The Man Who Carried the World
by Kyle Hemmings
I met him each time he crossed my village of Kazul, greeted him at the same spot atop of a grassless hill. He carried a rock that he said was the world and his task was to walk around the earth. If he ever fell or dropped from exhaustion, the world would stop spinning, time would stop.
I was a young boy when I first met him. He brought me stories, like delicious spices: how women carried jugs of water on their heads in a wretched heat, how in some parts of the world men ate ants as a delicacy, how great battles were fought with bamboo canes and wooden spears in other remote areas. Each time he trudged into my village, I must have aged ten years.
My wife and children accused me of wasting time in idle daydream, when I could be doing useful work. I never told them that I was waiting for the man who walked across the world. They’d think I was crazy, infected with delusions.
Then, one day I spotted him, tired and breathless, his face was haggard, thickly lined, his body, a skeleton of twig-thin bone. I can’t do this much longer, he said, it’s such a thankless job. I suggested why doesn’t he give the rock, which was the world, to someone else.
No, he said, no one would want the responsibility.
He left, dogged but world-weary, and I wonder if I would ever see him again.
Years, later, I stood atop the same hill, watching the scattered people below, oblivious to everything but their own sheltered lives, and slowly, the man with the rock came into view, staggered--he fell and the rock rolled away from his hand. Suddenly, everything froze, no one moved, except for me.
I ran down the hill and felt the old man’s pulse. He was dead. I picked up the rock and slowly, crossed borders and bridges, trudged over hills and across valleys. Everything began to move again. Some people smiled and waved; most ignored me. It was such a thankless job. No one even knew my name.
