Photo: Steve Bruce on Unsplash
“It was the devil made those,” Aunt Beulah’s eyebrows almost met above the bridge of her nose.
“They’re just a form of volcanic rock, cooled down in a specific way …” Jedidiah tried.
“By which you mean, the devil.”
Jedidiah sighed. There was no way to reason with his relative once her mind was set. Science would find its way to be in service of her beliefs, and any fact would somehow be turned into further proof of her conviction.
In some ways, he knew, he was no different, only that his spiritual experiences had more to do with being one with the rock, fingers holding on to crags, feet clinging to the surface, defying gravity, confronting his mortality.
“You go climb the devil’s work,” Aunt Beulah muttered. She’d raised him and saw herself in his stubbornness. “And I’ll be in the church praying for Jesus to keep you from dying.”
For What Pegman Saw: Tasmania, Australia
Na'ama Yehuda 
Have to smile at Aunt Beulah’s words in that last line. You capture the mind-set well.
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Thank you, Crispina! 🙂 I thought they were a delightful (and probably quite mirroring in personality) duo. 🙂
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Oh yes. 🙂
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🙂 (and for the record, I’m with Aunt Beulah on the insanity of climbing this thing … 😉 If I ever get the urge, it’ll certainly be the devil who’d make me do it … 😉 )
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I’d love to do it. To test yourself. Feel the strain in the muscles, feel the strength grow. That my physical self talking. But truth is… I do have a weeny bit of a problem with that. I lack the strength. And I get really wobbly two foot off the ground!
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Ah, yes, I think that this is where reality meets wishful thinking. In truth, I can actually see myself attempting something like this (with harness and rappelling abilities … safety does matter … ;)), in the past. I was a monkey growing up, climbing just about anything, from trees to roofs to rocks. Not professional climbing, just the want-to-be-up-there-to-see-what-it’s-like urge … And I was pretty limber besides. These days, my body’s limitations, after cumulative ‘challenges’ of life and medical what not, would not allow this at the least. I manage stairs, and daily necessary activities, and that’s plenty for this body in this time. No fear of heights, thankfully, just difficulty climbing by my own power up to such places. 🙂 I’d be willing to sit in a harness for a pulley system in a jiffy… 😉
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Yea, tree climber, me. And despite I’m hauling too much weight, I do get a kick out of challenging hills. And I’ve found a real neat way of coming down. On my butt. I swear one day I shall break a bone!
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Ha ha! Well, what else are butts for, anyway? 😉
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The last time I walloped down, having lost my footing on a rolling stone, I was talking at the time, and the force of the crash forced out the voice I ever have done.
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Oy, those kinds of falls are the worst! I’ve broken my tail bone falling that way. Was not a good story, that one. …
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I’ve done that more than once. But, nothing broken. I’m not going to say Yet, that might be to tempt it. 🙂
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Is okay, I re-broke mine when I fell on the ice some years after that … so I’ve done your share for you … 😉 OY.
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Thank you for breaking your tailbone and thus relieving me of the need!!! 🙂 I expect at some point I’ll return the favour 🙂
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No need, no need … 😉
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🙂
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Vividly portrayed. Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that “any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic.” Those who reject scientific evidence need no such technology. As we descend back into superstition, magic answers become the standard.
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Thank you!
Yes, I find many technologies to be akin to magic – for example, the one that lets me type on a keyboard, and have letters appear on a screen and then in a tap on another button, appear someplace in an indistinct space where everyone, all over the world (well, wherever the internet isn’t restricted…) can see it on THEIR screens if they so choose! I’m never getting over it! 😉
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I love this story – it’s such an imaginative take on the prompt, and the psychological observation is pin-sharp, and it’s beautifully written. What a pair of characters you’ve devised; delightful!
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🙂 Thank you, Penny! So glad you liked them … Takes one to know one, I guess … 😉
These rock formations!!!! Wow! One day I hope to see them for myself (not likely to climb one, though … 😉 )
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Great contrast in these characters. I can just see them! I’d have to side with Beulah too–I get vertigo just looking at the picture!
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🙂 Aunt Beulah raised him to adulthood, so she must’a done some things right – by force of personality and/or prayer – to keep him in the game … I’d listen to her, too … 😉
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What a wonderful story, Na’ama! Love how these two play off each other.
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Glad you like it! Cut from the same cloth, they are, after all… 🙂
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Indeed!
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Great portrayal of the interpersonal dynamic; I really get the sense of how they’ve been having this same type of argument forever.
What an interesting rock formation! I can see why a rock climber would be drawn to it, and I can also see why his relatives would want to invoke divine assistance to keep him safe in the process!
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LOL, Joy! I totally agree … on all counts! 🙂
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