Above that sign I saw the usual shields for the Kiwanis Club, Rotary, and the Lions Club. Needless to say, I expected to find the normal American small town life with its usual folksy novelties that amuse newspaper readers in the big cities. As it turned out, I stumbled on a series of events that no newspaper will print as a news story. For that reason, I had to resort to publishing this story in an anthology of science fiction and fantasy. In using the guise of fiction, I have changed the name of the town to Howtown in honor of E.E. Cummings' famous poem, and withheld the state in which I found it.

I, the roving reporter, far from home, obeyed the signs and slowed down to 45, then 35, as the highway became Main Street. Far from home is just a figure of speech, for I no longer had a home to be away from. My wife and I had gotten divorced about a year ago. I should have known it would happen. I suppose I did in a way. It happens to everybody. Inevitable as death and taxes. The children are adjusting as far as I know. I don't get to see them much, but then I never did before the divorce thanks to the job I've got.

Howtown looked like an ordinary town all right. The usual storefronts and shoppers and children walking from school were as they should be. But right off the bat there was a jarring note. In the middle of the sidewalk on Main Street, just outside a hardware store, a large rock was blocking the pedestrian traffic. I parked the car and got out for a closer look. The rock was about the size of a fat man and made me think he was putting his arms around his ample belly. Not that the shape was all that articulate. Several veins of different colors ran through the rock and at the top, they formed a likeness of a flushed human face. If it was a placed on the sidewalk as a work of art, then it failed in its purpose, for nobody else looked at it and, speaking as a man in the street who doesn't care for modern art, this stone wasn't worth looking at for aesthetic pleasure. The odd thing was, people squeezed by on one side or the other without seeming to see anything unusual about it. If it had been put in place during the middle of the night by a group of adolescents playing a joke on the town, one would think that city hall would be taking steps to remove it. Maybe it was one of those idiosyncracies that some small towns have that the natives were so used to that they didn't even notice it. I figured I could check out that hypothesis pretty quickly.

Curious as the next reporter, I stopped a pedestrian to ask some questions.

"Sir?"

"Yea."

"Would you mind explaining the - uh - unusual stone you have on the sidewalk?"

The man shrugged his shoulders.

"What about it?" he asked.

"Well, it is - not what one usually finds on a sidewalk. Mind you, it's as handsome a stone as I've ever seen. It would look great if you mounted it in the middle of your park."

"'Spose it would."

"Then why is it here?"

"You new here?"

"Well, yes, I am. I'm the roving reporter for the Metropolis Metropolitan News. It's my job to be interested in what I find on my travels."

"You can be as interested as you like."

The man walked away before I could ask him anything more. Here he had the chance to see his name, not just in the local sheet, but in a big city newspaper with a circulation of over a million readers, and he turned it down. (I assume the reader has realized that I am withholding the real name of my newspaper by means of an allusion to the Superman myth. I don't want to provoke my boss into acting like Perry White.)

Feeling slightly dejected but undaunted, I started back to the car. On the way, I noticed that in the driver's seat of a parked car, there was yet another stone, much like the one on the sidewalk. It could have been a dummy put in the car for a violent driving test. But a stone dummy? What was this all about? I wondered. Standing by the parking meter was a meter maid. She wasn't a bad-looking woman, either. She finished writing up the ticket and slapped it on top of at least half a dozen other parking tickets that had already been stuffed into the windshield.

"Think you'll ever get him to pay it?" I asked her pleasantly, relishing my sarcasm.

"He'd better. Or we'll repossess his TV to replace the one in our officer's lounge."

"Oh, I see." Although I didn't see. "Looks like the owner of that car has been a bit careless, or something."

"Or something."

"Uh -- do you have very many of these large stones in odd places in this town?"

"I suppose so."

Before I could ask her anything more, she headed for the next delinquent car, with the air of one who has finished the conversation, such as it was. When I reached my own car, I found another of her parking tickets on my windshield. Never before had I felt so happy about holding a parking ticket in my hands. I would have the privilege of dealing with the meter maid again. For my story, I'll call her Rita in honor of the Beatles great album that changed rock music.

