Behind the horizon, over the earth, and under the sky, there sat a golem—lazy as a mountain. Standing up, it would be tall as the clouds, but it sat. In this state, it looked like a pile of varying cubic stones soaking in the sun because it had no warmth of its own. It looked like the most glorious set of stairs, as the invincible golem sat in the fetal position. Most of all, It looked like a lifeless thing.

And lifeless it remained. It sat like a mountain when it rained, when ice fell from the sky and hurt life, and when it flooded. Flooded so much that everything else died.

It remained when the sun was far too hot, when life shriveled up under its life-giver, and when the world burned. It burned so much that its stone body charred.

It remained when the winds tore living things from their roots and homes, when storms did as storms do, and when the air became nothing but smog. Everyone could only wait to drown within their hubris.

It remained when the earth rumbled, when the earth ate its inhabitants, and when the earth moved. It moved so much, in every which way, that the world simply wasn’t the same.

It even remained during the time of gloom. When the world was simply darkness because evil had won, and good had lost. When the world was as cold as an ice bath. But evil faded into the status quo, and good became a distant memory. So the world was no longer dark, and the golem remained. And so the golem sat.

It heard nothing for a while there, a longer while than a life-filled thing may comprehend. And it never opened its eyes, of course. Because the golem had gotten used to the great darkness, even as it passed. So the golem sat like a blind baby, and the lifeless thing did not breathe. For it was a lifeless thing.

Still, it heard the faintest breath. It wouldn’t be right to compare it to a mouse; that’s rational. To us, it would be like claiming to hear a fly breathing without ever seeing or hearing a fly prior. That’s paranoid. So the golem was in fact, paranoid.

It opened its eyes, and looked towards its knees. On each knee, the golem had—over an incomprehensible amount of time—grown spikes. It had not, however, cut the gaping holes in each. There were large rectangular holes at the bottom of each spike, and smaller imperfect squares scattered about the height.

The lifeless thing—the golem—was curious. It brought its monumental head closer to its knees, and peered through the imperfect squares. In each spike, it saw itself. Well, not quite. They were more round, flexible, and theoretically more squishy. These things yearned and gaped, and yearned and gaped. Quite often, their sounds would be downright grating. They irritated the golem. But its arms were like unconscious logs, so they lived.

Night fell, and so did them. And it soothed the golem so. But they also stopped, seemingly because they were blinded. The golem was soothed, yes. But, it was also bored. Perhaps tasting curiosity was unwise for lifeless things.

The golem looked at their useless forms once more. It saw itself, there was no helping it. So the golem decided to call these beings Its. For now, the golem let their eyes close. When morning came, the golem let them open their mouths.

The next day the Its woke up, ate, carved, ate, carved, ate, and slept. Most of them anyway. The small Its ran around and hit each other, or hid, or even did nothing at all. The shriveled Its just sat, slept, and sometimes coughed.

The cycle—called “steps to nowhere” on account of strange stairs they spent too much time carving—repeated for quite a long time. And the golem found itself resenting the shriveled Its, and the small Its too. For the golem’s taste, they were much too arrhythmic. The golem liked steps to nowhere, though, particularly for its charming pointlessness.

The golem let them live for a long while. But through no fault of his own, the shriveled Its began to stop being. They shriveled like the roots when the world burned. Those shriveled, unmoving Its were then thrown off the golem’s knees. They turned to rotten strawberry pulp below. They never learned to stop this.

The small Its too, were leaving. They were stupid creatures. They ran too fast, too much, and too far. Inevitably, they fell off the golem’s knees too. They hit the ground running, and each turned to smushed raspberry drupelets. Many learned to stop this. Many small Its were prevented from leaving their spikes to run because of it.

And the golem was fine with it. With either happening, the golem would see less arrhythmia. But then the normal Its fell too. When building the stairs, some would be clumsy. Many would simply fall and turn to dead Its below. They got better, of course. But they never learned to stop building stairs. So they never learned to stop falling. The golem couldn’t quite comprehend why they fell. It hadn’t fallen, or even stood for too long. Too long for even a lifeless thing to remember.

The steps to nowhere continued. Until one day—The first time in too long—it rained. It rained like the stars had burned out, and turned to oversized droplets as they fell. It was fast too. Fast like arrowheads.

Immediately, the rain made the Its—Normal, shriveled, and small alike—fell like kingdoms. They fell until they created the vague portrait of a red fruit below. They were going extinct, and this saddened the golem. It had gotten used to their cycles and stairs.

So for the first time in too long, the golem’s arms became conscious. The golem lifted its arms, and held them over its knees, and spikes, and therefore Its. The golem held its arms over the Its still as the night sky. The golem’s arms remained until the stars stopped burning out.

The golem moved its arms to its side, and looked at the Its. The Its did not acknowledge their savior, but the golem saw them alive. They were already back to building stairs. The golem simply had not seen their cycle since before the rain. And the golem realized how it missed their cycle.

Naturally, the golem was worried. The golem realized they were not safe here—wherever they are. The golem looked at the Its like they were children one final time. Then, the golem began to stand up without a single thought in the world, for it was a lifeless thing.

The earth moved, and the earth could not hear breathing. Screams would’ve been no better, fainter than even the air. So the earth moved, carved out of stone. The ground made grating sounds alongside every step.

The earth wandered over high ridges, and low valleys. It walked between earth and sky. It climbed over spikes upon the earth’s crown. The earth moved until it came to an earth’s mountain range. It was way too large to walk over. But the golem continued walking, for it was the earth. For it was a lifeless being.

The earth moved, and the earth tripped. The earth fell upon its knees and crushed its spikes, producing dust and sand. The golem sat there for a long while, unmoving. It sat there too long for any living being to remain. It was sad.

It was some time later when the golem finally stood. Immediately it sat back into the fetal position, and looked upon its knees. There was nothing there except for dust and sand. The Its were no more, and so were their spikes, and so were their stairs.

So the golem began to think that the Its were never there. It did not see any spikes, nor any red or dead Its. Perhaps they had never lived in the first place. Perhaps they had never built any stairs. Perhaps Its don’t fall. The earth did not move; it sat, it remained.

Aiven Furman

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