This is a story about a rock that grew bored of its lot in life, and wished to move, then what happened for all his wishing. For it is said that one should be careful for what one wishes, as it may just come true.

High on a mountainside in the wild heights of the Andes sat a rock. He rested. He waited. This particular rock was not all that dissimilar to all the other rocks that had sat on the mountain for aeons. The only difference with this particular rock was that it was bored. It wanted excitement. It wanted to move.

Everyday it saw the passing of sun across the sky followed by at night by the arc of the moon and the stars. Everything around him seem to be moving, from the rolling, spreading, splitting and reforming clouds to the lightly-landing birds and crawling insects everything was constantly on the move. Even slow ponderous animals had a greater sense of movement that did this rock.

So with each rising of the sun, he only ever saw the eastern dawn, he wished somehow that he might have a chance to move. He wished to see the sun set in the west. He longed to know what lay on the other side of the mountain. Then at the end of the day he spent the night muttering to himself about having spent yet another day in the same place.

One dawn though everything changed. The normally quiet valley was rocked by a low rumble that grew and grew. Emanating from deep inside the mountains at first small pebbles began to lose their hold and slide down the mountain, then increasingly larger and larger stones. Finally the ground around the rock gave way. The rock’s hold on the hillside disappeared and he started tumbling towards the valley floor. At first the rock was excited by the mad rush of the landslide, where all around him rocks, big and small, were all crashing down the hill. He was moving at last.

Then as the tumbling got faster and faster, the rock soon grew scared by all the movement. He now desperately wanted to stop. However the avalanche kept building up speed. Inextricably it crashed and tumbled down the mountainside, accompanied by a huge pall of dust. When it finally reached the valley floor the rush slowed. The stones that arrived first where tumbled over by those that arrived next, which were crashed into by those that arrived later. It was difficult to discern up from down. As the pall of dust started to settle the rock realised that there were others beside him, below him and above him. In fact he was buried deep in the rubble and he could only just glimpse a sliver of light high above him before it too disappeared.

He slowly came to realise that he would never see another dawn. Where he was, deep in the rubble, there was no sense of day nor night. There were no scurrying animals, there was no rain or wind, just perennial, claustrophobic and still darkness.

He lay there for a very long time, all the while wishing for his life back on the mountainside. His previous wish had been granted, yet he now realised what he missed. All he wished for now was to see at least one more dawn. Then one day, after so many days of darkness, there was another rumbling sound. It was not the same intense shaking as the last time. Now the rumble was more staccato. After some time small pebbles around him moved, then the rocks above him disappeared one by one. Till once again he was out in the blazing sunlight.

After all that time in the dark it took him a while to adjust. He soon realised that a crowd of men and women are working around him with picks and shovels and barrows. They were digging at the pile of rocks and dirt from the landslide. The dirt and smaller pebbles were moved to one side of the excavation, while the more substantial rocks like himself were at first stacked in a pile. Fortunately he was placed on the edge of the pile, not buried again. After watching several glorious dawns, and sunsets, he was hoisted into a wheelbarrow and taken to a waiting truck.
The truck then rumbled and bumped its way along a dusty road leading across the river. Up the valley, the truck rumbled before going back across the river again before finally stopping several kilometres away, halfway back up the mountain. After being jostled and shuffled and covered in dust all the rock wanted to do was to stop moving.

Before he has a chance to completely rest for long he is unceremoniously hoisted off the truck onto another pile of rocks. Although this one is amid a hive of construction. Workers are using the rocks to build the walls of houses for a new village to the replace the one destroyed by the earthquake and avalanche. The rock is eventually hoisted into place high in the wall of one of the buildings. And his wish finally comes true, for the building wall in which he is placed faces west.

Each morning he watches the sun rise over the surrounding mountains. As the day grows he watches the shadows disappear from the valley. Then in the afternoon as the shadows return slowly filling the valley, the approaching dark brings another night. He then watches the stars glide across the night sky before another bright dawn.

Finally he is happy. He is content to be still. There he sits to this day and never does he wish to ever roll again.