There is a green magic about this place. Though much is ruin, enough remains to cue one’s mind to what it used to be. The east side’s outer wall stands with three bridging stones on top; the next inner ring (there are at least three concentric circles in all) is composed of stone slabs which are about half the size of the outer towers—that is to say, still twice my height—then there are two spires that are only as thick and tall as me. As I walked through it, that is to say, the main gate—which the sun pierces at the high summer solstice—I felt moved; I have no idea why, or in what way. I’d forgotten the wonder I had for this place when I was a dreaming boy, until that abrupt moment.Not a flock but a horde of ravens emits a living cacophony of shrieks as one traverses the tunnel that is yet a hundred yards from the henge. It brings to mind dark incantations of druidic rituals, and I muse that maybe these are the shards of spells once heard by these birds’ forebears, that now live only in the ravens’ lore. The way it echoes in the tunnel is so eerie that for a second I actually seriously wonder if they were involved, or still could be. The sun is still not up, though there are predawn rays.
I step out of the rings to survey the stony ruin, now broken into mostly solitary obelisks, again. The ravens continue their surveillance but their watchful cries are drowned out by a new noise. It is the noise of screaming, primal energy; it is constant, and it is power; it is the raw roar of power. For half a second I turned to see what it was, and had I not, I do not know if I could have recognized sounds from a freeway sloped down to me. When you looked at the henge it didn’t sound the least bit mechanized, or intelligible. It was the sound of pure energy, that, despite being intangible, was somehow apprehended by the senses. The power rushes in to answer the summons to this place: it is like water deep in the earth, and Stonehenge is the earth-power’s well. I feel it is being drawn.
I return to the great circle, reflecting on what once had been. I sit next to one of the smallest monoliths, pondering the aura about—and especially the magic within—this place. I notice a single, sable feather in the dewy grass. I consider fingering it, then instinctively look up and see the dark sentinels, not unaware of my intentions. One presiding obelisk stands taller than all others—it was once co-ruler, but its crown and mate have long since fallen. Now they’re broken at its feet. A stone of sacrifice lies near the innermost circle. The epicenter is rough grass, strange and short-shorn between the stones. The stones too are witnesses; and though they are mute, perhaps they know more than the ravens, for they were the very observers. They were there.
The dawn has come, and now the primal roar from the nether fields, broken incantations from the black-winged priests, and a rising ray have pierced the henge to its very center. A throaty hum emits from something deep within the rocks, or maybe the earth. I whirl from stone to stone, seeking its origin. Cries grow shriller, and the ravens flock to the center, spitting curses, bloody curses. Their shrieks and blackness mix with misty light from through the eastern arches; the energy streaming in from all directions, through the arches, draining the earth, almost seems to power these cries into a shadow o’er the stone of sacrifice; yet there is no shape to shade it, nor does the shadow lean on the rock—it hovers in the air. The materializing shadow is pulsating now; it is an ethereal blackness, though transparent. There is a shape to it. I recognize it. A cowled, menacing, cruel cloaked figure—it is a Druid.
I retreat to before the stone where I’d been sitting, but the sounds roar from beyond the circle stones. Spirits rage through the curving corridors, trapping me within the sanctum. I recoil, aghast—pillars rise to former places; missing stones shimmer into reexistence; the two great pillars are reunited, and their immortal crown returns. The Druid smiled in dark satisfaction as awful power and dismal glory rematerialize: Stonehenge was reborn. Then, though the storm of screams continued unabated, a frigid voice pierced mortal blood. The Druid spoke to me.
“My summons is nigh unto complete. And YOU, son of blood and dust, will be the first to face the Fate. Unluckiest of your kind”—here it laughed, convulsing with sadistic glee—“If you cannot defy the unbridled fury of the earth, Our rule will be restored to this world. Again we shall reign from here, from this, Our ancient Throne of Stone. ”
The rasp of its immortal mind assaulted my inner thoughts. My soul was desolation, the world beyond the roaring henge, oblivion. Only a few words in answer required almost all my courage:
“Why me?”
“You are the unlucky one. Every thousandth year the fairest virgin is drawn here, drawn to die at dawn, or defy the earth—this or all the earth will pay.”
Then It grudgingly added,
“Incidentally, your race has never looked better.”
I conceded it graciously, then declared,
“Well then, I shall defy the earth. Let it be now.”
“So be it, mortal. Now,” it continued, “BACKFLIP!”
I was standing amidst the innermost stones; my shadow lay upon the altar whereon other beauties had once been slain. My muscle bulged and burst sleeves; spirit steeled and unknew fear; eyes squinted and pierced time. Rum thing—in retrospect, it was funny—I don’t think the earth was truly against me. She must have claimed me as her own, for as I channeled my thoughts, nether energies convalesced in my corpus and I became pure power overwhelming.
“If I die,” I thought, “this was a good day to die. And if I do not, why then, this was a rad day not to.”
“You bad, cracka, you bad,” mused the Druid, while his head grooved like a voodoo hobbit from MGMT’s “Electric Feel” music video (or maybe an extra from “Renegades of Funk”).
My outstretched arms rose until my hands had traced an arc perpendicular to the trail of the sun, and as my hands touched, all of Earth’s power thundered through my fists and I exploded into the pure Platonic form of backflipness—it was, as if for the first time, known to Earth.
Stones screamed and creation roared—the Druid with his hardcore frown nodded His otherworldly approval—and my feet erupted into a volcanic reverse arching kick, THE Backflip, and I landed levitating on the air an inch above the ground.
“Boom-shuckalucka,” said the Druid, still wearing his sneer of badness.
I nodded curtly in response, “Yeah, Bass.”
“Yeah, Bass.”
“My man.”
(Backhanded Peace Sign + Approving Sneer Back)
“Be cool.”
Then he moonwalked into the mist.
May humanity ever produce such breakdancers, and such backflippers—such heroes.
This is not my story. This is the story Stonehenge told to me. The last thing it showed me was this camera, mostly overexposed to pure awesomeness, which recorded the last half of the single most epic move known to mankind—the backflip that saved the earth. View it well, for it was this that inspired this story.
Sometimes, professors are irreverent.
Then harder to view into a little chapel from the 8th century or something which was around the sweeping, swirling stone road down from the keep, to review my favorite stained glass window I saw that day:
