He remembered being born, which, to his disappointment, was not as dramatic as people made it out to be. There were no angels singing, no thunderclaps. Just someone muttering, “This one looks like trouble,” followed by a sharp slap and the discovery that oxygen was both a gift and a curse.
Then came the rock.
The crack of it against his skull was more vivid than the memory of his own first breath. It wasn’t just the pain—it was the indignity of it. Marek had been standing in formation, 18 years old, in an ill-fitting Soviet military uniform. He wasn’t even holding a weapon. They hadn’t been given weapons, just batons, which were utterly useless against the mob of protesters hurling bricks, glass bottles, and, yes, rocks.
He didn’t see it coming. One moment, he was trying to look stern and vaguely authoritative; the next, his world exploded in white-hot pain, and he was on the ground, staring up at the sky while his comrades shouted and scrambled.
The memory faded, only to be replaced by something gentler: school days, when he and his friends played pranks on the grumpy police officers stationed near their classroom. He’d never laughed harder than when one of them tripped over the string they’d tied between two chairs.
And then—the rock again.
He braced for it this time. Surely, this time it won’t hit me. But the memory played out exactly as it had before, with the same humiliating thud, the same skyward collapse.
He tried to push it aside, to focus on happier moments. Meeting his wife at a party. Her laugh was intoxicating, her eyes full of mischief. He’d never been more certain of anything in his life.
Except for the rock.
It came back, uninvited and insistent. This time, the memory lingered longer. He recalled the weight of the helmet he hadn’t been wearing that day. The way his comrades barely glanced at him as they dragged him to safety. The taste of blood in his mouth.
Other memories flickered in and out: missing his first child’s birth because of a late shift, moving to another country for a fresh start, the fear of his first heart attack, the exhaustion of rehabilitation after his stroke. But every joyful or painful moment was rudely interrupted by that damned rock, hammering its way back into his consciousness.
Each time, he noticed more details. The smooth, round surface of the rock. The way it spun lazily through the air, as if it were savoring the journey. The way it seemed perfectly designed—not to impress or dazzle—but to fulfill its singular, unglamorous purpose: to fall squarely on his head.
It wasn’t just a rock anymore. It was a traveler, finally reaching its destination. It hopped and bounced with a kind of gleeful energy, like a bird finding its perch or a squirrel uncovering its long-lost stash of nuts. If rocks could feel joy, this one was practically doing cartwheels.
By the final memory, as Marek lay in his hospital bed, cursing his sore throat, the rock returned one last time. But now, instead of anger or pain, he felt something else. Curiosity.“Actually,” he thought, “that’s a pretty nice-looking rock.”
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