“The Stone That Ate Shadows” (A parable from nowhere and everywhere)

 

The elders of Daramai say that once every seven winters, a shadow forgets its owner and begins to wander.

It curls behind banyan trees, drinks from moonlit puddles, and whispers stories only old stones can understand. When it finds a soul heavy enough, it chooses them. Not to haunt — but to wake.

---

There was a man named Balin who walked with the silence of a thousand unanswered prayers. He lived at the edge of the last known map, where the mountains coughed in their sleep and the rivers forgot where they flowed.

Balin was not unwise. But his wisdom came from pain — and pain, as the village mothers say, can be a crooked teacher. Still, he knew herbs that sang and birds that lied and how to build a fire that warmed only those with kind hearts.

But even he did not know the language of shadows. Not until the stone appeared.

---

It was found in his water pot — smooth, round, and pulsing faintly, like a memory trying to breathe.

He took it in his hand. The pulse stilled. That night, his shadow left him.

It didn’t vanish. It simply… stepped aside.

---

That’s when the road appeared.

A path of silence where no feet had tread, lined with fig trees that bore no fruit but wept silver leaves. The villagers say those trees grow in the space between choices — for every time we say "no" to something we love, a leaf falls there.

Balin walked.

---

On the third dusk, he met a woman wrapped in red smoke. She had no eyes, only a mirror where her face should be.

"Do you know your name?" she asked without moving her mouth.

Balin answered, "I do."

"Then you have not come far enough."

She placed a second stone in his palm and vanished.

---

He walked again, this time uphill, where the wind carried voices that had never belonged to him — a weeping child, a woman humming, a father praying for rain.

On the fifth dusk, he came to a shrine made of bones. At its center was a third stone, resting atop a cracked bowl.

He touched it.
And finally, remembered.

---

He remembered he was not the first Balin.
Nor the last.
That he had walked this road before — in other bodies, in other stories, in other lifetimes.
Each time forgetting, each time seeking, each time leaving behind a stone for the next version of himself.

---

He wept. Not from fear, but from recognition.

When he opened his hand, the three stones had fused into one — black as starless sky, but warm, like flesh.

His shadow returned, but it was no longer his.

It was taller. Older. It bowed.

Then it whispered:
"Now you are ready to carry what others cannot."

And with that, Balin turned.
The road was gone.
The world was new.

Only the stone remained — waiting for the next who would forget, so they might remember again.

---

🔮 Moral of the Parable (Left Intentionally Vague):

• Some stones are not meant to be thrown, but held.

• Shadows do not always follow — sometimes they lead.

• Wisdom isn’t knowing the answer. It’s remembering you once forgot it.