Tuesday, April 1, 2008

The reluctant souvenir

A coworker of mine recently brought in a collection of sea shells his family had picked during a recent cruise of St. Kitts.

He told me to keep one, if I wanted.

Later he sent me a photo of the St. Kitts beach from which the shells were selected. The sunlight poured down to warm the vast shores of sand, the surf white and gentle as it rolled in. Lush hills formed knuckles on a green finger curled around the bay, the peaks lost in distant, rolling clouds. A gull screeched somewhere, invisible in the endless sky.

I looked down at my transplanted sea shell, sitting on my desk in my cubicle in Madison, Wisconsin.

"This is bullshit," it said.

1 comment:

AlisonLeah said...

The seashell is correct, and extremely articulate might I add.