Short Story: I Was Loved

Dear Human, who gazes at me so lovingly wondering what my story is, if you would just sit awhile and be as peaceful on the inside as you are on the outside, my story will reveal itself to you. You pace and wander in your mind while you serenely face the world. Sit. Rest...and listen.

Before I ended up in this beautiful, modern glass home with the bed of pure white sand, with fossicked shells for decoration, my travels were many. My journeys were not as yours as I saw time pass in the depths of the ocean. Oh how I ached for the dry land again, to be wanted by someone again.

I was created in England in a small potting town and was part of a beautiful set of dining dishes. I was passed on from my first owner upon their death, to a beautiful young couple and oh they cherished me! I was treated with reverence and importance....I was loved!

Time passed and the young pair grew older and had children of their own, and those children grew, or did not. Slowly but surely, parts of me were lost. My bowls went first....my dinner plates...slowly but surely through various accidents, my family was decimated until there was only myself and my cup remaining. At the same time, my humans were tried with misfortunes, the deaths of their children from illness and accidents, and the loss of circumstance so that they too were left with very little. Finally the decision was made to leave here, our place of birth and inheritance and travel over the seas to make a new home, where new roots could be set down. I had been treated with even greater reverence than before, kept upon the mantle as a reminder of who we once were....gathering dust and grime but I was still loved! And so, we went.

My cup and I were packed up and we set off to what we thought was the greatest city on earth, London, and there we boarded a sailing ship headed for New South Wales. On this journey, I was used by my lovely bride as she strove to remain positive at this change of circumstance. Of the five children this beautiful girl bore, only one remained....such a naughty lad! But like I, he was loved, he was cherished and he was adored. May-hap this contributed to his mischiefs and misbehaviors. May-hap it was just one of those things...happenstance. But it was he who orchestrated the loss of my whole. The lad was feeling unwell and was more contrary than usual. His mother finished the last of her tea and set my cup down upon me when a flying arm from the boy, sent said cup flying to shatter on the floor into many irretrievable pieces.

I felt the loss of my cup keenly, but for a long time, I could not dwell upon it's loss as the child grew sicker and sicker. I was used as a way of getting liquids into the child during his illness. I worked hard – he was a part of my family! But to no avail. The boy and many others died on that journey to the place we thought would be ours. My beautiful bride also passed and with her, the spirit of her husband.

He had nothing left to live for he said. He had lost it all. He wailed and gnashed his teeth as the lad and his mother were wrapped together in one of their fine linen sheets, and buried at sea where never again, would they be beheld.

We arrived in Australia and at once my man drew a drink. I sat unused, in a small pile of belongings left outside a tavern, as the man lost what was left his dignity. Little wonder that I was stolen with the rest of his luggage.

So how did I get here? I was taken on board yet another ship, to travel who knows where, by who knows who! I was broken! I was mistreated and I was broken in three, no more use to even the lowest of the sailors. My own obsequies at sea were not with the cherishing words and tears of my bride's burial. Instead, I was callously tossed overboard with a curse, my three pieces violently separated by the movement of the waves. The parts of what remained of my whole and I, cried out to each other. We had heard of this place and we were scared. We knew we would never see each other again.

Time passed and I slowly moved around the floor of the ocean, a witness to the power of the tidal motions. At one point I was taken in by a covetous octopus who had created within his home, a beautiful collection of treasures. But – my beauty had been dulled by then so when another more beautiful item was brought home by the octopus, I was thrown out again onto the tide, to travel where it might take me.

I became rubbed down. My sharp edges became soft curves as little chips of me were whittled off by not so gentle landings on sand and stone. My design, a beautiful deep blue, became the faded delicate grey of shopworn pen-ink on cheap paper.

Once in a while during a beach landing, I breathed the salty air and freedom oh so briefly. It only served to remind me of my lost family. I would hear tales from other treasures such as myself – a part of a surgeon's medicament bottle, a piece of a soup tureen lost during a storm and once – another piece of dining ware from the same small town as I whose story was just as tragic. So, I took the chaffing and scuffing afforded me by the beach and waited for the tide to change.

I was always washed off the beaches. I was always returned to the water. Until the last day. I had been flung high upon the shore by angry, stormy waves. Here, there were less shells and more sand. How was I to know that this sand was the remains of us all! A girl was slowly wandering along the beach, rugged up against the stormy weather. Even I could feel her sadness. Every now and then she would stoop to the sand and pick something up. A pretty pebble or attractive shell. She also picked me up. She stroked me lovingly, tenderly. She wrapped me in a handkerchief fished out from somewhere and placed me in the pocket of her left hand. She fondled me gently through the handkerchief.

Abruptly I felt her turn and walk back the way she came. We ended up back at her home, a bright, shiny and warm home, and in a room the likes of which I had never seen. Creatures I know now are dragons, hung from her ceiling in little glass homes, fat shiny cats wandered in and out and a small fire crackled warmly in the hearth. Time had passed for me and oh such wonders that had been created! I could not take in all that I saw, all that I heard! That I had survived for such a long time to see what this world had achieved!

She took me out of her pocket, washing me gently in salt free water then drying me as she looked around her room. I watched as she retrieved what was to become my beautiful glass home from a shelf and filled it with pure white sand. She then picked me up and reverently placed me in the sand, giving me adornments for what was to be my new home.

And that, my dear friend, is my story. Here I will sit, taken out of my sand once in a while to be stroked and rubbed, until that very last day when the last stroke takes all that is left of me and spreads me gently in my bed of sand. But, I am loved.




The End.

 (C)Michelle Evans Catherall 2016.  All rights reserved