Some guys go hiking. Some guys go fossicking. And then there’s this guy who decided the best use of a sunny afternoon in the bush was to sit his ass down next to a house-sized chunk of granite, fire up a cordless drill, and start picking a fight with gravity.
The scene looks like every “I know what I’m doing” moment that usually ends with a rescue crew dragging someone off a mountain. Steep drop, eucalyptus trees everywhere, loose dirt and moss-covered rock underfoot. Our man is crouched on the edge in a black tee, shorts, work boots, and a bright cap, looking like he just wandered off a job site and decided the mountain needed some overtime. There’s a red drill planted in the dirt next to him and another tool lying there like a loaded gun. A tall, skinny dead tree is standing right beside the boulder, stripped and brittle, like nature left a baseball bat leaning against the rock just in case. He’s got one hand on the slab, the other doing God-knows-what, treating this giant chunk of stone like it’s a stubborn fence post that just needs a little persuasion.
For a few seconds it almost looks like it’s going to work. He’s leaning in, drilling or prying or whatever genius plan he cooked up, completely committed to the bit. Then the rock does what rocks have been doing since the beginning of time: it stops giving a shit about the human.
One second the boulder is sitting there looking innocent. The next it lurches, tilts, and just goes. The whole thing shears off the slope like it got tired of holding on. And it doesn’t leave alone. That giant dead tree trunk rips free with it, a long, heavy spear of wood coming loose in the same violent lurch. A massive cloud of red dust explodes outward as the rock starts tumbling down the hill. The guy doesn’t even have time to stand up properly. He throws himself backward, one hand flying up to his head like he’s trying to keep his skull attached, because that dead tree is whipping past the exact spot his head was occupying half a second earlier.
The dust plume is ridiculous. It rolls down the slope, swallowing trees and scrub, the kind of cloud that makes you think someone just set off a charge. The boulder is gone. The dead tree is gone with it. Our hero is still sitting there, covered in dirt, staring at the empty space where a few tons of rock and a giant wooden missile used to be, looking like a man who just watched his own funeral from the cheap seats.
You can see the exact moment his brain catches up. He reaches up, touches his cap, looks down the slope, and you just know he’s doing the math. One extra second. One different angle. One more lean into that drill and that dead tree takes his head clean off instead of missing by a hair.
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