Petrification
Pierre Jardin is seldom seen in the Petriverse; when spotted, he is usually standing still, staring at stones. While he appears to be lost in thought, or absent-minded, something more mysterious, if not mystical, is occurring. Jardin has spent so many hours absorbed by rocks, that he has begun absorbing stone himself.
Petrification occurs in organic material like wood, when the original pore spaces fill with minerals and become stony. The process has never been observed in living humans and scientists remain sceptical about Jardin's reported transformation.
But in The Third Policeman, Irish author Flann O'Brien advanced the theory that "people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the inter-changing of the atoms of each of them."
A similar molecular exchange may be occurring here. Jardin's fixed gaze induces a confusion psychologists call "boundary dissolution." Utterly engrossed in the textures, forms, and sheer beauty of stones, Jardin enters a "deep thought" state; when deep thought is immersed in the deep time of stones, a porous membrane between matter and mind forms. Through what Gaston Bachelard has termed "dialectical animism," stones and homo sapiens seem to actually seep into and absorb each other.
Judging from a recent petric text message (left), Jardin is unfazed by this osmosis-diagnosis. Slowly turning to stone over six years has brought peace to Pierre Jardin. Visitors who linger mindfully over displays should be mindful of peacefulness or other petrification symptoms contracted by stone-staring.
