Unknown to me.

Guests -- unknown to me, familiar with the table. Sunlight spills onto wood, fading into the grain with passing clouds -- unknown to me. A fly, a housefly, crouches, prays in the shadow near my open book of empty lines and inky etch. Smoke spools skyward, stopped by the ceiling, floating out the open door, from the nostrils of mustached men, smooth faced men, stubble faced men -- unknown to me; my face is shaven. A large glass bottle, half empty, holds tomato sauce and residue upon its cap. One small fork with back bent spine and faded sterling sits a companion; the odd couple. Dragonfly alights on cement post, fans its wings to the sun.

On this day a school visit. A hill ascent. Blue shirts dark against the sky on clear afternoons, trousers a shade darker. Students stand beneath the peepal tree. The body above matches the body mass below -- stretching, sprawling. The future of a nation rests in the branches, the eaves of past growth, and rests from a climb to top of a hill. They stare at me, a stranger. Their ideas -- unknown to me.

A river stone.

Monsoonal waters have prevented most swimming other than that which can be done at the edge, but a pool made by a change at a fork in the river, a fork that formed two narrow tines, two slivers of creek, set an offering. Here at this edge we dunked beneath the heat and into a cool still. We bathed, shared a single bar of soap; Sarasvati and her cousin on one side, Joseph and I on the other. Nepali boys scampered across the rocks and boulders tossing fishing nets. The sun moved west, a late afternoon herald. Time moved. Joseph and I stood at the bank looking to the opposite shore. We hurled stones across the waterway torrents, I from a boulder and he from the ground. In a step from atop, a twist at my torso, my ribs, and a hurl through the air. Legs, back, shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers, release. Spinning from the side, slicing through the air, gaining curve and sinking to the earth.

*Crack*

Stone meets stone.

From here on my stone; river boulder, sun baked tower. A grunted toss that bears me to baseball mitts and leather cracks from cowhide communication. For a moment I am free. No poverty; economic disparity. Barefoot, and a pair of blue shorts, my skin offered to the air -- the sun, the star of the Milky Way at my back. I reach down, my fingers grapple, grip another from the pile at my feet. A smooth stone, a river stone. Legs, back, shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers, release. Synapses, muscle transfers -- in this moment, all that I want to know.

*Crack*

Stone meets stone.