Rock Collector

                                                                              Rock Collector

Danny was a rock collector. Danny would go around the neighbourhood collecting rocks. Orange red as the morning sun. Layered like a dirt cake. Jagged as an armored porcupine. He had discerning taste, not every typical stone would make the cut. He lived in a small town near the outskirts of Tuscon, Arizona. I can't remember the name. Some dusty collection of gravel mazes not yet gridded by a city planner. The point being it was terrestrially diverse.

Mom and dad worked nights. They weren't around after school. Danny was free to explore. It was the 80s, that's just how you raised children. Don't judge. Sometimes Danny would come across the things other little boys hoped to find hand guns, fireworks, porno mags. Once, he passed up a pair of nunchucks. He only had eyes for rocks. His vision narrow of focus in the way that happens when you stare at a colored pencil drawing for too long. Those cool deep purple skied evenings searching.

He would store the stones in his closet. His mother complained. What are you doing with all that gravel? You are going to give yourself asthma with all that clay dust! One summer when Danny was visiting his grandparents in Tuscaloosa, mom emptied out Danny's collection. Danny was inconsolable for a month of dried out tears, that didn't really wet his face. More like some painful facial contractions in the Arizona air.

It wouldn't be long before Danny recollected. Mom found out a threw a few at Danny in frustration. Fissures in his hard head. Cracks on his pyramid.

When Danny grew up he became a boonie hat wearing geologist. He travelled the world working for various environmental research groups, archeologists and treasure hunters (the dignified name for thieves). He kept adding to his collection as he travelled the world, and finding more novel bits of the earth. His spine curved from carrying the weight. He joked that he was half-man half-mule and all hoarder. Humour turns insanity into charm. Wit dry as a tanned hide.

Finally, Danny was satisfied he found all the interesting stones after overlapping the globe's hotspots a few times over. That is when he retired to his tannish-grey walled second floor walk up. He was looking over his collection one day. It fell over. Rattling as an earthquake. Not a stone touched him, but the tremor caused him to go into shock and get cardiac arrested.

Centuries later in a world that you couldn't imagine a small child uncovered a fossil. The local news claimed it as an unmarked grave.