An Excavation of Neural Structure

The slab of rock that he was attempting to prise from the wall suddenly gave way and fell with a thick clack to the ground at his feet.

He crouched down and turned it over to examine it closer.

It was roughly the size and shape of his two hands laid flat side by side. A wide vein of… something threaded through the surface, marking a stark contrast with the surrounding stone. The slab of rock itself looked substantial but turned out to be even more so when he set about trying to lift it. It was with an embarrassing heave and grunt that he transferred it from the damp cave floor to take its place among its siblings in the cart.

He removed his glove and traced his thumb along the mineral vein that was webbing its way across the exterior. It was smooth and slick and curiously warm to the touch.

He wasn’t quite sure what it was that he was doing here. The thought crept on delicate insectile legs from his subconscious to the forefront of his mind. The project, of course, was important, but his place as a part of it puzzled him. When he thought of the men and women who were his colleagues on this project, he saw people who had risen through the ranks of their profession with a gleaming reputation of excellence and hard work. By comparison, hadn’t he just kind of drifted into his position through some combination of luck, happy accidents, and potentially simple mismanagement? He had participated in a number of successful projects in the past, and had admittedly made some minor contributions, but hadn’t he spent most of his time riding the coattails of greater minds and more talented individuals? The persistent dread of being found out for the imposter that he was had permeated most of his waking hours and not a few of his sleeping ones.

A sinking sensation spread its way down his body and left him with a sour feeling in his gut and a veil of cool sweat spread across his skin. He wrenched his attention away from his most recent find, replaced his glove, and moved back to the area that he had been studying prior to his encounter with the stone.

Just above the area that had been vacated by this previous sample was a long tight crack, looking almost like someone had noticed the break and attempted to glue it back together. He reached down to the belt at his waist and removed a chisel. He fit the inclined plane of the tip into a section of the crack that was just a bit wider than the rest, securing it there with a few gentle taps with the blunt end of the pick hammer. Now that the chisel was a stable target and wouldn’t be moving around on him, he drew the hammer back to give it a proper whack.

In the very next motion, he found himself dropping the pick hammer and reaching reflexively for his face. A chip of stone had detached from the edge of the crack and flown into the corner of his eye. He coddled the area with his cupped hands, feeling a warm liquid running down his cheek. He was reasonably certain that what he was feeling were tears but still found himself shy away from checking his hands.

He let out a chuckle, a small laugh that was full of emotion but entirely bereft of humor. Wasn’t this exactly the sort of thing that would happen to him? He had gotten distracted for just a moment and forgotten to replace his eye protection, and the world had chosen that moment to stab him in the eye. It is to be expected, though, isn’t it? Isn’t this just the type of thing that happens nowadays? A bygone age was the day of the “happy accident,” never to be seen again.] Now every accident, hell even the most well-intentioned purposeful acts, can’t help but result in tragedy. Every time there seems to be some glimmer of hope on the horizon, a blanket of doom swoops in to smother it.

He set his eyes, one healthy and one red and weeping, on the rest of the team, every last one of them self-serving, bigoted fools. They think he doesn’t know, but of course, he does. There isn’t a one of them that wouldn’t scapegoat their own firstborn if it would give them a momentary warm feeling of superiority.

The world is full of these people. You can see the disdain burning behind their eyes, the seeds of genocide sprouting in their hearts. When you ask yourself the why and how of all of the worst moments in history, all you have to do is look around you and the answers are everywhere.

The only hope is escape.

Fly away from this doomed world and find rest. Peace.

A tear trickles down the edge of his nose, and with it, the splinter runs from his eye.

He wipes the moisture from the corner of his eye, a feeling of relief washing over him as the stinging pain of the shard dissipates by the second.

He picks up his goggles and makes sure that they are perched securely in place. His focus returns to the chisel jutting out from the crack in the wall. He brings down the hammer again with an echoing clang, then again, the sounds overlapping each other as they bounce off the walls of the enclosed area. With a crack, a sheet separates itself from the wall and falls to the ground.

Under the grey surface, is a rough material sparkling gold. As he looks closer, he can see that the deposit has worked its way to the surface in several places, dotting the exterior. A smirk curls the corner of his mouth as half-formed puns begin to swirl in his head along with the overwhelming urge to make people groan rather than laugh. Some jokes make you chuckle, some make you laugh uncontrollably, then there are jokes that make your best friends and family declare their undying hatred for you. In other words, puns.

His smile broadens, he laughs to himself, the real audience for any of the humor flowing through his mind. A pun is not told but inflicted.

