The Ledge-Sleeper and the Rock's Own Time

Below the escarpment the creek runs cold even in July, off the rock. I was in it to the knee when I put my hand on what I took for a stone, and the stone had scales. A spire of a shell, blue-grey, coiled and stepped like a little pagoda, two horns curling off the crown and a set of claws drawn up beneath, and all of it asleep, so far down in sleep that a full day would not have been enough to wake it. It has no reason to reckon a man. A man is over too quickly to notice.

The rock it sleeps in is the oldest thing in the county. The Ledge is the drowned edge of a sea that has been gone four hundred million years, and I came to think, kneeling in the creek, that the creature keeps the rock’s time and not ours, that its year is an age and what I read as hibernation is only its ordinary afternoon.

I ringed the plate with the circles of an orrery, because that is what it is, an instrument for telling deep time, wound down among the mud. I set it back exactly as it lay and built the mud up over it. Whatever hour it is keeping, it is not for me to end.

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An earlier telling of this plate, recovered with it. Kept as found.

In the ethereal twilight of the magical creek, a whimsical creature lay nestled a few feet beneath the enchanting mud. As I traversed the meandering waters to the very heart of the escarpment, this little critter revealed itself, not as a chance encounter, but as a destined meeting. It beckoned to me, a messenger from the ancient fae realms, where time dances to a melody that we anthros can scarcely comprehend.

The creature, so intricately connected to the mystical energies of the land, sought to convey a message, a secret whispered through the eons. Yet, the fae, ancient guardians of the arcane, adapt to the passage of time at a pace unfathomable to us. Their language, a symphony of nature’s whispers, eluded my understanding. I longed to grasp the essence of its communication, a connection lost in the labyrinth of ages.

In the stillness of that moment, I realized it was not I who had stumbled upon this ethereal being; it was patiently waiting for me, a humble wanderer in the tapestry of realms. The guardian hibernation of this creature held a tranquility, a slumber steeped in the wisdom of ages. I dared not disturb it further, for I recognized the sanctity of its rest.

With a heart touched by the magic of the encounter, I swiftly sketched the creature, capturing its essence on paper as a testament to our brief communion. And with utmost reverence, I returned it to its subterranean haven, allowing the enchanting fae to resume its ageless slumber, leaving me to ponder the untold tales hidden beneath the layers of mud and time.