The Stone Men

Seemingly inert ancient stones, defend cosmic order and a young wife from her husband

Seven weatherworn granite figures stand in a circle atop a windblown Neolithic hill fort on a Northumbrian moor. Each roughly the size and shape of a man, they have silently regarded each other for over five thousand years. Their original purpose has long since been forgotten, yet the mystery behind their seemingly eternal presence has generated no legends. There are no local stories or folktales to explain them, a fact a person might find strange had they not experienced for themselves the unnerving sensation of standing amongst them. When in their enigmatic company, a visitor may be reminded of the ephemeral nature of their own existence. They will not be inspired to weave some fabrication around them, for the stone men, as they are known locally, convey, through their age and weight, a powerful sense of their own immutable truth which, rather than stimulating the imagination, causes it to cower in the innermost recesses of the soul.

The site attracts few visitors, partly due to its remote location in an often hostile environment and because it is not as well known as other Neolithic sites of Britain, but the people of the area have a respectful reverence for it, and it is regarded as a defining feature of the landscape.

Various archaeological studies had been made during the twentieth century, but there was no consensus on the date of construction, nor even on the location from which the granite would have been sourced. The stone men would not give up their secrets easily.

On close inspection the rough and pitted granite figures still show markings revealing how they were laboriously carved by the hands of men whose lives would have left little time or energy for work that did not directly benefit their chances of survival.

Over time nature has made attempts to claim them; a few lichen scar their faces, but at their feet, each has an area of bare earth, sometimes dry and cracked, often slippery wet mud, as if the grasses are forbidden to grow near them.

The circle is small. Each man stands no more than five feet from his nearest companions, so that if they were to outstretch their arms, they might join hands to form a ring. But of course their roughly hewn arms are, like their legs, no more than grooves channelled out of the body of the stone. Their faceless heads seem to look upward to the sky as if in expectation of some long-awaited occurrence.

And so, a scene is set. A scene where millennia pass untroubled by progress, where time is unmeasured by the coming and going of the seasons. A scene without a story. A set without actors, just the solemn anachronistic props of some ancient drama lost to time. These silent sentinels, waiting with inhuman patience for the end of time.

*****
The end of time, like the beginning, is not a mark on some cosmic calendar but rather a seam joining two ends of a continuous fabric stretching across space-time. A seam that falls over our planet close to the meridian in the north of England. This is the key to the mystery, for it was not people of the past who were responsible for the creation of the stone men; it was the general consciousness of the universe. A combination of human, machine and alien intelligences which are integrated yet in eternal flux. Ever evolving, devolving, expanding and contracting, their thoughts are the fundamental materials and concepts from which reality is realised.

An analogy may help the reader to understand. A photograph is a two-dimensional representation of a place and time. The stone men are a three-dimensional representation of seven fundamental principles on which our reality is built. The purpose of a photograph is to record an event; the purpose of the stone men is to record not just a moment, but the entire history of mankind, its civilisation, its consciousness, its emotions and dreams, and to monitor its potential, power and intentions.

Think of this the next time you lay your hand against a piece of granite.

In one of the infinite number of timelines, a young man called Jake Dean scrutinised the planning documents on the government website for the proposed route of a new major national infrastructure project. A hydrogen gas pipeline was to be built over the farm his father owned. Examining the maps, it was clear that the optimal route would have been through the Stone Men Hill, but it had been diverted because of the site's archaeological importance.

I could load the digger onto the big trailer and have them stones out in a couple of hours. Load them on the trailer, cover them over with a tarp, then smash them to rubble and chuck it in with the hardcore for the foundations of the new storage shed. If I did it at night, no one would ever know, and they'd have no reason to divert the pipeline.

But why should we trouble ourselves with such an infinitesimally small proportion of all possibilities? This single grain of sand in an endless desert is of no significance.

If you decide to focus on this one grain of sand, you must hold in the back of your mind that it is a moving thing. Subject to forces outside itself which may blow it in any direction. It is one swirling amongst many trillions and may collide with others.

“Turn that bloody thing off you silly cow!” snapped Jake as Fiona switched on the interior light of the Range Rover. “You're lighting us up for everyone to see.”

“I need to see the sandwiches,” said Fiona. “Unless you want to end up with tuna and sweetcorn. There's nobody for miles anyway.”
“You don't know that,” said Jake. “If we get caught, I'll end up doing time, you know that? Do you think you can run the farm on your own and look after the kids?” He turned out the light.

“What about the sandwiches?”

“Sniff ‘em.”

The engine struggled with the combined weight and the steep incline. He dropped it down to first gear and prayed that the old ratchet straps keeping the digger on the trailer would hold.

As the ground began to level, the headlights caught the tops of the stone men. As they came into full view, Fiona said, “Oh, I don't like this, Jake. They're creepy as fuck.”

The stone men watched as the car drew to a stop. The noise of the engine ceased, leaving only the sound of the wind in the grass. The headlights died. They knew the plan, his plan, their plan.

“Get the torch from the back and see me down the ramps,” said Jake.

Fiona lit the trailer’s ramps with the torch as Jake navigated the digger, stinking of diesel, down from the trailer. The heavy iron tracks clattered noisily over the metal ramps and gouged the soft earth of the small plateau around the stone men.

“Alright, now shine it at that one there. That’s it.” The digger jerked forward towards the stone figure. The arm raised ominously above the stone head.

Jake pulled at the lever. The great iron bucket descended suddenly and with a grating clang violently struck the stone man's head.

*****
Fiona lay beside Rachel on the picnic blanket, eating her tuna and sweetcorn sandwich. The summer sun was high in the sky, and its gentle warmth on her skin was making her feel a little bit sexy. She reached over Rachel and kissed her softly on her exposed belly. “I love you,” she said softly. “This is perfect. How did you find this place?”

Rachel hoisted herself up onto her elbows and smiled. “Cool, isn't it?” she said, looking around at the eight stone figures.