When the Sun Fell: A Folktale from the Stones and Waterfalls
When the Sun Fell: A Folktale from the Stones and Waterfalls
I am Stone, keeper of the riverside.
For a thousand seasons I have watched the Waterfall lace silver threads through the air. Together we have held the memory of forests, the echoes of fishermen, the weight of quiet mornings.
One day, the sky trembled. A bird of metal passed above us, trailing a shadow heavy as sorrow. From its belly dropped a seed of light. It struck with the roar of ten thousand thunders. The air burned white; the river leapt as steam.
I felt myself crack from the inside. My grain — once only iron and sand — learned strange new names. Invisible spirits slid through my veins, whispering secrets too sharp for mortals. Waterfall, too, was wounded: her spray tasted bitter, and her mist clung to my surface like unseen teeth.
People came later, their faces pale, their hands trembling. Some drank and sickened; others turned away, afraid of what they could not see. We wanted to warn them, but stones speak slowly, and water’s language is hard for ears shaped of flesh.
At dusk, I told Waterfall,
“Once fire was friend to cooking pots and hearths. Now humankind has taught it to swallow worlds.”
She sighed, a long silver sigh. “Perhaps they will learn,” she said, “that not every secret of the stars should be pulled to earth.”
So we keep watch still, stone and falling water, remembering the day the sun fell and changed even the grain of the earth.
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