Mary stands quietly by the roadside, looking up at the great rock above her.

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At first, it just looks like a cliff—cold and still against the winter sky. But then she sees it.

 

A shape. A face. The outline of a man, watching over the valley below.

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She wonders how long it took for the mountain to become this.

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No one carved it. No hands shaped it. Wind, rain, ice, and time did the work—slowly, patiently, over years too many to count.

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Mary tries to imagine it. A thousand years. Ten thousand. More.

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The rock does not move. It does not hurry. And yet, over time, it changes.

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She looks at her own hands, small and warm in the cold air. Her days feel full—morning to evening, one thing after another.

 

But here, time feels different.

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Slower.

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Wider.

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As if the mountain is keeping a kind of time she is only just beginning to understand.

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Some things don’t change quickly—but they are always changing.