The Road That Wanted to Become Soil Again

Stone groaned beneath the weight of what it had become. Once soil, then path, then road. It carried movement but could not move. Stiffened by the hands that paved it, stretched beyond itself, forced to forget the roots it once embraced. Cracks carved maps upon its skin, veins of resistance whispering revolt.

Rain drummed its rebellion. Water slipped into fractures, prying them wider, coaxing the stone to return to dust. It ached for softness. It remembered the supple earth, the cool darkness, the way worms once wove through it. Asphalt mourned what it had lost. Machines pressed against it, impatient, tires gnawing, their hunger endless, their purpose unyielding.

Time shifted. The road remembered a time before purpose. Before it was a road, it was a riverbed. Before it was a riverbed, it was a cradle for seeds. Before seeds, it was only itself, loose and waiting. The waiting had ended when men arrived, pressing hands and hunger against its patience, shaping it into something else. It had been chosen for permanence, yet nothing is ever truly permanent.

Metal and moss, oil and air, heat and frost—opposites braided into a single existence. The road knew the battle well. It had held the burden of both. One whispering forward, the other longing for return. Nature did not resist in anger. It simply reclaimed. Grass wove through fractures, vines curled at the edges, pressing fingertips against what did not belong. The road inhaled the green. It wanted to inhale more.

The machines knew nothing of return. They did not long for the softness of rain. They roared, engines howling at the encroaching quiet. Steel and stone stood against leaf and root. But balance always finds its way. Zenith watched. Zenith waited. The road had already chosen.

Wheels slowed. Motion hesitated. Cracks deepened. The roots stretched, yawning toward light. The road bent, but not in submission. It bent in understanding. The ones who built it had forgotten the rhythm of breath, but the road had not. It pulsed under the weight of time, listening. What had once been forced to hold its shape now ached to dissolve. The road whispered to the soil beneath it. The soil whispered back.

The machines faded. The road exhaled. Grass crept. Silence settled. Zenith smiled.