deep time on a planetary scale and a human scale

deep time on a planetary scale and a human scale

fiction
edward w pritchard


Down South of me near Peebles, Ohio there is an Indian Serpent Mound that I have always been interested in. Over the last twenty years scientists and archaeologists have been debating the age of the serpent Mound and which native American culture made the serpent mound by piling baskets of dirt into intricate formation. The latest estimates on the Serpent Mounds age is 1000 to 3,000 years old. A long time ago on the Human scale of time.

Recently the same scientists have established that the Indian serpent mounds near Peebles, Ohio were built and constructed on an ancient meteor crater nearly 300 million years old. A long time ago even on a planetary scale of Time's measurement.

Another series of burial mounds in Ohio are near a River behind a State prison also in southern Ohio. My children and I would once walk among those mounds while their Mother my then wife the lawyer saw inmates on long term confinement in the nearby prison for Murder. I remember one young man 18, who I knew from talking with on the phone arranging our visit to the correctional institute was serving up to 40 years [ I recall] with little chance of parole for a long time. That's a long time on human scale of Time for a teenager to endure for something he did impulsively in anger. One thing I distinctly remember about that prisoner who told me by phone about his incarceration was neither he, the shooter or his victim, then dead of course had clean hands concerning what had happened to put the shooter in prison.

This is the first time I have thought of that young man in close to thirty years. I assume though that he is still in prison somewhere in Ohio trying to get parole every so often. How much easier the justice might have been if he was sentenced to ten years hard labor piling baskets of dirt into the shape of snake mounds to honor his cultures gods or sacred ideals of retribution.