Velvet Chisel by Ron Runeborg* Susan’s anxiety was beginning to develop into tightened muscles and a light headache. She needed to make a decision or there wouldn’t be enough time to create any memorial much less one perfectly designed. Her father Jack was a kind man, a brilliant man. He’d always been there to support her, even in his worst days, even at the moment of his death he was caring only for her. They’d been through a lot together, but nothing more telling than the accidental death of her mother and two brothers in a horrible freeway crash. She’d crumbled. His pain was at least hers, and yet he held strong to lead her through hell and to a life of joy and purpose. She’d considered hundreds of quotes that might speak for him, Thoreau, Frost, Whitman, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther; even speech from his favorite characters, fact and fiction, the likes of Doc Holliday and Jack Ryan, Jean-Luc Picard and Arthur Pendragon. But after a time it all ran together, each phrase important unto itself, linked to his life and parallel to his intellect, yet lacking in soul and devoid of her love’s expression. It was almost four o’clock; she had no more time to debate, the decision was about to be made for her by default. Susan slipped from her car and walked to the door of Barnard’s Stone Company. The office was empty though she could hear sporadic noises coming from behind a steel door, and so she swung it open, hoping her appointment had not been forgotten and the man she was to meet would be inside. It was the workshop she stepped into, a plain room of concrete and block, it’s walls covered in steel scaffolding wherein were stored slabs of granite and marble, and other textures and colors she didn’t recognize. There was a shirtless man in the room’s center, facing away from Susan at that moment, seated on a tiny stool and surrounded by tools of all shapes and sizes. She thought to say hello, though the man’s dress, or undress startled her a bit. But before she could speak her eyes began to absorb what lay before her. It was a carver she supposed. She’d never seen it done but she could just see the headstone beyond the worker’s massive shoulders, and she watched as his fingers stroked the stone as if it were fragile as spun glass. He reached to his right and retrieved a small rattail file from the mass of picks and prods by touch alone; his head rocked back slightly, twisting left and right as if he were listening to a choir. And then he leaned into the slab and gently worked the file into an unseen crevice, rasping once, then feeling his cut and pondering it’s imperfections. Susan moved a few steps to her left, never taking her eyes off the artisan and his canvas. She lost all peripheral vision, so focused she was mesmerized by the unwitting performance. Now she could see his profile, and as he moved his head, she viewed his face. His eyes were white, he was blind yet he had full use of the environment within his reach. He seemed to know where each of his dozens of tools were laying, and used each with such precision and grace it appeared as if he were a surgeon operating on his own loved one. The words were as simple as they get in the business of death, “Rest In Peace” was all the stone spoke. But the three capitalized letters were done as in the Book of Kells, each blocked face housing a menagerie of birds and mice, clinging to vines and their trumpeting flowers. She nearly fainted when she heard a voice at her back, yet still her eyes never moved. “He’s a marvel miss. Jack’s blind, near deaf and has an IQ no bigger than a breadbox. But he cuts stone as if it was butter. He makes marble sing.” “His name’s Jack?” she whispered, barely able to speak at all. “We call him Jack the Ripper Miss” the man chuckled; “but don’t get the wrong idea. It’s because the only words he can spell are Rest In Peace, so the only carving he does is this, R.I.P. Sorry ma’am, it’s an in house joke, it’s only meant to be funny. This is a somber business, our humor tends to be a bit off color.” Susan smiled. “It is a little” she said; “a little funny. He’s such a gentle man, he works the stone as if it’s flesh, so careful that he doesn’t hurt it in some way.” “To him it may be ma’am” replied the mason, Tom Barnard. “When we have no work commissioned I give him scraps and broken pieces. He hordes them as if they were puppies.” The artist set his tool on the floor, in the exact position from which he’d plucked it. Then he felt his work, sliding his fingers through every cut, following the contours of each animal, each plant. Susan noted his light shivering. “Is he crying?” “He’s mourning the soul who will lie under his work. He’s honoring the stranger who allowed him to present this gift, he’s saying goodbye, in case no one else does.” Susan turned to the shopkeeper and wiped her own tears from her cheeks as he did the same. “He’s my son miss” Tom said; “I’ve watched him for 20 years now and I still tear up.” “Rest In Peace is perfect” she replied, working a slight smile into her offering. “My father will be well blessed by a gift such as this.” *copywrited by Ron Runeborg, 2005. No reproductions without author approval.