Martha's Vineyard Short Story

Madeline

Mr.Salsich

English 9

October 12, 2009

Small Strength: A Short Story Written in Martha's Vineyard

Out in deep space, in the inky black floating world, the stars watched as a lonesome meteor race through the darkness. Its flaming tail dissolved as it plummeted down into through the clouds, falling to the Earth. It tumbled into the sea. It fell slowly down, like a dropped feather, into the depths. The little meteor was rocked in the cradle of the waves for many years. When it was worn soft and smooth by the waves, the sea spit it out onto the shore.

"Look mama look!" The little boy was dressed in blue corduroy overalls, worn thin in the knees. I watched him run to his mother.

"What is it?" She stood up from the soft blanket where she had been sitting. "What did you find?"

"It's a rock!" The child gave his mother the dark ebony stone. It filled her palm with dark.

"Oh! It's beautiful, Freddy!" But the little boy was already gone, racing across the sand, and his mother's words were lost, carried away by the wind. She sighed, but also smiled, and carefully, almost respectfully, placed the rock back onto the beach, and sat back down on her blanket.

Later, after the boy and his mother had gone home, I remained perched on the sand. I had been watching the waves for hours, completely entranced. I remembered the smooth stone they had left behind. I walked over to where they had left it, bent down, and picked it up. There was something calming about the way it pressed into my hand. I held it, fingers outstretched. It was so beautiful. It was such a deep, dark black. I understood why the woman had returned it to the sand so reverently. I held the smoothness, cupped in my hands, and walked away.

That night, I lay in my bed. The crickets chirped their lullaby, and the summer night air was cool and clean, but I could not sleep. I looked at the moon. It was so perfectly round and smooth; a beautiful, smooth full moon. Just like my stone. I kept thinking about that stone, resting on my dresser across the room. It filled me with a feeling of strength. I had felt helpless for so long, and then I found that perfect stone. It had been through a lot, I could tell. The waves had battered and beaten it for so many years with its harsh and natural love. It had been scraped and bruised and broken. But when the stone emerged from all the torture of the sea, and settled on that sandy beach, it was exquisite. It had survived, and survived beautifully.

My parents did not survive the sea's battery. It was eighteen years ago this day that their small motor boat had been caught in a sudden squall. They had been scraped and bruised and broken by the angry waves. But they never emerged as my smooth stone had. I remember hearing that my parents were gone. My ears would not take the words, let alone my mind. I tried so hard to wake myself up from that dream that had gone so horribly wrong. But I haven't woken up, and I know that I never will. I, too, am trying to survive the harsh but natural love of the ocean. I know that the ocean takes, but she also gives. She has given me this stone, so serenely quiet after so many years of endless cruelty, like me in all my years of grief. The stone was helpless against those waves. My parents were helpless against them, too. My parents did not survive. I am still trying to come to terms with this nightmare. But the stone did survive. It is such a wondrous coincidence that I should find this stone, my little circle of perfect, on the anniversary of the day my parents had left me alone.

"You can survive, even if your mother and your father could not. You can be beautiful, because you are strong like the stone," the sea whispered to me as I lay tangled in the sheets. The breeze brought her words to my ears. I was suddenly flooded with peace, and I felt happy. I had not felt happy for so long. It was such a beautiful foreign place. My eyelids went heavy, and for the first time in thirteen years, I dreamt.

The next day, I returned to the beach. I smiled when I saw a different child scavenging on the shore. My face was not accustomed to this action. It had been grimacing for so long. But the pain was finally over. My little smooth stone, my dark moon, had showed me the way. I was content to walk out of the loss. I was strong, like the stone. I was free.

Out in deep space, in the inky black floating world, all the stars looked down upon the beach where a little meteor had become a symbol of strength. The stars looked down upon the girl who was now happy after so many days and nights of sorrow. The stars thanked the little boy in the corduroy overalls and his mother, who had first found the small soft piece of universe, and who had helped the human find happiness. The stars had given this meteor to the sea. The magic of the natural world had blessed the girl with small but powerful strength. They knew she could do amazing things if she could accept her loss. The stars knew they had done their job. They glowed, and they looked down. And the smooth stone was right where they left it on the beach.