Rock Sits For 800 Million Years Only To Be Thrown Badly By Rioter

“I don’t really know how to react,” admitted the rock, “but I’ll probably have plenty of time to ruminate on it.”

Nebi Saleh, March 30 – A broken-off portion of dolomite outcropping that lay untouched for eons as species evolved and went extinct around it, ecosystems shifted, civilizations grew and disappeared, and other geological features developed and eroded, finally experienced being acted upon by a human today, when a Palestinian youth grasped the half-kilo formation and hurled it toward a group of Israeli soldiers, missing by two dozen meters. It anticipates remaining where it landed for another dozen million years at least.

A group of Palestinian youths engaged in their almost-daily customary confrontations with Israeli soldiers today, under the leadership and inspiration of the Tamimi clan, whose blond-haired, blue-eyed teenage daughter Ahed has attracted Western media and activist attention and galvanized anti-Israel sentiment. Today a twelve-year-old from a family living not far from the Tamimis joined the rioting for the first time, defying his parents to participate in the excitement, and in the process dislodged a piece of shale from near his home at the edge of a barren hillside ill-suited for either housing or farming. The rock he selected became exposed eight hundred million years ago after rain and other forces eroded the chalk that once covered the landscape, and it remained part of its mother formation until further erosion caused it to break loose from that formation approximately 40 million years ago; it remained next to the rest of the dolomite rock even as debris covered it and kept it from eroding away, finally regaining exposure to the air, sunlight, and rain during the Mameluk period. There it sat until the tweenager picked it up today and threw it awkwardly, providing the rock with an anticlimax to its storied existence.

“I don’t really know how to react,” admitted the rock, “but I’ll probably have plenty of time to ruminate on it.”

Colleagues of the rock have seen significantly more action in their lengthy lifetimes, notably a chunk of limestone currently a stone’s throw away that was once part of a Natufian home, a Canaanite altar, an Israelite terrace-farming wall, and a road marker of unknown provenance. It also has been thrown at least twenty times by Nebi Saleh rioters, even hitting an IDF vehicle three of those times. In earlier times the rock, which other stones have asked to write its memoirs, as they have no shortage of idle time in which to read, also served as a projectile in a clash between rival herdsmen vying for grazing rights in the area.

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