He turns away from this new artifact, leaving it with the others and the storm that had been his mind has receded. The laugh dies in his throat and his expression straightens on his face.

Examining the place where this most recent specimen was removed, he finds a small hole. He strikes it with the pick end of his hammer and it crumbles along the edge, revealing not only a hole but a large hollow in the rock. A few more blows from the pick remove the thin, more brittle edges and he is able to insert his arm into the hollow. At first glance there is nothing inside, it is dry and free of any residue or dust. As he continues to probe the hollow, he hears a light scraping noise along the bottom of the curve.

He can’t quite pick it up with the clumsy work gloves, so he removes them again and the slight moisture of his ungloved hand is enough to extract the minute speck of material hidden inside. Immediately upon touching it, a warmness overtakes his body. He feels safe, like nothing in the world can touch him. An overwhelming sensation of well-being overtakes him and he knows that even if he is vulnerable to the world, it’s ok.

The world doesn’t mean him harm.

There are loving, caring people in the world that wish nothing but the best for him, and for everyone around them. The forces who mean to kill and destroy in this world will ultimately fail and we will find peace and universal prosperity.

It is not only possible but inevitable.

Just like that, the tiny speck on his finger dissolves and is nothing.

He returns to the hollow, but that was it, it is now truly void. All that had been at home there, long worn away and diminished by the passage of time and life, was now gone.

The vanished speck has left him as a reflection of the space in the rock, he feels hollow, has been hollowed out. Even the brief presence of that substance has left the world darker, more sinister through its lack. He might have been able to subsist if he had never encountered it, but feeling its lack has left the walls of the world echoing with whispered pleas for death. A world without that mote of dust was an existence without air to breathe or water to drink. It was fundamental to life and without it, we cannot help but perish. He would do anything to fill up that hole that has been opened up inside of him. He is now thrown open and vulnerable to whoever or whatever would promise to make this feeling go away.

He thinks of the rocks.

There has to be something there to fix him, something to fill the void.

He roots through the samples that he has yet to examine, grasping a muddy red chunk of rock in his fingers. He feels its weight and jagged edges against his skin. As much as he knows that he shouldn’t, he allows the energy pulsing through him to carry him away. It is a loud thumping in his ears, drowning out the sorrow that had taken up residence in his chest, but allowing a kinetic fury to rise to the surface in its place.

With a single jerky motion, he overturns the cart holding the rest of the samples, sending it crashing and the stones clattering to the ground. He takes the pick hammer to the metal table that he was working on, digging deep gauges in the stainless steel, finally giving way to ragged puncture wounds.

A wildness overtakes his face, his eyes widening and nostrils flaring, a manic smile creeping into the corners of his mouth. He goes to work on the wall again, the pick end of the hammer connecting with the wall in careless unmeasured blows.

The energy that had been surging through him so haphazardly just a moment before has exhausted itself and him along with it. He hunches over, out of breath with his hands on his knees, head swimming… and he is empty again.

He allows himself to slump to the floor, still panting from the brief outburst of emotion. Once he has managed to pull himself back under control again, he sifts through the chips and chunks of rock that his tantrum had left for him. There was a pebble, blue and almost perfectly round… too perfect to be natural, but there it was freed from the stone wall.

His mind started to drift toward the people that he had known over the years, and people whose stories he had heard or read. People, some of whom were like him, but mostly they weren’t. People who had been taken advantage of, those who had been transformed into victims or pushed to the margins. People who had to deal so often with not being treated as people at all, but like threats or playthings or a means to an end.

This didn’t feel like the rage that had just surged through him, but it wasn’t completely unlike it, there was also something like the cynicism he had felt earlier, but also different, perhaps because it was formed less from self-pity and more from a sense of compassion. It felt an awful lot like the absence that the speck left behind, but it wasn’t hollow, it was dense and full even if he wasn’t sure that he wanted what it was filled with.

He moved to lay the pebble back where he had found it but was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that was the one thing he must not do. This stone was precious and just the thought that he would let it out of his sight or even away from his person was unthinkable, an affront to its very existence. It would be crass to put it on display like jewelry, but all the same, it was imperative that he hold on to it and carry it with him from this day forward.

He pushed himself back up to his feet and brushed himself off. He slipped the stone into his pants pocket and patted the spot where it made contact with his hip, assuring himself that it was safe.

A glimmer of intuition came to light in his mind, and he thought just maybe, that stone riding around at his side was the key to rebuilding the thing that had left the hollow in the rock. It wouldn’t happen right away, but if he kept that stone with him, he might look inside himself one day and find that it was no longer a hollow at all, but a force that could help to move the world.