By this time, I was starting to have that rush of excitement that comes about half a dozen times in a reporter's life. This rush was stronger even than the one I had the day I interviewed the weeping inhabitants of a town hit by a tornado. I made a beeline for the nearest hotel and registered for a room. It was the usual shabby, but neat small town hotel. But instead of the garrulous and friendly type of woman at the desk, I got the cordial but distant type.

As soon as I had unpacked, cleaned up and changed my clothes, I went out for a walk to see if I really was going to get my paper's hotel bill's worth of a story. First I went into the drugstore. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Just a pharmacist behind a counter and a clerk at another cash register. I picked up a copy of the local rag and began to skim the articles, looking for some mention of the mysterious stones.

"Are you going to buy that paper?" asked the woman at the cash register in a tired voice.

"Maybe. I wanted a quick look to see if there's anything I want to read up on."

"In this town, you don't get to read the paper for free."

"Oh, I see. Fair enough."

So I paid for the newspaper and a couple packs on cigarettes. After all, everything went on my expense account.

Next, I tried the hardware store since it had the rock just outside it. Everything inside, however, looked normal enough. I feigned an interest in some screwdrivers, then quietly slipped out. I walked around the stone, passed the car with the stone in the driver's seat, then sauntered into a shoe store.

Here I struck a gold mine for my news story! Sitting upon the remains of a crushed chair, and right next to a customer who was trying on his new shoes, was another large stone, veins of lovely colors and all! Stranger yet, the customer seemed not to notice the stone at his elbow any more than he might have noticed a fat man struggling in and out of a pair of shoes that took his fancy. When the salesman brought him a box of fresh- smelling shoes, he sat down before the customer as if the stone belonged there.

I examined the stone as if it were a modern sculpture placed in a museum of what is called modern art. It had the smooth facelessness with which the human form is often portrayed these days by artists. Anonymity of modern life and all that. Either that, or laziness on the part of artists who don't want to do any work. I wondered if Howtown was an unlikely center of environmental avant-garde art. That would make an interesting story!

"May I help you?" asked another salesman.

"Uh - yes," I said. "That's a most interesting sculpture you have in your store here. It's not usual to find a work of art in a common ordinary shoe store--"

"We sell shoes here, Sir."

"I realize that. But I couldn't help noticing this stone--"

"We have a special today on Gopher sports shoes, perfect for any active sport that suits your fancy."

"Uh - no thank you. Maybe another time."

"Okay. Have a nice day."

Well, I was having more than a nice day. I was having an extraordinary one. And the people of Howtown didn't even seem to know how unusual their town was.

By this time, I was becoming a reporter-turned-detective, resolved to get to the bottom of the mystery. But I would have to be cunning. It was becoming clear that I would get nowhere by asking people about the stones. However, a reporter can find a way around any human obstacle for the sake of good copy.

For dinner that night, I went to one of the local bars, a sure place to pick up some local gossip and get a line on what's up in town. I ordered a gin and tonic. You see, I always need a drink or two or three in the evening. I tried engaging a grizzled man on the next stool in a conversation but he answered my questions in monosyllables as if he had never learned to talk.

"You new here?" the bartender asked me when he handed me my second drink.

"Yea."

"Looking for work or something?"

"Or something."

"Came to the right place. Most places need help."

"Oh?"

I hadn't thought much about the "Help Wanted" signs I had seen.

"Funny thing."

"Why?" I asked.

"All of a sudden, everybody's short of help."

"You too?"

"Yea, just yesterday, my assistant didn't show up. Called his pad -- no answer. Guess he skipped town."

"Do a lot of people leave for the big city?"

"Guess so."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rita sit down on a stool several places down. She looked dejected and lonely, as if needing the attention of an unattached man. I waved to her when the bartender moved on to another customer. She seemed to recognize me, but she didn't wave back. Obviously, I wasn't going to get a date with her that night, but at least I knew where I could find her. I figured I could bring her round in a day or two. Maybe I would just park my car at an expired meter and wait for her to come.

After my third drink, I ordered my supper and ate it when it came, such as it was. While eating, I kept looking around without seeing anything newsworthy. But then, just as I was leaving, I got quite a turn. At one of the tables, a young man, a hick if there ever was one, was babbling about tractors and cross-breeding of plants to - believe me if you can - to a stone. It was a rather petite-looking stone -- it almost looked as if it had rouge over its "face", if you can call something blank a face.

