Rock Music
By Mark Joseph Kiewlak

(continued)

Again his father went back to reading the paper. Bobby went into the kitchen where his mother was making breakfast. He stood near her elbow as she stirred the pancake batter. "Mom, can rocks talk?"

"What, dear?"

"Rocks," Bobby said. "Can they talk?"

"I've never heard one talk," his mother said. She looked at him the same way his father had. It made him feel dumb.

"But what if, maybe, they could talk," Bobby said. "And they just never had anything to say?"

"What a wonderful imagination you have," his mother said. "Maybe someday you'll grow up to be a science fiction writer."

Bobby hated science, so he ignored most of what she said, although it sounded like a compliment, so he enjoyed that part.

"If the rocks couldn't talk," Bobby said, "how would we know if they had feelings?"

His mother stopped stirring and wiped her forehead in her apron. "That's a good question," she said. "But I'm a little busy right now, dear. Why don't you ask your father about some of these things?"

"Okay," Bobby said.

He went out into the yard and stared at the rock. It just wasn't ready to be moved. It was afraid of the piano the same way Bobby was afraid of it. His mother had been giving him lessons for several months now. She said he had a natural talent. "If I have a natural talent," Bobby said one day, "then why do I have to practice all the time?"

His mother had laughed then in the same way she had laughed earlier. "I don't really know," she said. "I guess you have to practice to refine your gift — so that you use it to its full potential."

"Why?" Bobby said.

"Well," his mother said, "you don't want to waste it. Not everybody is good at everything, but if you're good at something... I don't know, Bobby. You're just supposed to do the things you're good at it."

"Why?"

"Because you're happier that way," his mother said.

Bobby placed his fingertips gently upon the pebbly surface of the rock. Wouldn't it be happier if it could play the piano, too? He stayed outside, wondering about this, trying to figure it all out, until well after dark. At some point his mother called for him to come inside. Bobby wasn't sure how — maybe he'd heard them talking about it, or maybe he sensed it — but he knew that tomorrow was the day they would start tearing up the yard. He didn't know what to do. His mother called to him again. She was getting angry. Bobby bent down and picked up the rock. Without looking at the underside, he wiped it once across the top of the grass and then put it in his pocket. It didn't really fit and it made his jacket sag heavily to one side. When his mother saw him, she knew immediately that something funny was going on. "What's that in your pocket?" she said.

Bobby took out the rock. He felt ashamed for it. He tried to shield it from the bright lights in the kitchen.

"Is that a rock?" his mother said.

"I don't know," Bobby said.

"Is it a pet rock?" she said. "Is that why you were asking me all those questions about rocks?"

"I guess," Bobby said. "I don't know."

"Well don't put it on the kitchen table," his mother said. "Now go get ready for your bath."

Bobby was elated. He took the rock with him into the bathroom and washed it off and dried it. He slept with it under his pillow. But something still wasn't right. The rock belonged downstairs, in the front room.