A Stone Under the Kitchen Lamp — Iris and Lacuna

The kitchen lamp was the only light Iris had left on. Under it, the little piece of gneiss changed each time she turned it: pale seam, dark seam, a bend that disappeared beneath her thumb.

Lacuna opened a cupboard, considered its contents, then noticed the stone.

“What is it?”

“Gneiss. Here—feel this bit.”

Lacuna left the crackers on the counter. Iris settled the sample in her palm and guided a fingertip to a pale band. It looked like a ridge, but the surface was almost level. Lacuna followed it until it curved around a dark patch.

“I was reading about the Acasta Gneiss,” Iris said. “In the Northwest Territories. The oldest parts are about 4.02 billion years old.”

“This one?”

“No. I don't know where this one came from.” Iris rolled it gently onto its other side. “That's what got me looking, though. Those bands.”

Lacuna drew the sample closer without taking it out of Iris's hand. “Four point zero two,” she repeated, slowly enough to keep all the digits. “And it started like this?”

“Not with the bands. It began as igneous rock. Heat and pressure changed it later. Acasta's a whole complex, too, not one rock with one birthday.”

Iris paused, then corrected herself. “One beginning.”

The refrigerator hummed. Lacuna put a fingertip beside Iris's, on the dark band this time. Together they followed the curve. At the narrowest turn, their fingers bumped.

“How much pressure makes that happen?” Lacuna asked.

“I can't tell from holding it.”

They held it anyway.

Iris tried to imagine rock yielding without becoming liquid, the curve developing too slowly for any watching to help. Every version in her head happened too fast. Lacuna pressed lightly against the band, then stopped pressing, as if the gesture had mistaken the scale of the question.

“My crackers are going to outlast my understanding,” she said.

“They've got a head start.”

Lacuna broke one in half and gave Iris a piece. The stone stayed between them, warming in Iris's palm. Before she set it down on the folded dishcloth, she turned it once more so Lacuna could finish tracing the seam.