Free Runt by Niall Griffiths

down below and drag them up here and all for what purpose? For reasons never to be known, to only be guessed at somewhere between signposts and objects of calendral, calicrend, cal
endrical
reverence and you know what the odd thing is? What the real puzzle is?
    No Drunkle no but I did not say the word.
    —It’s that
we
put these stones up, me and you, and we haven’t got the first fucking clue now why we ever bothered. We have the same blood still in us, or some of it anyway, as the people who put these things up and we’ve forgotten everything we ever learned in those times. We don’t have the first bastard clue any more, do we? No, we don’t. Cairns, for instance; what do they
mean
? Placed on summits or ridges so everyone could see them but what the fuck for? Ashes have been found in cairns, bones as well, and beakers. Cups, like, y’know? And in these cups they’ve found evidence of intoxicants. Cannabis even.
    Drunkle grinned big and waved his sloshy bottle at the High Parts around again. I saw him grin and the whiteness of his teeth inside the orangeness-made shadow around his head.
    —Intoxication, bach, eh? So many kinds of that. See, over in England, when Christianity came, they linked these stones with the Devil.
    Three times slap again pat pat pat.
    —Here, tho, they’re linked with people. We link them with
people
, see? With
us
. With me and you. With your Mam and with Fay and with fucking Arthur even. With everyone. And they make my fucking head spin , boy, they make me drunk, like, and d’you wanner know why? Cos they tell us of mankind’s perception of itself; they show us how we have viewed ourselves at different stages in our evolution. So, see, in the Middle Ages these stones were put up by magic and a race of ancient giants, but now we see them as Stone Age computers, like the one at my house that shows you Llyn Tegid. We’ve always said that some of these stones spin or dance or swim, often at important times of the year. We say that, if removed, they will return. We say that they can grow.
    Not dinosaurs or spaceships but wizards and computers then moving towards each other. Moving towards each other across these High Parts and when they meet oh when they meet. Stones going spinny like my head and doing a dance like I did when I left the school everything moving together all Times together and oh when they. What will happen when they.
    Drum drum went the rain.
    —We talk about a race of giants who hurled rocks about as pebbles. Druidic altars or worship stones! Sacrifice stones at which dreadful wails can be heard! Pain and sadness! Pain and sadness! Witches’ covens meet within these circles, we say. And did you know, at a place called Y Meini Hirion in 1958, they exhumed skeletons of cremated children, both eleven years old. Eleven! Pain and sadness, boy!
    Oh Drunkle please do not shout please bring your voice down again so that it does not bounce off these High Parts and them rocks like an eleven. Eleven eleven. All Times All Things they come together and them rocks like an eleven go right up to the sky.
    —And why? What were they doing there? Petrified criminals, these stones could be! Bad people turned to rock by the hardness of their hearts! Dolmens built to hide the treasure of the Teg, the Tylwyth Teg! Shapeshifters! Descendants of pre-Christian gods! Entities driven out by Wesley’s men because to them the Teg were from Hell! They lured young people into dancing and drinking. Aw Jesus, got to stamp that out. And Christ the Teg had their own language! Didn’t speak English! Can’t have that, no, stamp it out! Talk like us!
    Rain’s speaking drumming drumming one of the speakings of the sky. A speaking of the falling water on the tent pat pat and a speaking of Arrn’s breathing and it All Coming Together all Times meeting
on
me and
in
me turning into one Just One.
    —Da yw’r maen gyda’r Efengyl, Drunkle said and in my head I said oh Drunkle please stop these words of