"Suzy!" cried to poor young man, "why aren't you answering me?"

The stone, of course, said nothing.

"But I'm speaking about our future together--I mean--if you'll let us have a future together--and I thought you--why are you looking away?"

Here was something I could not pass by. I cautiously approached the table.

"Excuse me."

"Huh?"

"Uh, I was just wondering--you see--I am rather interested in works of art in odd places--for example I once visited a shoe store that displayed potato carvings--and I was curious about this fine work of art across from you at the table. Did you make it yourself?"

"I - I was just talking to my Suzy, sir, and she seems to have gone off to the restroom and left me. Like she -- she hasn't been back for thirty minutes--and you know--it's an old trick that women play when they want to dump a boyfriend."

"So I see. And you are coping with your loss by exerting your artistic talents?"

"My what?"

"Your--well--did you make this fine sculpture to express your sorrow?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I was just admiring this."

I pointed to the stone. The young man just shrugged.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

The waitress came and cleared the plates without giving any indication that she noticed the stone seated at the table or thought there was anything unusual about it. I left the bar, wondering all the more what was really going on in Howtown.

I slept little that night. Pages and pages of copy flipped through my mind. The possibilities for the most sensational news story in years were boundless! I even had a waking dream wherein I received the Pulitzer Prize for my original work in journalism. I saw myself rising up to receive the reward, all calm and collected. No unseemly jumping and down with excitement for me.

The next morning, I was up bright and early, ready to pursue my investigations. I had a decent breakfast at a greasy spoon where nothing new turned up. Then I started walking about the residential areas while the kids were walking to school. They seemed normal enough: pushing and shoving, beating up on each other and all that. It looks brutal to indulgent adults, but you have to fight your way through life and it's just as well to learn that early. Kids aren't as innocent as we like to think.

Needless to say, I had my eyes out for stones and it wasn't long before I found one right on the front lawn of a white wood-frame house. Anybody could have lived there. There was no mistaking the stone for a normal decoration, for embedded in the stone was the handle of a lawn mower. It looked as if the stone had devoured half of it and lost interest. Not only that, but the grass had been cut only as far as the lawn mower. The remainder of the lawn was beginning to look like a wild field. Up on the front porch there was a pile of newspapers that had not been picked up. A couple of boys passing by each threw of wad of well-chewed gum at the rock, hit the mark pretty well, and passed on.

After that, I started staring into picture windows as best I could without looking like a Peeping Tom. It would be hard to explain to a policeman that I was looking for rocks. I was rewarded by the sight -- I'm sure of it -- of a large stone sitting in front of a window, as if it was somebody's grandmother.

Armed with this new data, I went back downtown for the next phase of my inquiry. First I went to the public library and asked for a sheaf of back issues of the Howtown Gazette. The librarian, a handsome middle-aged woman, was surprised at my request, but also seemed flattered at my interest in her humble town. In fact, I had a rather good talk with her. She complained that book circulation was lower than it had ever been and the city had cut the library budget.

"You know, people really should read more," she said. "It helps us to understand life and to cope with the problems we run into."

"Yes, reading is the key to life," I said. Of course, I don't say that to illiterates I'm trying to get information out of. "Do you--uh--think people in town are having more problems than they might have otherwise because they aren't reading?"

"I'm sure of it. Just the other day a girl cried over my shoulder because her parents were splitting up and she didn't know which one to live with."

"I see."

Good thing my kids didn't have to make such a choice, thanks to my life- style.

"You mean families even break up in a town like this, where one might think the old-fashioned values are still honored?"

"Sometimes I think no values are honored," sighed Marian. You see, after Meredith Wilson's The Music Man, there's no other name for a librarian, even though this one wasn't as stuck-up as the one in the musical. "It's like--everybody was turning into stone?"

"Stone?" I cried.

But Marian disappointed me.

"Well, in a matter of speaking."

I was still sorely tempted to ask her about the stones, but I held my tongue. I wasn't ready to risk another denial of what I could see with my own eyes.

