The other day I ran across a naked man who had a rather wide beard. I was in the field, cutting hay, and he came out of the woods and walked up to my tractor, turning his head at me like a curious dog. I stopped and waited for him to scurry off but he just stood in front of me staring at me.

So I got out to shoo him off but he didn’t leave, only scurrying away a few feet as I approached. So I chased him and he finally ran off, but when I came back to the tractor and turned around he was there again, looking at me, curious. This time I just walked at him and he went slowly, looking back at me now and again, toward the woods.

I was tired, yawning, and had nearly fallen asleep behind the wheel a few times, so the walk would do me good. I followed the strange naked man with the wide beard into the woods. As we walked he walked slower until I was right behind him, and then right beside him. We walked in the woods for awhile, unsure who was leading who, silent.

I couldn’t hear my tractor going anymore and I liked that. Under our feet was the sound of twigs snapping and the wet leaves squishing. I didn’t even look over to my strange naked man with the wide beard for a while. We just walked. I liked the way we were walking.

But then after a while I looked at him and was a bit shocked at what I saw. He had slowed some and was having a bit of trouble walking because he was turning grey and rough. He was turning to stone. His beard and body hair were turning to lichen. His eyes were turning to nothing but dark spots on the rock surface. His body was reforming itself: his legs began to shorten and his arms disappeared until he was hardly able to waddle at all. I just walked beside him, slowing down to his pace. We went slower and slower, and the trees began to hide the sunlight more and more and I began to realize it was becoming night.

By the time I heard my father and brother yelling my name from the forest’s edge, having come to pick me up, my rock companion had made it into a small clearing in the woods that had boulders everywhere. I could feel his dark spots watch me as he made one final roll and fell onto a patch of pressed down grass. I stood there for a moment, looking at him and the other boulders while my name was being yelled. I saw each and every boulder and I wondered if each and every boulder saw me.
I left the place. I didn’t feel tired and the time we spent together seemed like it was only a moment though it had to have been at least four or five hours. The moon was high and big and there was a lot of light as I walked back toward the field and my family. I didn’t know how I was going to explain anything. I suppose I felt insane though I didn’t believe it.

Well I explained it away, somehow. And when we got to the truck I turned around and looked at the shadow’s edge of the forest hoping to see my friend but he never showed up. On the way home we didn’t talk much. I told them about the cutting. When we got there I got out of the truck and looked down at the little stones that made up the gravel, and for the first time in my life I felt like the world was interested.