Asakiyume mita

I'll have a story coming out eventually in Not One of Us in which a stone is enlisted as a therapist. I sent the story to oiktirmos (we had been corresponding about stones), and he sent me a wonderful article from the Seattle Times about stones being used as confidantes by heroin addicts in Kyrgyzstan: "Addicts in Kyrgyzstan Fight to Break Heroin's Grip, Armed with Stones."

The stones not only accept the people's confessions, they also take on all the negative things that the people associate with their addiction. Then, after a month of treatment, people walk to the top of a hill and throw the stones down it:

About 5,000 addicts have thrown their stones at this place over the past decade, according to the clinic, forming a heap representing those thousands of stories of pain and struggle with addiction. Not all the rocks were thrown there by addicts, though; local residents with problems unrelated to narcotics also heave rocks at the site.

The article mentions a legend of the area, also related to rocks. The conqueror Tamerlane, leaving on a campaign, instructed his troops to bring a stone and drop it in a particular valley. On the way back, they were to retrieve a stone. The stones left over represented those who had not made it back from the campaign.

All in all, an interesting story. Many thanks, Oiktirmos!

I leave you with some images from a Japanese museum of stones with faces. (Source is This Is Colossal)



This one is labeled "Presley"