I read through a sheaf of back issues and found not the slightest hint that stones were appearing in unusual places. One could have thought there wasn't a stone or a rock in the whole county. This bit of research was far from useless, however. Absence of data is data of a sort.

I then made my bold entrance into City Hall and asked to speak with the mayor. As is often the case in these sleepy towns, the mayor was napping at his desk but was most pleased to find that somebody actually wanted him. I flattered him with my interest in his "typical" American town and how I wanted the readers in the big city to know how important small town culture was to the country. As a result, I got the key to the city, so to speak.

The first place where I took advantage of my new clout was the local school. Every reporter knows that kids are thrilled to meet with the press. It makes them feel grown-up and important. Even more to my purpose, kids aren't as guarded in their comments, and I could take advantage of that. I went straight to the principal, a staid but friendly man who should have retired five years ago. With the mayor's letter of introduction and my charming comments on how nice it would be for my readers to learn that this country still had some good clean-cut kids in it, I was given permission to visit Miss Finchley's fifth-grade class.

As the principal lead me to the classroom, I saw that I was still on the track of the mystery. Right in the hallway, I passed by a stone standing before an open locker with papers and books littered all round it.

"Nice art works you have," I remarked to the principal.

"Yea," he said sourly, "have to ask the janitors scrub them off the walls all the time."

So I could see, once it was called to my attention, but as far as the stones were concerned, the principal proved to be part of the conspiracy of silence.

After being introduced to Miss Finchley and tactfully ignoring her suspicious look, I was brought into the class room filled with noisy children who suddenly became quiet once they realized the teacher was back. Having done a turn around in her attitude towards me in a few seconds, she explained my mission without disguising the flush of pleasure this was giving her. Then she asked me to speak to the class about how a newspaper reporter did his work, which I did.

The joy the children showed over putting away their math books so they could listen to me was most gratifying. To demonstrate my work, I did several interviews right in front of the class. What to you like about Howtown? What don't you like about it? What would you do if you were mayor? (One boy said he would make the drugstore give candy and comic books for free.) Do you think people treat each other better in a small town than in a big city? (Yes, we don't shoot people in the streets all the time.) Would you rather live in New York? (No way, Jose, said one girl.) Then I took the plunge. Does anything unusual ever happen in a small town like yours? Do you wish it did? One girl seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but held back. The rest of the kids shrugged their shoulders. Life goes on. They get through it somehow. Nothing special about it. A house burning down is exciting but that happens everywhere. The Fourth of July parade is pretty good and so are the fireworks. Not promising answers, but I took the final plunge anyway. I told them about the Standing Stones that ancient men put up for their worship and such like, then asked them what they thought of the Standing Stones in their own town.

"We don't worship stones," said one boy. "The Bible says: Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

"I know that," I said. "And I didn't say you were worshiping stones. I just said you have stones like the ones a few people worshiped in the real old days."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said the boy.

"We just have stones like everybody else," said a girl.

"Miss McGuffy has a nice stone on her front yard," one boy said.

"Where does she live?" I asked.

He told me. It wasn't the house I had seen already. There really was something going on in this town.

"What do you think of the stone?" I asked.

"It's okay."

And so it went. The girl who had almost said something before said nothing the second time round. But she seemed to have a lot on her mind. Was she the one who was confiding her problems to Marian Librarian?, I wondered. The bell rang. School was out for the day. Everybody happy. I thanked Miss Finchley profusely and she glowed with appreciation for my coming. I got away from her as fast as I could and got into the press of kids collecting their books and hightailing it out of the building. I turned on the mike for my cassette that has a far greater range than you might think. After Watergate and all, I probably should feel guilty about bugging the chatter of a bunch of kids, but I figured my newspaper story was worth it.

When I played back that part of the tape, I was disappointed, especially after the events that came between leaving school and getting back to my hotel room. It was just the usual stuff like: Wanna come to my house and play? Bug off, willya? and: I can meet you at the drugstore if you want. I'll see if I can get around to it. No wonder there were hurt looks all round when I followed some kids out the door.

Looking about the schoolyard, I tried to take stock. I noticed, for the first time, that there was another stone standing off to the side of the baseball field. It had just the sag of a boy watching and wishing the other kids had allowed him to play. Mind you, it was just the suggestion of this shape. At the time, I thought my imagination was playing tricks, like when we see shapes in the clouds.

