Talent

One of Rian's neighbor's is building a garden wall in his front yard.

He had a enormous pile of sharp basalt stones dumped beneath a tiny tree on the sidewalk strip. In....eh....May. Perhaps May. It has been a very slow going, carefully thought out job. Rian finds it enthralling. How does the man know which stone fits against the next?

What intricacies keep the whole thing from collapsing? Every angle must be chosen carefully, yes? Every edge perfectly balanced.

Rian sat on the pavement next to him for a small chunk of time, today, watching. Attempting to absorb talent by visual osmosis. I would love to be able to casually mesh pieces of basalt into something unbreakable.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Just do," he said. "The fingers and the eye just do."

The plants he has chosen to live behind his garden wall are slowly dying in their pots. Perhaps it is because he has waited so long to put them in the dirt. Secretly, however, Rian suspects the man with the rocky fingers does not have a green thumb.

Afterall, what mad creature plants a delicated clematis in full, glaring sunlight?