great force, harder than powerful fastball pitchers do in the Major Leagues.
I grunt with every toss; the noise absorbs itself into spectators viscerally. Over the
years, I’m told I’ve killed many who’ve visited my site but that only increases others’
interest to see me throw incredibly long distances. I’ve had dreams about flash mobs
attacking me, using a machete to hack off my throwing arm. Little do they know I’m
ambidextrous, strong in both arms. They want me to get a myocardial infarction,
croaking with a rock in hand, burying me beneath a pile of stones. If they understood why
I throw they’d get even angrier, going hysterical.
Some spectators tip me, that on top of the regular fee I’m paid to cast rocks farther than
eyes can see. They hope to record with their cameras my death. Death sells every well
these days. Healed by a shaman sand painter, I sat on his colorful mandala. He gave me
my vocation: “Stones are your gift, use wisely, practice diligently, attract many followers,
put your life on the line with every rock you throw,” he said after my cure. I never looked
back. The grandstands increased to accommodate more sight-seers.
One day, a child, released from his mother’s hand, walked up to me and asked, “Why
do you throw rocks?” I was in the midst of heaving a big rock, so I didn’t answer him. It
2
sailed in a high arc and hung there, reminding me of a planet. I wanted it never to fall to
earth but gravity and heartbreak made it eventually crash into a tree beyond ordinary
eyesight. It penetrated the bark of a black walnut tree; a gash of blood trickled from its
trunk. The child asked the same question. I rubbed my hands with rosin and used a
chamois cloth on my face. I never answered him.
I get by with eternal REM dreamtime-sleep. Some say that can’t be done when a
reporter quoted me about that. But I fling stones at all hours. And they also say it can’t be
proved I fire rocks so far and for so many consecutive hours without mundane sleep.
I’m different than ordinary spectators: it’s my vocation. I don’t want its secrets inter-
rupted. But it’s my calling to stop night itself when it normally appears and in daylight,
the time darkness enters lives of all living things: heartbreak, despair, loneliness,
hopelessness, pathos, cruelty, hate, suicide, murder, disease, and more.
I throw stones ceaselessly, bending down, grabbing a stone, rising, standing, left foot
ahead of right foot, cocking my arm, using my full strength I’ve gained over time. I’ve
gathered an endless cache of rocks, heave a stone, aiming it at the horizon. Perhaps a
stone has reached the skyline, the outskirts of consciousness.
I imagined that I’d have a day commemorated just for me, The Thrower. Billions of
people saw me on giant screens around the world. En masse, their collective force here
on-site and off, on screens and here in this undistinguished town, the pressure came to put
an end to my throwing stones farther than ever standing on the verge of a street. I hurled
a googol (ten raised to the power of one hundred) of stones, and more, (ten raised to the
power of a googolplex). I felt hurt, thwarted and betrayed that restrictions and limitations
3
were placed on me. Understanding I could continue indefinitely, the world’s multitude
crashed down on me breaking the spell. I had tossed my final rock.
I grew cold, hungry bit me for the first time, sleep, too, how fatigued I was, exhausted
beyond hope. A mob forced me out of town and marched me to the outskirts. I didn’t
know what to do there. I stood at the side of the highway. I wasn’t waiting for anything,
just stood there. Standing immobilized, my brain numbed in dismay, a car stopped and
the driver said, “Where are you going?” I said, “Where you’re going.” That began my
hitchhiking, and then the exhibitions.
Eventually a family or two stood with me as I’d occasionally stuck out my thumb for
photos and videos. I thought that showing off, so I merely stood at roadside; getting
rides wasn’t natural as chucking stones. Word got out that I’d been The Thrower and
more watched me. After a night’s sleep at a rundown motel, the first vehicle that came at
dawn offered me a lift. That set the pattern. At dawn, I stood: a truck stopped and drove
me twenty miles. When I thanked him and got out, a crowd gathered, watching me
as another vehicle stopped after half a minute or so.
I became renowned. More and more spectators watched me never miss that very first
driver in the morning. So long as they’re roads, so long as earth offers itself up to me, I’ll
be on the road a long, long time. But nothing lasts forever: that’s the great crime.
George Sparling has been published in many literary magazines including Tears in the Fence, Lynx Eye, Hunger, Rattle, Red Rock Review, Rattle,
Paumanok Review, Lost and Found Times, and Potomac Review. He has had many jobs, such as a welfare caseworker in East Harlem, a counselor/reading instructor in
the Baltimore City Jail, and a scuba diver for placer gold in the Trinity Alps of Northern California for two years.
He tries through fiction and poetry to give all dark things the light they require to exist unconditionally.
The tension between persons living in pain and the struggle not to fail as human beings also concerns him.
Email: George Sparling
Return to Table of Contents
|