Stone of the Last Answer

Stone of the Last Answer

The desert wind howled like a warning, twisting through the cracked ribs of the old market gate. Vendors packed up their stalls, muttering curses to the sky, and camels groaned under the weight of their masters' urgency. Dust curled into the evening like smoke. In the middle of it all, a boy named **Wisdom** stood barefoot on the edge of the town square, watching it unravel.

He was seventeen, sun-worn and lanky, with eyes that seemed a hundred years older than his face. No one quite knew where he had come from—he had wandered into the town of Jaran one morning, a book tucked under one arm and a pouch of dates in the other. He spoke rarely, but when he did, people listened.

It wasn’t just his name—*Wisdom*—that made them pause. It was the way he moved, deliberate, like every gesture mattered. It was the way he *saw* people, like he could peel back the surface and get to the meat of their fear, their hope, their lies.

Tonight, as the storm rolled in, the town was unsettled. A drought had lasted three moons longer than it should have. The well had coughed up mud that morning. The goats were dying. And the elders had called a gathering—not to speak, but to *decide*.

Wisdom walked slowly through the settling dust, toward the flame-lit circle at the heart of the village. People sat cross-legged, their faces drawn. Old Mira, whose hands had delivered half the town’s children, nodded him in without a word.

At the center stood a man named Borun, tall, proud, draped in a red scarf that marked him as a leader.

"The gods have turned from us," Borun declared, voice sharp like flint. "We’ve grown soft. Lazy. The boy—*" he pointed toward Wisdom, "*he sits and watches while our crops die. He claims to know things, but what has he done?"

Murmurs rippled. A few heads turned toward Wisdom. He stepped forward, brushing the hair from his brow.

"You speak of drought," he said quietly. "Of hunger. Of gods. But not once have you spoken of each other."

Borun scoffed. "What do you know of suffering? You haven’t seen Jaran before the dryness, before the animals dropped where they stood."

"I’ve seen loss," Wisdom replied, voice steady. "I watched my mother trade her ring for bread. I watched my brother die for speaking the truth to a warlord. I carry their names on my spine with every step."

The fire crackled.

"I do not speak to impress you," Wisdom continued, looking around the circle. "I speak to remember. When the water ran low last moon, half of you stocked your basins in secret. The other half came with cracked lips, begging. You think the gods have turned, but you turned on *each other* first."

A silence thick enough to taste settled over the gathering.

Mira broke it. "So what do we do, boy?"

"You listen," he said, turning slowly. "Not to me. To each other."

Borun laughed bitterly. "That’s it? Listen? Words won’t feed us."

"No," Wisdom admitted. "But they might stop us from killing each other when the hunger gets worse."

He knelt and pulled something from the folds of his robe. A stone, pale and round. He held it high.

"My father called this the *Stone of the Last Answer*," he said. "When our village fell to fire, he said this stone reminded him: When you run out of reasons to fight, you remember what you're willing to *live* for."

He passed the stone to Mira. “Pass it. Each of you speak one truth. Not what you want. Not what you fear. Just truth. Let that guide you.”

The stone passed hands. Slowly. At first, people were hesitant. Then the truths came:

*"I kept food hidden when my neighbor’s children were starving."*

*"I cursed my wife for praying while I drank away our last coins."*

*"I feared Borun more than I feared the drought."*

And finally, Borun himself held the stone. His hand shook.

"I wanted to lead because I thought I could fix it," he whispered. "But I’ve made things worse."

The fire danced on his tears. Then he set the stone down in the dust.

For the first time in weeks, the air felt a little lighter.

That night, Wisdom didn’t sleep. He watched as the villagers moved like ants rebuilding a broken hill—sharing food, digging a new trench near the dried riverbed, even praying *together*, for once.

Mira found him at dawn, crouched near the well.

"You did what the rains could not," she said.

"No," Wisdom said softly, staring at the horizon. "I just reminded them who they were before they forgot."