In the beginning, it was a white-hot fire that burned with an all-consuming appetite, but was bound by its own mass and centrifuge. Its fire was so hot that to come within tens of thousands of miles of it meant instant death, yet it provided warmth and life to billions of sentient beings in an intricate system of spheres and ellipses.

    Its light originated from the fire and then traveled for eight minutes through the harsh, freezing vacuum of space to fall on an unremarkable hunk of lifeless rock -- a barren combination of dead silicates with a radius of 1,080 miles, a diameter for 2,160 miles and now missing 842 pounds of itself due to rock collection during the Apollo missions.

    The light spilled over craters as wide as 140 miles and over mountains higher than 15,000 feet. And though the massive rock orbited a wide, blue planet at 2,287 miles per hour, it was not fast enough to outrun the light.

    Instead, the light, though now only a fraction of its previous intensity, bounced from the ragged surface of the orbiting moon and cut through the inhospitable expanse of nothingness to arrive at the wide blue planet one point three seconds later. There, it collided with a dark and turbulent atmosphere, one which refracted, reflected and tossed it around to such a degree that it lost some of its original brilliance but no measurable amount of its speed.

    After puncturing the protective atmospheric blanket, it raced toward the Earth and then fell cleanly through a pane of glass and then in Daryl Collins' open eye. All in roughly 8.33 minutes.

    But to Daryl Collins, it could have been 8.33 hours. It was another long night, one plagued with short fits of vivid dreaming and long periods of wide-eyed insomnia. On nights like this he might fall asleep a dozen times, yet get only an hour or two of sleep cumulatively. And all the while, he counted rocks.

    Moonlight spilled over the bed and as he stared up at the celestial satellite, he tried to remember the last time he'd slept peacefully through the night. It had been some time ago. Over-the-counter medication rarely worked, but whiskey sometimes did. He thought about getting up to try that remedy but didn't want to disturb his wife, Stella.

    She, too, seemed restless, but at least she slept. He envied her for that.

    Picture yourself on a beautiful, tranquil beach, his therapist had said. You are on a hammock, listening to the gentle surf and the calls of seagulls overhead. You feel yourself slipping into a calm, restful state.

    It had worked for a while but more often than not, he'd swung himself out of the hammock and walked down to the beach where water lapped and packed the sand. There, he stooped to scoop handfuls of sand to the side in search of rocks as the sun burned his bare back and salt burned the cuts and cracks in his hand.

    Or imagine you are a giant balloon, floating high over golden fields of wheat. Slowly, you deflate and as you do, you settle down, down, down further-down onto the pillows of soft, waving wheat.

    That didn't work, either. Once on the ground, he invariably turned his attention to the dirt where, more often than not, he could find a stick that could be used to dislodge rocks from the soil. If he could dig out enough rocks to fill a five-gallon-bucket, he could call it a night. But no matter how many dozens--or hundreds--of rocks he dug from the reluctant soil, the contents of the bucket never reached capacity. The moon hung outside his window, as if placed there deliberately by a malicious prankster. It moved slowly from one pane to the next and had crossed one pane and halfway into the next while he watched.

    In this sleepless state he had no sense of time. It was during a long, fretful night long ago that he'd learned not to check the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. To do so was nothing more than an exercise in frustration. In the dark, what seemed to be an hour could turn out to be only fifteen or twenty minutes.

    Still, now, his mind worked. The moon slid through the panes at what, fifteen degrees per hour? Something he'd learned in school

    …the number of degrees the object has moved equals the square root of the number of degrees the object has moved vertically squared…

    popped into his mind and he sighed audibly, knowing that this would keep his mind active and alert even longer. Of all the long nights he'd endured, this one seemed to be the longest.

    …plus the number of degrees the object has moved horizontally squared…

    And then suddenly, with no warning or fanfare, he was asleep. Sometimes it just happened that way.

    He dreamed.

    …one, pick it up…two, pick it up…three, pick it up…four, set it down.

    He worked with a particular rhythm, one learned in the previous year. Four whacks with the pickaxe were usually sufficient to break up a two-square-foot area of dirt, provided there were no large rocks beneath the soil. Sometimes, though, the pickaxe would hit a rock the size of a football or a basketball and those always broke his rhythm. Setting the pickaxe aside, he grabbed his shovel and buried its blade in the dirt, forcing it into the sod with his right foot.

    From there, it was a simple routine: turn over the dirt, remove any weeds, break up the clods, pick out any rocks larger than a marble, toss them into a white five-gallon bucket, set the shovel to the side, pick up the pickaxe--and then do it over and over again. Forty buckets a day, rain or shine. Forty buckets, six days a week. He got a nickel a bucket, unless his boss determined that a bucket was not filled to 100 percent capacity or it contained too much dirt or the bucket did not contain a fairly even mix of large, medium and small rocks. No bucket could contain a rock larger than a grapefruit; those rocks--and there were plenty of them--had to be dug out by hand and placed in a single pile to be moved later. Because of the extra time and handling they required, he dreaded the metallic clank of shovel on rock. And there was no extra money in them; his boss paid by the bucket and by whatever mood he happened to be in at the time. Bad moods meant more buckets were rejected. Instead of making a nickel on them, he lost a dime.