But suddenly I found out what was really going on, only I couldn't believe it. Three larger boys were beating up on a smaller one. That was believable, of course. Most other kids were ignoring the spectacle. A few egged on the assailants. Nobody tried to help. But then one attacker and then another cried "Ouch! And they stopped hitting their victim. Suddenly they found themselves hitting a bent-over stone! It had pretty veins of color like the other ones and a sense of twisted agony as if a skilled artist had shaped it.

"Let the baby be that way," scoffed one of the boys.

"Can't take a little fun," said another.

And they walked away, perfectly satisfied with themselves.

So that was it! I suppose I should have guessed all along that the stones were people who had been--well--turned into stone. I can't blame them really. I went up to this stone that had just been a persecuted schoolboy. I could sense there was life within, but not very much. I wasn't about to touch it or anything. After all, if I managed to turn it back into a boy, he would just get beaten up again. Or he might get dependent on me. Besides, when you're busy collecting data for a sensational story, you can't take time to get involved.

I went back to my room and tried to think. People were disappearing and turning into stones. That seemed to explain why the bartender said everybody needed help these days. But why was nobody saying anything about the missing persons? I thought again of the back papers I had read that morning. No, not one missing person article in the lot. That was strange for a small town. Especially in the case of children. Usually you would find the kid's smiling face in the paper accompanied by a plea for vigilance and their return.

So I thought some more. The first unusual thing going on was that stones were appearing in the town in the oddest of places. The second unusual thing was that nobody seemed to notice that they were there or that there was anything unusual about the matter. The third unusual thing was that nobody seemed to miss those people who turned into stone. Except for those three matters, it seemed to be a perfectly normal town where people acted just the way people act in New York or Applesauce, Nebraska. The question that posed itself to me was: Is this town really all that normal? Stones do not appear inexplicably in other towns or cities? Why here? What is the difference? I would have to look into that.

I left the hotel and walked about downtown in a daze. Mostly, I was looking for more stones. I found them. In spite of my detachment, some of them were too much for me. An anonymous stone right in the hotel lobby didn't bother me, and neither did a stone behind the counter of the drug store. Since that stone might have been the woman who had demanded I buy the newspaper I was reading, I felt satisfied with the poetic justice of it. She was a stone before she turned into one. Might as well become what she already was. But then I saw a stone standing by one of the parking meters. There could not doubt it was Rita, since the book of parking tickets was sticking out from the stone. Only then did I realize how badly I had been looking forward to seeing her in the bar that night and was hoping I might get a little more conversation out of her. Well, there are more women where she came from.

I strolled in and out of the dime store. Nothing you can get there for a dime except a stick of gum these days. Somewhere, in the cheap clothing section I found another stone with something like an arm sticking out of it with a sweater wrapped about it. Then I saw the girl -- the girl who had almost said something worth while during my interview in front of the class. The girl was alone and she looked lonely.

"Uh - hello."

She recognized me, and in spite of what the papers say, she assumed she could trust me because I was a reporter and had interviewed her already. People seem to think that reporters are too busy writing about criminals to have time to do any criminal acts.

"Hello," the girl answered back.

"Uh - may I ask you another question about Howtown?"

"Yes."

She brightened up just a little.

"Have you noticed these--stones--all about the town?"

"Yes," she said gravely.

"What do you think they are doing here?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Stones don't do anything, do they?"

"Well, I suppose not," I replied. "Any idea of how it's happening?"

Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears. If I had been a minister or something, I might have put an arm around her, but since I was a reporter, I just waited for her reply. I never got it. Instead, she ran out of the store.

What a frustrating experience for a reporter when, for the first time in his life nobody will talk to him about what is worth putting into the papers! I was moving out of the store as fast as I decently could without seeming to follow the girl when I saw that yet another stone had just appeared at the check-out counter. A woman was yelling at the stone for not taking her money and making her move into another line. This made her late in getting home. It was ruining her whole day. I was glad to get outside the store and out of earshot of her!

