THE PEBBLES LEFT BEHIND
In his town, the pebble piles tell you who didn’t make it.
He felt the first pebble hit his leg—just a graze against his ankle. At first, he thought it was a scratch from the switchgrass that lined the pathway. But then came another. And another.
His brain started to race, scanning through every exit strategy he had memorized over the years. Home was too far. Town was out of the question. The forest was distant, unreachable.
That left only one option: hunker down. Wait. Hope they’d get bored and move on. But he knew better. They never got bored. They could outlast anyone.
He found a tree with a trunk just wide enough to offer shelter. He crouched behind it, trying to gather his thoughts as the pebbles kept flying. They clattered at his feet. Piled up in front of him.
He knew where this was headed.
Around town, the piles told their stories—silent monuments to the ones who didn’t run.
His tears came quickly, hot on his cheeks. The shaking stopped.
He wasn’t sure if he had the strength to outrun them.
The pebbles rose around his ankles like something alive.
He peered out from behind the trunk one last time, desperate to glimpse a face.
No faces. No voices. Just the endless rhythm of stone.
He moved slowly at first, backing away, staying low. Then faster. Step by step.
Running toward the unknown, heart pounding, mind screaming for his mother.
He was the youngest of five. The others were gone. Whether they’d escaped or ended under a pile—no one knew.
His mother had lovingly convinced him they would survive. That their plans would protect him.
But in his heart, he had always known this moment would come.
Each time one of his brothers never returned, there were whispers:
A new pile?
Did they join the others? Or make it out?
There were no answers. Just stones.
He expected voices calling commands behind him. But it was silent.
Only the pebbles. And then the larger ones.
They hit his thighs, then his shoulders, then his head. A dull, blooming pain.
Still, he ran—long after they stopped.
He only stopped when the sun set and the air chilled. He found shelter at the edge of the old-growth forest.
That night, he fell asleep under the stars, thinking of his mother, and his sisters crying themselves to sleep—just as they had for all the others who came before him.
