Carved

  The hippo wanted to help, but he was only stone and couldn't a thing to help.  He listened to their straining grunts as they used muscles and thick wooden staves to lift him onto the carved pedestal that would be his new home.  He surveyed village, the people who would honor him as a God, and surveyed the river he faced.  He saw the reeds and slow moving water that was his natural habitat, if he wasn't carved out of stone.

  Ages passed and slowly the tribal huts gave way to stronger wooden structures.  Still the hippo remained.  People would pass him by, the walkway split around his pedestal but he was more of a curiosity now.  Gifts left in honor to the God he represented were rare, left by the people who still clung to the old ways, but most passed him by not giving him a second thought.  He had become a little more than an oddity that marked the village.

  The village grew and soon a building obstructed his view of the river.  It was a castle, excited townsfolk whispered.  A mighty stone building, built from the same stone quarries that he had been carved out of, grew up.  Tradesmen came from all around to do business, but people were more enthralled with the castle than him.  The random gifts he would receive ended, except during times of famine or drought. 

  Kings came and went.  Times of peace, tides of of war passed.  Paved walkways and a town square grew up around the hippo.  The castle was gone, the river polluted.  Now children raced around him, some pulling their little red wagons filled with other laughing kids.  Nearby university students would occasionally come by to study the pedestal and ancient stone carved hippo that was still there.