By this time things were getting out of hand fast. Now there were three stones on the sidewalk up Main Street. Was this a new epidemic, worse than AIDS, and all the more dangerous because nobody was even admitting that the disease existed? Maybe I could call it the Lythosyndrome? I could even name the disease after me and go down in history, just like Dr. Parkinson! On the other hand, I was beginning to wonder how contagious this disease was. Might I succumb to it before I got to publish my groundbreaking article on it? I brushed these worries aside, as does the war correspondent who assumes the enemy bombs won't get him since he is only a reporter.

Since it was getting towards dinner time, I walked over to the bar I ate in the night before. I didn't have much appetite, but I sure needed some drinks to get through the next few hours. Perhaps this time the bartender would talk more, now that he was getting to know me. And there he was, behind the counter. But I didn't get that far. I stopped, dead in my tracks at the table where I had seen the young man talking to a stone the night before. Now there were two stones seated across from each other. I fled to my room with neither drink nor supper. I was seeing enough without having to have any drinks make me hallucinate even more.

I paced around my room over half the night, while stopping to scribble down notes as they occurred to me. I kept asking myself: What is different about this town besides the stones? Is the behavior of these people any different from what you see anywhere else? I reviewed every personal encounter I had experienced or witnessed time and time again. There was no question about it. The people of Howtown were acting very normally indeed.

Next morning, I still felt tired, but I was filled with enough nervous energy to go out and tackle this mystery. I looked over my notes and made my plans for the morning. I bounded out of my room and down the stairs. Seeing a stone at the desk gave me a turn, but I kept on going. I couldn't give that my key, so I kept it. I knew she deserved to be a stone, just like the woman in the drug store.

By this time, Main Street was fast becoming a graveyard. Now there were at least a dozen stones on the sidewalk. One of them looked like a drunkard frozen in the act of stumbling home. One car, with five stones inside of it blocked the street. But traffic was surprisingly light so few were seriously inconvenienced. Undaunted as ever, I kept on walking to the doctor's office as planned. On the way, I found--no big surprise at this point--a stone on somebody's front porch and a stone at one of the street corners, but I made it to the doctor's office without any mishaps.

As promised, the receptionist said the doctor was free. He had just finished with the early morning rush and was ready for me. The doctor greeted me courteously and seemed interested in discussing the health of his patients. Are people in Howtown healthier than in larger cities? Do they get depressed? Any psychosomatic illnesses? And so it went. His answers were non-committal. People get depressed everywhere. They get worried about their jobs and the economy. Do people get more support from others like friends and relatives when things go wrong? Maybe, maybe not. The doctor grew stiffer in his chair with each answer he gave me. Did he think people were more apt to get ill and die if life didn't seem worth living? Yes, finding no meaning in life was a health problem. What was the source of meaning in life? Was it in helping others, like taking care of patients? The doctor started to answer unenthusiastically that healing others kept him going, but he didn't finish his answer. Knowing what was happening, I bolted.

In the waiting room, there was a fresh pair of stones. Maybe an old couple who couldn't bear the pain of one or the other dying. Just as well they had turned to stone since the doctor wouldn't be seeing them.

Outside, I walked towards the school. I was curious as to how it was going with the children. When I got there, I saw a boy trudging down the steps. Apparently an early dismissal for some misdemeanor. I waited for him. I had to wait patiently, or try to, for each step seemed to take longer. I recognized him. He was in Miss Finchley's class.

"Uh - can I ask you a couple of questions that I didn't get to ask yesterday?"

The boy started to look up and open his mouth to reply but no words came out. His face clouded up and, next thing I knew, I was interviewing a stone. I froze on the spot. I couldn't lift a finger. I couldn't think. It was better that way. The stones and the missing people of Howtown stopped bothering me. Possibly a passerby would see my note pad sticking out of the stone, but I didn't care. I had my story. Nobody would believe it.

I lost all sense of time. I lost all sense of anything at all. How do you describe the experience of not doing anything, not feeling anything, not thinking anything, or not even being anything? How do you describe nothing? How do you describe an experience of not having an experience? It didn't feel eerie at the time because it didn't feel anything. In looking back on that experience, it feels really eerie. Funny how experiences change when you remember them. You'd think I'd be upset about turning into a stone, but I wasn't upset. I wasn't anything. It's something like what happened when my Dad paddled me for something I didn't do. I made sure it didn't bother me and next thing I knew, it really wasn't bothering me. I thought nothing about the rain washing down the grains of stone and the sun baking me when it came out. After all, a stone doesn't have much life to lose to the elements.

