A False History
It all started on a Wednesday. Of course, no one knew it was a Wednesday. This was because Wednesday hadn't been invented yet. They simply knew it as: The Day the Sun Was Very Nearly Touching the Edge of the Two Upright Stones on the Far Side, and Completely Covered the One Bench in the Middle.
Ben had a mild hangover from the evening before, so he was out, lying on that very bench at the time in the day of the year when the bench was cloaked in darkness, which was what he craved, since his eyeballs felt like very dry dustballs with an extremely irritable temperament and penchant for hard liquor. He didn't appreciate the little Druidic kids running around, kicking pig's bladders all around his hangover recovery place, but couldn't very well yell at them why weren't they at school, because it was a weekday, because they didn't know any better whether or not it was a weekday, because the stones simply didn't work that way. A lot of people had complained about this particular shortcoming, mostly parents, but nothing had been done about it just yet.
They would simply have to wait it out until someone invented something better. And, as it seemed no one was inclined to change a thing that was working for them (and the ones who might were entirely too busy to try inventing anything themselves, what with the kids to feed, clean up after, get to bed, only to have it all start all over again the second the sun rose, and not getting a minute to themselves to just sit down with a good book or parchment or something), it didn't look like it would be changing any time soon.
So Ben was in the front and center of it all, literally, when the Romans swooped in, and captured Stonehenge. The first Roman hit one of the outer stones in a kind of flying tackle, which Ben could only guess at because he hadn't really been paying attention to anything except his aching head, and only caught the sight of a Roman foot soldier bouncing off the giant stone block onto his face and chest. He didn't have a lot of time to think through the various scenarios in which a Roman foot soldier might be face down at the bottom of a giant stone block following an almighty crash, due to the multitude of Roman foot soldiers crashing through the giant stone blocks and onto anything that happened to be on the stone blocks. Like, for instance, Ben.
Ben, as he crashed to the ground in a maelstrom of shiny gold plated breastplates and furry helmets, thought, possibly for the first time in history, that the Romans must have gotten a great deal on gold plating, for the amount of it being dashed into rocks and Druids who happened to be standing about Stonehenge on a Wednesday. And from the Romans staggering about after their collisions with the rocks, the gold plating did not look better for wear, certainly.
"That's what we get for building it so damn close to the A303, auuuugh," muttered Ben's best friend, Rumi, who had been hiding behind one of the inner stones, intending on throwing a water balloon on Ben when the Romans entered the scene. Instead, the muttering drew Ben's attention, as a result of which Ben saw as Rumi got speared very close to his right kidney by a Roman with a non-furry helmet, being carried prostrate by two other Romans.
Very possibly likely to be continued... next week.
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