    Sundays were rest days. Sleep days. Recovery days.

    Today was Tuesday, and that was his burden to bear. Better to not think about it.

    …one, pick it up…two, pick it up…three, pick it up…four, set it down.

    This bucket, his twenty-first of the day, was nearly half full. He brushed dirt from the rocks with his bare hands before tossing them into the bucket. Too much dirt in the bucket would cost him two buckets worth of labor, up to thirty minutes of his life.

    Last week, the repetitive work had caused his shoe to crack straight across the arch. Every time he stomped down on the shovel, that crack had allowed the top part of the shovel blade to make direct contact with his bare foot. A request for new shoes would have been met with scorn and derision--or worse, a direct blow across the face. Instead, he wore the good shoe, his left one, on his right foot and the shoe with the cracked sole on his left. It was uncomfortable as the front and back halves of the shoe rubbed together and chewed grit up against his foot but it was necessary; he would have to work another week and a half in order to have enough money to buy new shoes.

    …one, pick it up…two, pick it up…three, pick it up…four, set it down.

    The pickaxe struck a rock. And that's all it took--

    --to yank him from the dream.

    Awake again.

    The moonlight burned his eyes. Still halfway across the windowpane. Daryl knew he had slept but also knew that it had been a very brief lapse--a toe in the water kind of thing. This time, he was spared the torture of a long, restless stare into space. If only his dreams could be so kind…

    …one, pick it up…two, pick it up…three, pick it up…four, set it down.

    He worked the rocks from his soil while working on his knees. Swinging the pickaxe was hell on his back; stooping over to fetch the rocks just made it worse. Over time, calluses had built up on his knees and he rarely felt pain as he rocked back and forth on his knees from the soil to the bucket. He counted the rocks as he worked

    …one…two…three…

    digging with his right hand,

    …ten…eleven…twelve…

    pushing them aside,

    …sixteen…seventeen…eighteen…

    and tossing them into the bucket with his left.

    Nineteen rocks this time. A two-by-two section of ground usually gave up a few less than that. In the past two years, he'd cleared three acres. One to go. Sometimes, he worried how he would earn a living once the four-acre plot was cleared, but that problem was still nine or ten months away. It was slower now; the soil here was stonier.

    …one, pick it up…two, pick it up…three, pick it up…four, set it down.

    "Looks like you're working on the slow side today," a voice said. It was the boss, a rough-around-the-edges kind of man with a voice and a manner that matched his looks. He looked up into the sky. "At this rate, you'll be working after dark."

    Collins wiped sweat from his brow and gestured toward the bucket.

    "Half full," he mumbled. His lips were split from the heat.

    "Half empty," the boss man corrected, scowling.

    He looked back and forth at Collins' legs.

    "What happened to your shoe?"

    "Gave out."

    "When?"

    "Dunno."

    The boss man dislodged a rock with his toe and kicked it toward Daryl.

    "You missed one."

    Collins tossed it into the bucket.

    …one…

    He counted them out of habit. Each and every one. It was the only way to make it through the day without losing his mind.

    The boss man walked away, but then stopped and turned back to face him.

    "Shoes are on sale down at Templeton's," he said gruffly. "I'll pick you up a pair and I won't dock your pay this time. But I expect you to pick it up a bit."

    He turned and continued across the field.

    …two…three…four…

    The moon, now at the far edge of the pane, told Daryl that he'd slept a bit longer this time.

    Stella stirred. Collins breathed shallowly.

    She rolled over and propped her head up on an arm.

    "You were counting in your sleep again, honey," she said groggily.

    Collins turned his head to look at her. No sense pretending to be asleep.

    The same moonlight that had originated at the sun and traveled across space to bounce off of the moon and slice through the bedroom window now reflected from her eyes.

    "You are so beautiful, Stella," he said, reaching up to pinch her chin gently between his index finger and thumb. "Don't worry about me. Get some sleep."

    "I can't sleep, Daryl. Every time I fall asleep you start counting and thrashing about. It wakes me up."

    "I'm sorry," he whispered with genuine regret. It wasn't fair that his insomnia kept her awake as well. "I'll go sleep in the recliner."

    "No. I want you in here with me, Daryl. You're not getting away that easily."

    Collins relaxed and stared up at the ceiling.

    The last of the moon had drifted from the window before Stella spoke again.

    "I haven't had my dream in several weeks," she said.

    "The one about the caves and the cavemen?"

