The Monolith
The Monolith had stood for millions of years, a sentinel looking out over the vast landscape. Risen out of the molten core of the planet as liquid rock, it had hardened into a dense black basalt. The Monolith had seen the southwest as a verdant green savanna on which mega fauna of lumbering mastodons, quick agile ancestors of the horse and camels and the fierce predators such as the dire wolf and saber tooth cat had roamed.
Twelve thousand years ago, it observed a new creature on the scene, man. Man had used and made tools for almost a million years, especially stone tools which could be flaked into sharp edges for cutting, scraping and killing. The Monolith was made of stone, basalt, ideal for producing tools with sharp edges and tools for pounding. For thousands of years this outcrop of basalt became a quarry for man, a plentiful source for his most distinguished trait, maker of tools. The Monolith gave of itself, supplying man the resource he needed to maintain his edge over his environment.
First Man recognized this gift and built a shrine on the south side of the Monolith, where he left offerings in thanks for the resource. In the 16th century other men arrived. They did not need or use the the Monolith's gift and gradually, First Man also no longer used the gift or came to the shrine to make offerings. He too no longer recognized the Monolith and it’s importance.
Now forgotten it still stands, looking out over the vast landscape, taking no notice of man or the changes he makes. The Monolith does not measure time in seconds, minutes, hours or days, it measures time Geologically in millennium and eons, where man is just a blink of the eye.
The back side of the Monolith
The Shrine
The Monolith, an Ode to Animism. © 9/3/17 all rights reserved ™ The Lonesome Prospector