Set in Stone

Father knew the story about the statues on the edge of the garden.
He would tell it if my brother and I swept out the shop and repeated our times tables through eight. I was never very good at math, so the process was agonizing. Though, on those lucky nights when the shop was clean and eight times nine actually came to seventy-two we would have the story. We sat on the floor after dinner and wrapped into a blanket at our father’s feet as he smoked his evening pipe. He would never tell any story until he had finished his smoking, so we would invariably have to wait. The smoke would roll out of his mouth in grand and buoyant clouds that filled the air with a sweet and oaken perfume. The thickness of the blanket coupled with our natural heat kept us tightly coated in warmth. The combination of conditions was a seductive invitation to sleep and it was at this moment, just when we were about to nod off, that he would begin.
It always began the same way. “This is a true story,” he would say, “but more importantly it is one from your grandfather. It was told to him as he told to it to me as I now tell it to you. Listen closely.” We would nod solemnly and lean closer, almost touching his knees. “When time was new and the sun was young your grandfather’s grandfather was a stone worker for the emperor of a corrupt land. His job was to carve likenesses of the royal guard out of thick, gray stone which were to be placed at every intersection in the city. The street crossings had become the most corrupt areas in the city and the statues were to serve as a reminder of imperial power. His hours were many and the work was slow, but the statues were unmatched in quality. As the figures were dispersed citizens began to report less and less wrongdoing and the city began to shed its crooked stigma. Word of the statues success spread so far as to even reach the dears of the emperor.”
“One day the stone worker was called to the palace for an audience with the emperor. Acknowledging the stone worker’s skill in his craft, the emperor told him of another problem he was desperate to solve. His two sons were vying for the hand of the same girl, each so enamored that they were attempting to kill each other in order to secure their own future with her. The emperor feared the loss of a son and, more importantly, a viable heir, sure that with the success of either son the survivor would no longer be of a high enough moral capacity to rule. The emperor beseeched the stone worker to stop his sons warring just as he had stopped the crime in the imperial city before.
“’Quickly, set them in stone before they destroy themselves and any future I have built for them,’” hissed my father in the hushed and wheezy voice he used when portraying the aged emperor.
“So your great grandfather set to work on his charge. He chose the stone and had it placed on the edge of his garden. He worked every day, chiseling and buffing and hammering until there was no more sunlight left to guide his hands. He worked this way for many months until he finally completed his task. The statues were of the two young sons, each with his sword unsheathed, one coming towards the other from above, and both frozen before either was able to deal a fatal blow. Happy with the outcome, he invited the emperor to view his commission. The emperor, very rarely venturing out from the palace, came to the garden and was pleased with the product of the work.”
It was at this point in the story that father always shifted in his seat and changed his speech and tempo to a more sobering pitch.
“It was unfortunate then that while the emperor had been gone to view his new statues the older of the two brothers had stabbed the younger in his sleep, only secure in his attack with the knowledge that his father would be out for the afternoon. It was also unfortunate that on the way back to the palace the emperor’s caravan was attacked and the emperor himself struck down by raiders who in their previous lives had been less organized criminals living in the city before being forced out. Though, it is perhaps most unfortunate that the statues of the royal guard were never the true deterrents to crime in the city, but were instead a convenient place for the guards to mill about, thus placing a consistent lawful presence in the center of what was previously an arena for corruption and greed.”
Father would always over enunciate those last three words, nearly spitting them out at my brother and me. His words became sharp and ominous, sending shivers down my spine.
“The emperor learned a lesson that day, and so did your great-grandfather. Nothing is ever set in stone. And that’s why we tell the story.”