The bag of rocks touched down at 13 hundred hours, close to 2000 feet up the north side of Scafell Pike. The helicopter disconnected from the cargo bag and flew off.
The silence was heavenly.
Rocks, as a rule, hate noise of any sort. The deafening roar of a helicopter had been hard to endure. Machinery in general, but particularly stone saws and grinders, drive rocks to the brink. In fact, rocks are generally suspicious of humans holding any kind of tool. They can move surprisingly quickly in these situations, resorting to biting and pinching if necessary to get away. Stones don't mind being shaped by a human who has learned their craft, but unskilled indiscriminate whacking is definitely irritating. A hammer in the hand of someone who doesn't know what they're doing makes rocks 'tense up' . They may end up having to get physical. In some cases when they are driven to the 'breaking point', they will spray their assailant with debris.
Modern pneumatic chisels and whirring power tools make an awful racket, enough to scare most of the older precambrian rocks. The younger ones, to some extent, have learned to adapt. Generally rocks will cooperate with anyone who approaches them slowly and demonstrates a genuine teachability. Rather than trying to prove something, a human who is open to learning something, and willing to take the time to try to tune into their 'world', may eventually find it to be an enlightening and highly constructive encounter. However 'picking up' even what a small rock is 'saying' is proportionally much harder to do, requiring far more skill than it would to actually 'pick up' a rock a hundred times its size.
It has always been important to rocks that their 'time frame' be respected. They have millions of years of experience and wisdom on their side. It is indeed a wonder that they should be willing to pass any of this on at all to such transitory beings as humans, who for the most part have not evolved enough to even consider that a higher more intelligent mineral form of 'life' may exist.
There were no traces of any transitory beings high up on Scafell Pike today. It was desolate and intensely beautiful. This remote outcropping of Cumbrian geology, with the accompanying expanse of grey expressionless sky dissolving off into the distance, looked much the way it had for tens of thousands of years. In fact there was little to indicate the rocks were in the 21st century at all. Apart from a worn footpath leading down the mountain, nothing had changed. Nothing needed to change. All the rocks sighed and took a deep breath. The Squire, Rhonda, Myron and Michael lay spread out amongst the other rocks gazing upwards and began contemplating the events that had led up to their being deposited high up in this their new rocky outpost.
"It's just like the good old days" noted the Squire in a pleased tone of voice "You could almost imagine we were back in a time when humans didn't exist"