But this being nothing but a stone didn't last forever. There came a time when I felt a slight tingle of life. Something was touching me. What was it doing that for? Something was pretending I had a hand and it was holding it. Kind words softened my stony ear. I wasn't stone deaf after all.

"I told you we should read more. You learn more about your problems in life that way."

I don't think she said those words then, but those words came back to me while she spoke.

"Yes, I know about the stones!" cried a tearful child.

"Think he'll make it?" asked another child.

Make what? What was all this fuss about? That first tingle felt pretty good, but then I remembered seeing Rita Meter Maid turned into a stone. Then, of all the luck, I thought of my Ex and that hurt more than it should have. The way my Dad treated me started to bother me.

"I thought he was coming back," said some man, "but now I think I've lost him."

"Should we come back later?" asked a child.

"We have to be patient," said Marian Librarian, "it took more than three seconds to bring you back."

So they attacked me again. On the one hand, it seemed that maybe life would be more interesting if I stopped being a stone. But then I felt something that had to be the stab of disappointment when I told my kids I couldn't see them next weekend because of a hot news story I was following.

"He almost came back," said a girl.

"Let's write a news story in his notebook about the reporter who turned into stone," said a boy.

"The conversion story of the century," said a man.

I started to laugh inside. Then I stopped myself. This was dangerous. But the damage had been done. I opened my eyes. I closed them, but my heart was beating too hard for me to sink away just then. So I opened my eyes again. I saw the girl who had known what the stones were, and the boy who had turned to stone just before I did, the bar tender, and Marian the Librarian herself. I looked at my hands and feet. Certified human.

"What happened?" I asked.

"The wicked witch turned you into stone," said the boy.

"And you guys brought me back?"

The girl nodded.

"Can you help us, please," she asked, "there are so many people, and sometimes --" she faltered.

"Sometimes," Marian continued, "when somebody doesn't turn back from being a stone, the one trying to help gets turned to stone again."

"Like I've been a stone three times now," said the boy. "But I'm getting better."

"I see," I said. Then I thought of Rita, and I understood. What if she remained a stone?

"But the more people you bring back, the harder it is to turn into a stone," said the bar tender.

"Besides," said Marian, "we work together and that helps a lot."

"That's why I didn't stay turned back into a stone the first time I couldn't get my Mom back to life."

"How is she now?"

"Almost back to life," said the boy, his face lowering.

"Then let's finish that job," I suggested.

So we walked among the stones that loomed about us like tombs until we reached the one the boy was looking for. All of us laid a hand on the stone and spoke encouragingly to it.

"Your kid wants you back," I said.

That made me think of my kids again and that hurt. But feeling a tingle of life coming from the stone made me feel better.

"I don't know what I'll do with my time if I don't have overdue notices to send to you," said Marian Librarian.

They say laughter is the best medicine. Maybe it is. A woman's face started emerge and before too much longer, the boy was giving his mother quite a bear hug.

I helped with a couple of others, including the stone behind the counter in the drug store. That was funny, since I hadn't cared for that woman at all. Then it was time to tackle the stone out by the parking meter. I was afraid. But I figured that if I failed with Rita, at least I could turn back into a stone and it wouldn't hurt after that. As it turned out, I had the satisfaction of watching Rita finish writing out her parking ticket. As she placed the ticket inside the windshield wiper, she gave me a self-satisfied smile. I won't say anything more about her, for that has ended up being part of my domestic life that I would rather not share.

There are still times when I feel like turning back into a stone. Rita isn't always easy to live with. She expects me to hurt her the way other people have, and I keep forgetting I don't have to fall into the same rat races I did in my first marriage. My kids are often rude to me because of the divorce, and maybe because of the way I treat them in general. At least they are too lively to be a couple of stones. Somehow, memories of Howtown keep me going. And Marian writes us now and then to encourage us. The two kids who helped bring us back to life are turning out to be decent adolescents, believe it or not.

So that's my story. Not that anybody will believe it. As you must know, I haven't really seen any stones blocking any city streets so neither have you.