Nostalgic

“In those days, my mornings began with the sound of approaching footsteps—neighbours arriving with baskets of grains, golden maize, and bundles of sun-dried chillies”.
I was once more than stone. I was a companion, a witness, a keeper of the village’s rhythm. My place was fixed beneath the broad, comforting arms of a walnut tree. Its leaves whispered to me in every breeze, and its shade fell upon my round body like a mother’s embrace. In those days, my mornings began with the sound of approaching footsteps—neighbours arriving with baskets of grains, golden maize, and bundles of sun-dried chillies. They came not in silence, but in laughter. Around me, there was always a soft hum of life, like the gentle rise and fall of a song. The pestle would meet my hollow with a deep, steady thud, over and over, a heartbeat I carried for generations. As the grains broke down, voices rose—folk songs as old as the hills, telling of harvests, love, and the wisdom of seasons. The air was rich with scents: the earthy aroma of ground maize, the sharp sting of crushed chillies, the damp sweetness of the soil still cool from the morning dew. Sweat would shine on faces, yet their smiles bloomed like roses under the dappled sunlight. Children ran about my base, their laughter spilling into my hollow, sometimes throwing in a stray pebble, sometimes stealing a handful of grain for mischief. I was not merely a tool; I was a gathering place, a circle where hands, hearts, and voices met. But time—time changes everything. Slowly, the faces I knew became fewer. Some drifted away to far-off towns, chasing the hum of machines. Others slipped quietly into the silence of the grave. The songs faded first, replaced by hurried talk; then the gatherings thinned, until there were mornings when no footsteps came at all. Then came the new machines—loud, impatient, unfeeling. They crushed in minutes what I ground with care in hours. People no longer needed the Walnut’s shade or my steady stone embrace. My work was no longer part of their day; my place in their lives dissolved like flour in the wind.I was left to wait. Days stretched into seasons. Dust gathered on my surface, weeds curled around my edges. The walnut still stood, but its shade now fell upon a space. No songs, no laughter—just the low sigh of the wind through the leaves. Some cast me aside, calling me a waste. Some buried me into walls, my round hollow hidden from sight. A few gave me a new life as a flower vase, where petals replaced the harvest. I did not begrudge the flowers their beauty, but their silence made me ache for the voices I once knew. Yes, the world says this is progress. And perhaps it is. The work is quicker, the hands are less weary, the grain more plentiful. But with the machines, something vanished—the slow conversations between neighbours, the warmth of shared labour, the passing of songs from one generation to the next. The grind was not just in the grain; it was in the weaving of community, in the patience of life lived together. Even now, when the wind stirs the walnut ’s branches, I sometimes hear them—the echoes of pestle on stone, the hum of women’s voices, the sharp laughter of children, the clink of grain against my sides. These are ghosts I carry in my hollow heart.I am cracked now, but I am full—full of mornings golden with sunlight, of faces I will never forget, of the scent of grain and the sound of songs carried on the breeze. They call me useless, but I know my worth. I was once the centre of a world that moved in harmony, and even if that world is gone, it still lives here—in me, in the memory of a village that once gathered under the shade of the walnut tree. And perhaps one day, when a curious child asks, “What is this?”, someone will tell my story. And for a moment, I will be whole again, bathed once more in the festival of life I will always remember. And so I remain, not just a stone, but a vessel of memories—of laughter that once rang like bells in the morning air, of hands that worked not just for bread, but for each other. The world may have forgotten me, but I have not forgotten the world that once gathered around me. If you press your ear to my hollow, you may still hear it—the thud of the pestle, the murmur of old songs, the rustle of maize husks under the walnut’s shade. I am cracked, I am still, but within me, the past beats on like a quiet, stubborn heart. And perhaps that is my last gift—to remember, when no one else does.

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