Splitting the Black Stone

Your tip about a hidden skeleton kept my eyes locked on the brittle dark layers. Crouching low beside the crumbly embankment, I circled a thick slab of black shale. A faint horizontal seam ran along its edge. I searched the gravel until my snout nudged a rusted, wedge-shaped metal washer discarded near a drainage pipe. Clamping the cool iron in my beak, I drove its sharp rim straight into the shale's fissure. I braced both hind claws on the rock and struck the washer with a heavy stone. Snap. The shale split wide open under the work light, exposing the faint, ribbed skeleton of a tiny ancient fish pressed dark and clear across the grain.