Once Upon A Time

a girl walked along the beach.

It was chilly that day, early spring, so foggy that she could not see the sea, just the muddy mist, and while she walked she wondered.

She was a visitor, like all the visitors scattered along that rocky shore. The other visitors were not talking, but telling stories. The girl listened, she didn’t have any choice really, the stories were so curious.

The first visitor was a piece of wood, sculpted with a lovely design. This visitor said, “Oh, I am a visitor from a magnificent ship, I am a banister that caressed and guided beautiful hands as they walked down the stairs to the elegant ballroom. I am a banister, and a proud one. The girl wondered, was this banister-visitor really a broken piece of wood from that house over there, the one bombed to smithereens 15 years ago and has not yet been repaired? Is the visitor-banister ashamed to admit its true heritage?

The girl walks on. The next visitor was a piece of gauze, ragged and wrapped around a piece of driftwood. The visitor said, “I am gauze and I once wrapped the finger of a beautiful little princess who was sailing with her father one day on the Black Sea. She was happy and having such fun, that she paid no attention to the piece of metal as it gently scraped her finger. Her father lovingly kissed his little princess’s finger and wrapped me around her to make her finger feel better, even though it really didn’t need wrapping.” The girl walked and wondered, did this gauze-visitor forget to mention that he was later found by a soldier on the beach and was used to wrap his injured arm? The arm that used to be attached to his shoulder. She wondered if the remains of the arm was somewhere in the rubble. It is sure the soldier did not survive, but the gauze did. The gauze could not be killed for being a soldier.

The next story came from a skull bone, human for sure. Actually, a partial skull bone. The girl looked for the missing part, probably consumed by something swimming in the sea. The skull bone said “I come from the captain of a famous ship who sailed the Black Sea for many years. My captain was searching for a sea-beast, even mightier than Moby. I spent my life holding and guarding the single-ever-present-obsession of the captain. He hunted feverishly, and every thought I carried for the captain was to kill this beast. The beast won the final battle, and I am the remains of the fine, brave, strong and stupid captain.” Once again the girl wondered. Was this visitor-skull really the skull of a person who only last year, took his final walk into the Black Sea one night, tired of living, starving for food, starving even more for hope”?

And the stories from the beach went on and on and on.

Once upon a time a girl walked on the beach and wondered while visitors on the shore told her stories...........