Petrified Gaze
Scraping fingernails clear dry silt and fine ash to reveal an iridescent pigment embedded within the shale. This fossilized eye stares back through oily gradients of charcoal soot, catching the light like a sudden tremor in the dark. As steam rises from the disturbed earth, the distinction between the observer and the stone dissolves into a single, etched reflex. The watcher is no longer separate from what is watched; instead, they merge into one weathered trace.