    "Yes. Used to be a couple of times a week but now it only seems to come a couple of times a month. It's very strange."

    Collins nodded in the dark.

    "I still wonder if our dreams are related. "You dream about rocks and I dream about caves. There has to be some connection. Especially with our…our past."

    Four years earlier, Daryl and Stella had worked together to track down a murderous pedophile in Safford, Arizona. That man, a trusted ice cream truck driver, had preyed on the town's young male population and had committed unspeakable atrocities before it all ended on the waters of Roosevelt Lake. Stella, a psychic, had used her powers to assist Chief Collins and Sheriff Stapleton in their joint investigation. And as tragedy spilled out into the deserts surrounding Safford, she'd been surprised to discover that Collins had paranormal talents of his own--abilities that sometimes eclipsed hers. Their reliance on omens and premonitions had been met with ridicule at times but were what finally brought it all to a dramatic conclusion in the end.

    No body was ever found, but the killer was presumed dead. In that light, perhaps the word conclusion wasn't the right word. Daryl never had accepted the outcome. It was a body he wanted and not a day passed that he didn't make mention of it, or sit in a deep, disturbed mood in front of the television, watching nothing in particular.

    "You think our dreams are omens?" he asked, looking over at Stella.

    "I don't know, Daryl. I really don't."

    "I think they have to be, Stella. There is no other explanation. They are omens. But of what?"

    Stella mulled it over in her mind.

    "I suppose they could be," she said, reaching over to trace her finger down the scar on her husband's face, "but I would think they would be more similar. You dream of rocks, I dream of caves. What's the connection?"

    Collins swallowed hard. He already knew the answer.

    "They are both…earthen."

    "Earthen?"

    Stella broke out into laughter.

    "Earthen? It's a funny word, Daryl. Earrrrrrthen."

    They hugged one another. It was a good moment.

    "My therapist says I dream of rocks because I'm living out an unfulfilled fantasy," Collins said.

    "What's your fantasy? Dare I ask?"

    Stella poked Daryl in the side as she teased him.

    "You're my fantasy, Stella," he smiled, poking her back. "But you are my fulfilled fantasy.

    "The doc thinks that I'm living out Cliff Rilek's burial in my sleep. Because his body was never found, doc thinks that I'm obsessed with burying the body to bring some sort of closure to it all."

    "Are you?"

    Collins thought about it.

    "I don't think so, honey," he answered. "In my dreams, I'm counting rocks out of the soil, not filling in a hole or digging a grave. In the past two years, I've filled countless hundreds of buckets. Last week, I dreamed that a semi truck pulled up into the field to unload pallet after pallet of shrink-wrapped stacks of buckets.

    "And they are not recurring dreams," he pointed out. "I'm never digging the same rocks out twice. Where one dream ends, the other begins. That's what is so maddening about this, Stella. It's almost like I'm really digging out four acres of rocks…one by one."

    "Four acres?"

    "Yes," Daryl affirmed. "Four acres. That's the degree of consistent realism in these dreams. The boss man wears a flannel shirt, a John Deere cap and has a beard. I think his name is Frank. By day, he prospects for gold in some river. At the end of the day, he counts the buckets I've filled. He sleeps in a brown, earth-toned home while I sleep in an outbuilding that has no plumbing…"

    "Eeeeeeeew!" Stella said, wrinkling her nose. "That's earthen."

    Collins smiled, and then sighed.

    "Think I'll get up for a bit, honey," he said, sliding his legs out from beneath the covers. "Maybe have a shot of whiskey. That does the trick…sometimes."

    "Okay," Stella answered, tucking the blankets back in around her.

    Collins moved out into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind him. His sixteen-year-old daughter, ShellyLynn, was sleeping in her room across the hall. He walked gently so as to not cause any unnecessary creaking in the floor.

    Passing the room he used as an office, he noticed a light blinking on the desk. It was the fax machine.

    That's odd, he thought, walking in and turning on the light switch. I never heard it come in.

    There were three sheets of paper in the tray. The first was a plain, generic cover letter and he set it aside.

    Moving closer to the light, he read the second of the three sheets:

    It was signed "G.S." Guy Stapleton, the former Graham County Sheriff. Daryl wondered how he was enjoying his life of retirement. The fact that Stapleton sent him the fax was an indication that the man might still be plagued by the same unanswered questions that he, too, tripped over daily.

    Collins went to page three, his heart skipping a beat. It was a short news piece, more a brief than an actual article.

    The last paragraph could not be read as several lines were blurred and streaked at the bottom of the page, but Daryl had read enough. A chill raced down his spine as he remembered the conversation he'd had with Stella only moments earlier.

    Omens.

    There would be no sleep for him tonight.

»» Read the original novel, "Omens" - available online here.
»» Read more about "Omens II: The Rogue" here.
»» The Rogue - Photodocumentary.