Pilgrim

Are you still willing?

Legend has it that stones can recognize writing. Write down what you want to say and ask someone to put it on a stone, and it will remember for you. But the stone is far away, so someone has to carry your words there. He has no name, and he carries two and a half sentences against his chest: He had someone copy the first part onto paper. The final half-sentence must wait until he reaches the stone, so he can speak it aloud himself.

He travels from place to place carrying people's words. The names of the dead, the thanks someone never got to say, the apologies left unspoken for years: he tucks them all into the incense pouch on his shoulder. The more words he carries, the heavier the pouch becomes. Only his own half-sentence remains pressed against his chest.

A pouch full of words, and a group of people who believe in the stone.

If you, too, have something to say but nowhere to say it, see you on the road.

--The second volume of "Mechanical Shrine": a receipt for old readers, and the first stop for new ones.