The Seven Stone Message

Here’s a work in progress, the second draft. I plan on adding a lot more dialogue and more scenes to flesh out the interactions with Samantha and the seven. Perhaps even a trip to Paris . . .

It had been windy the day she returned home, one of the first few nice days that spring. Samantha had her jacket tucked under her arm and two bags of groceries. Climbing up the three steps to the porch of her house, she reached for the door handle. Juggling the bags and jacket, she was preoccupied as she grasped for the door handle with two fingers. It was only when the door swung slightly open and she had adjusted the grip on the groceries that she noticed Josh’s body lying in the corner of the porch.

The next two weeks were nothing more than a scattered collection of images and sensations in her memory. Kneeling in a pool of blood and reaching out for his hand. A frantic phone call when she couldn’t even remember the address they had lived at for the last six years. Her parents holding her as she sobbed. The funeral arrangements and trying to decide between a casket with the walnut finish or an oak finish. The pastor’s sermon, whose words she forgot as soon as they were uttered. Receiving a cardboard box from Josh’s office after someone emptied out his desk. Sleeping alone again.

When she walked back on the porch again, the blood had been cleaned up, as well as the groceries she had dropped. She was not sure if her parents did that themselves or had found someone else to do it, some dispassionate third party whose daily routine consisted of sopping up blood, skull fragments, and chunks of grey matter. Whatever cleaner had been used had discolored the painted boards of the porch. There was a large, irregular spot that was slightly paler, more washed out than the untouched spots in the corner of the porch. The shotgun and the suicide note were gone. No one had touched the handful of stones from the garden in front of the porch sitting on the table. Josh had weighed down his note with those stones on that windy day. She remembered brushing them aside and trying to read the carefully written words while she waited for someone, anyone else to arrive. Samantha had only seen it through a blur of tears in those first few awful minutes, but she could tell Josh had taken his time writing. His handwriting was usually so sloppy, and Samantha had no trouble reading his deliberate printing. Despite that fact, she remembered only a few words like “pain” and “can’t” and “sorry” and “never”.

Samantha sat on the porch and idly rolled the stones on top of the table they had bought on sale at Home Depot two years back. Her parents bustled around in the kitchen, making spaghetti. Samantha didn’t move from the porch until her mother came out and led her inside. It was a quiet meal, and helped do the dishes despite her father’s insistence. The night grew later, and Samantha shooed her parents out the door, promising to call anytime she felt the need. She told them she was going to be okay, and thanked them for letting her stay with them the past weeks. Samantha watched them shuffle back to their blue pickup truck, holding on to each other. Her father opened the door for her mother, before coming back around the cab and climbing carefully into the driver’s seat. They both waved as they pulled down the driveway and she heard them both call out that they loved her. She waved and sat down outside as the sound of the pickup’s ancient muffler faded away.

It was late at night when she went back inside the house. Samantha lay on the couch for hours and clicked through endless channels, not remembering what was on the last as soon as she went to the next. She didn’t feel like sleeping, and wandered around the house. There were still some of Josh’s things she had to get rid of, but she didn’t feel the strength to do it now, and they just served to remind her of him. Samantha went outside again and sat at the table on the porch, empty save the stones, counting seven of them now. Heavy enough to hold down the single sheet of loose paper, ripped out of the notebook they kept by the phone in the kitchen. They were small round white stones, with striations of black veins that God had made carefully with a very thin paintbrush. They had come from the garden in front of the porch, stone mulch they had a landscaper lay down when they first bought the house so they wouldn’t have to put down regular mulch every year. The seven stones just about fit in the palm of her hand.

Samantha went to work the next day, and the day after, and the day after. She talked with her parents almost every day, and visited them on the weekends. When she was home alone, she often sat on the porch rather than go in, merely sitting and listening to the creak of the trees in the wind or the occasional bird or squirrel making their way past the house, only going inside when her eyelids began to droop and she could fall into the empty queen sized bed and not wake up until her alarm buzzed rudely at 6:30. Friends from work and college took her out to dinner, to movies, to casual dinner parties, out for a night in the city. Samantha smiled and laughed and enjoyed herself, and would come back to the house at night and spend the rest of the evening on her porch quietly by herself. As the summer wore on, Samantha spent more time on the porch, often falling asleep completely and waking up long enough to drag herself inside.

It was the middle of August when she snapped awake to the sound of a young girl laughing. Samantha jumped in her chair and kicked the table, and the seven stones that lay on top rattled. She shook her head and looked around, seeing no one on the porch or the driveway. She sat quietly for a few minutes but heard nothing else, and went inside to bed. Samantha spent another few days outside before she heard the laughter again, waking her up once more. It was the second stone from the left, and her name was Celi

The stones made fine company, and Samantha got to know them very well. At first glance they seemed very similar, but once she got to know them, Samantha never had any trouble distinguishing one from the other. There was Jack and Ray, two friends who had known each other since the first grade, up through high school, and even went to the same college together. They livened up any discussion, kidding each other constantly and always telling stories of the misadventures of their youth. There was Dana, the voracious reader in the group, always trying to engage someone in a discussion or a debate about current events. Celi was a vivacious teenager, infatuated with all things Disney, and all things pink and girly. Wilbur was the oldest of the seven stones, prone to periods of great silence and reflection but a tremendously interesting conversationalist once Dana got him talking about world history. Scott was the hands on type, happy when he was working on keeping the garden well kept and even happier when he was hunting and fishing. Pierre was the poet, visiting the U.S. from his native France. He was happy to soak in the culture of this new land, although his sensitive nature was bruised occasionally when Jack and Ray would tease him about his accent.

Samantha kept going to work and visiting her parents. As the summer went on she went through Josh’s things, donating his clothes to Goodwill and getting rid of his toothbrush and razor from the bathroom. She spent a lot of time with the stones, laughing with Jack and Ray and working on the garden with Scott. She liked to hear Celi sing her favorite Disney songs. She spent many a late evening with Wilbur and Dana discussing how today’s politicians should learn from those of the past. Pierre’s English improved dramatically, and he was even able to teach Samantha some basic French. The summer faded away into the fall, and Samantha had to put a jacket on to spend time on the porch. Fall was creeping into winter when Pierre, with a heartfelt sigh, announced it was time to go back to Paris. His visa was expiring, and although he loved the time he had spent in America, it was time to go home. Samantha was sad to see him go but understood how he felt. The stones and she stayed up until it was very late, talking and laughing. Samantha’s fingers were numb from the cold and she had to go to work the next day, so she bid them goodnight. Pierre made her and the rest promise to visit him in Paris in the spring, and they were happy to accept the invitation. When she came back the next evening, there were only six stones. It was getting too cold to stay outside for very long, but the remaining six were more comfortable there as opposed to inside. Samantha visited with them as much as she could stand the cold, going back inside to warm herself and dream of their trip to Paris in the spring.