The next morning things were pretty quiet. The rocks had run out of things to say to each other. Myron had rambled on mostly about his past as marker-stone along the Pennine Way. He had that job until being unceremoniously 'removed' (more accurately, stolen) and ended up in Oxford some years later, ironically he was transported back to Cumbria by an English professor, who liked to collect rocks, where they both went into retirement.
Rhonda retold the story of how she had a twin sister and that they had been separated early in life and had not seen each other since they had been split up, which she figured had to be at least 300 million years ago. She hoped one day to be reunited in a wall.
The Squire explained how he'd ended up with his unusual square shape, which in fact had happened when he was in prison. He had been knocked around a lot there and much of the way he thought and looked was for the most part shaped by his experience with the inmates who had been pretty rough on him. When they were finished with him he was too small to be a regulation- size cobblestone and so ended up being 'pitched'. He did the rest of his time (before he went to sea) in a makeshift courtyard outside the main livery stable at Shrewton-by-the Sea.
Later on he and about 2000 ballast stones managed to get themselves loaded in the hull of a merchant sailing ship and enjoyed years of traveling first class visiting many exotic parts of the Caribbean and the eastern coast of North America. His fondest memory was of traveling with some pretty important welsh stone material, slated to be used on the roof of a new church being built in New York city.
His sailing days came to an end when the clipper he was on ran aground off the coast of England. It was about a year later that he and Rhonda met on the beach after a big storm.
Just then Myron heard the noise of some humans coming down the path. There were three of them. The tallest wore a leather cap, a colourful checkered shirt and baggy canvas pants. He was the first to notice the balanced stones. He looked around for some other stones and challenged the other two men to do some balancing of their own.
This was not going the way the three stones had planned.
The men set about precariously stacking stones for about 20 minutes and then the taller man walked over to where the three stones were balanced, carrying a flat stone, and deftly placed it on top of the triangle stone, coaxing it until he found the balancing point.
"What ever made him do that? Rhonda exclaimed.
"Sometimes they just get it in their minds to stack stones without getting any prompting from us at all." Myron reported.
The men continued laughing and joking for a while, threw some stones at the piles they had made (knocking down all but the original one with the new flat stone on top) and then not long afterwards, headed off down the path.
The four stones remained balanced in their new taller configuration for quite some time. No one said a word. Then Michael, the flat stone, broke the silence
"My name is Michael," he said flatly "I don't believe we've met." he added in a completely mono-stone voice.
Before any of them could answer he went on.
"I think this is the most exciting thing that's happened to me in about fifty years."
