HEARTBEAT

Laura Anne Gilman

 

When we think of Kansas, many of us picture flat or gently rolling plains. In Gove County, the land is indeed fairly flat, with the exception of the Chalk Pyramids, also known as Monument Rocks. The rock formations are white or a light tan color—they look like the bones of a giant rising out of nowhere in shapes of towers and bridges and keyholes. The formations are up to seventy feet tall. They are the remnants of an inland sea, made of sediment and ancient seashells that accumulated during Cretaceous Period. To look at these formations is to look at some of the last remnants of an ocean floor from eighty million years ago.

 

The plains of Kansas were once the Niobrara Sea, densely populated with microscopic organisms called foraminera, giant oysters, fish, and sharks. Over time the calcium shells of the foraminera, along with other bones, mineral deposits, and sediment, fell to the bottom of the sea, and as the sea dried up the floor of this ocean became chalk. The Smoky Hill River carved through the chalk and left towering and bizarre formations behind. If you look at the tops of the formations, you are looking up at the last of the Niobrara Sea floor and the beings that inhabited it.

 

These formations are rich in fossils and are also a great place to see birds, particularly kestrels and pigeons (who were, after all, originally known as rock doves). Many Plains Indian tribes considered the site sacred and performed sun dances nearby. Travellers have used these formations as a landmark for centuries. In "Heartbeat", Laura Anne Gilman hints at a troubled link between travellers who would damage the rocks and the rocks themselves. Press your face against the ancient chalk. What do you hear?

 

***

The cows are lowing in the distance. They're mean bastards, the way cows should properly be. None of that dull bovine docility here: they'll judge you before you can pass, and if they find you lacking you're going to have a front fender full of cowhide and dust. Ever have a thousand pounds of living flesh slam into you? You might change your mind about going down that road.

Most, they don't bother. Most, they've got no reason to stop: it’s none of their concern what humans do. Only the curious come down here, past the chestnut-red bulk of cows and the narrow ditches, down the long long road.

There are no signs, no stops, no guards, only the wind, low against the grasses, and the cows. That's all that's here, down this long road. And the remnants of the past, grey chalk pillars sculpted into the pale blue sky. It draws people, fascinates them, moths to a steady flame.

"You can hear your own heartbeat."

You can always hear your own heartbeat. You just have to stop and listen for it. The girl leans against the rock, fitting her body into the hollow worn by wind and time. She places a palm flat against her chest, tilts her head back, closes her eyes. Others have done the same, male and female, young and old. There are other niches worn into the rock, shallow and high, the surface rough against skin. Her hands are cool, spread where the sun's touched stone, and like so many others she thinks she can hear voices, some connection to the past.

There are no voices here.

The boy takes her picture. She smiles at him, and he leans in, presses his arm across her neck, pushes in. She watches him, lets him do it, her hands flat against the rock, chin tilted up. He smiles and steps back, looks up at the sky.

"I'm surprised nobody's tagged this," he says. "Nobody for miles, nothing to stop you from just walking up and doing it."

The girl smiles, her eyes closed now, listening to the wind and the cows and her heartbeat. "So do it."

"What?"

"You want to, don't you? Otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned it."

"I was just wondering…Jesus, no." The boy shakes his head. "No."

He's thinking about it. You can see it in his body, the way he's looking at the rock now, like a canvas, a tool. You can see when he thinks about what he'd write, where he'd place it. How it would feel. You can see when he decides that it would be a terrible idea.

They climb back into their car, too low-slung for the dirt road. They roll down the windows and drive off, taking their heartbeats and leaving the cows.

#

Every now and again, someone makes a different choice. Carving tools, spray paint, chalk, piss, blood. It's all been used against the stones, over time. Layer over layer of defiant human shouts, demanding to be remembered. To scream louder than a heartbeat.

Nothing lasts. The bison die off, domestic cattle eat their grass. The wind hollows the chalk, exposing new faces before calving the old into shards and dust, slowly finishing what the waters began, ages ago. Secrets are revealed and hidden again, sun bleaching bone-white and the moon cooling them to shadows.

There are secrets here, more than the casual visitor would think.

The silence hides the screaming. The wind wipes the marks away. The cows shit into the grasses, and the grasses cover the bones.