It had not always been this way though. The boy, who was named Eli, could recall a time not so long ago, when he had thought of the girl as a pest. All he wanted to do was to get home as quickly as possible so that he could go and play football and other games with his friends. The girl, Alica, was always talking and asking questions and back then, he used to find that he would become annoyed with her. He liked to listen to the sound that the waves made when they broke against the shore and he enjoyed losing himself among his own thoughts, letting his mind wander where it would, and this was all impossible with the constant chatter from Alica. Then one day, something had changed. Eli could not say exactly what had happened, all he knew was that one Friday afternoon, several months ago, Alica was her same annoying self but by the following Monday afternoon, as they walked home along the beach, she had suddenly become very interesting to him.
The weekends that had once been filled with games and fun with the other boys of the village, now seemed to drag on and last for an eternity. Eli would keep a constant look out for Alica, hoping to catch just a single glance, but he would seldom see her, as she was often busy helping her father and mother out with running the small bakery that they owned. Monday's could not come quick enough for him. To his friends, Eli still seemed the same, he never spoke to them about Alicia because he was sure that they would all tease him about her and that they would tell her. Eli's parents noticed a change but they did not guess the correct reason. They mistook Eli's change of behaviour as a change in his attitude towards his school work and his education. For so long they had tried to encourage his learning but like all boys of his age, he was more interested in being outside with his friends, rather than inside with his books. When they began to notice him looking a little sad on a Friday evening after school and becoming animated once more on a Monday morning during their breakfast, they naturally assumed that the reason must be because he missed his school work and the opportunity to learn during the weekends. They were now thinking of arranging for some extra tuition with a private tutor each Saturday morning, and they were sure he would be surprised and pleased with them.
This particular afternoon, as Eli and Alicia were walking, Eli wished he could slow down or even stop time. That would allow him to spend as much time with Alicia as he wanted. The only problem though, not forgoing the simple fact that he had no time machine, was that he did not know if Alicia would want to spend more time with him. In the months since he had begun to see her differently, he had not been able to gauge whether she liked him the way he liked her. Some philosophers will tell you that the oldest dilemma faced by mankind is: why are we here? But the simple truth is that it is actually this: does she like me? Eli faced that dilemma and he was afraid to discover the answer.
It is amazing how often we do this. We have a question that burns away in our soul and although we wish to know the answer, we are actually too afraid to go in search of it. Why? Because we are scared of what that answer might be, of the consequences of knowing the answer, and of what it will do to the dream that we have created and long harboured in our minds. We decide that it is better to keep the dream alive rather than to discover the reality, in case the reality is not the one that we wanted. For those of us who do decide to go in search of the answers, we discover that the reality is always far greater and more beautiful than we could ever have dared, even if the answer that we receive is not always the one that we wanted.
Without knowing quite how it happened, Eli stopped walking and heard words coming from his mouth that he had no conscious knowledge of speaking. "Can we sit a while and look upon the ocean?" he asked. "I think that we walk past it every day and we never really look at it. I think we should pay our respects." As soon as he had spoken, he felt a great rising of embarrassment and he could feel himself blushing. The silence from Alicia was deafening to his ears. He looked down at the sand and began to feel like a fool. He had ruined everything! The moments of silence seemed like an eternity to Eli and in the silence he quickly concluded that Alicia was clearly not interested in him. He decided that it would be best to hurry home and forget all about today. Eli began to walk on again.
"I'd like that Eli". The words were music to Eli's ears. "That's a nice idea. Let's sit over by that rock. We can sit on the sand and rest our back against it."
So they set themselves down in the sand with the flat side of the rock at their backs. It was the first time that they had sat next to each other and they were both quiet for a few minutes, neither one knowing quite what to say. The waves of the ocean rolled in and out and the two of them were content to sit in silence. It was Eli who broke the quiet by telling Alicia how much he loved the ocean and how he came down to the beach to watch the waves whenever a storm came in. He told her how he loved to see the power of the waves as they crashed onto the shore, driven by the winds of the storm. He explained to her how he had learned at school that all of the life on the planet had originated in the oceans of the world. He told her how he would love to travel across all of the great oceans and to see the world, watching each new land appear on the horizon at first as a faint speck, then gradually he would watch it grow so that he would be able to discern the hills and the mountains, then the towns and houses and roads, until finally they arrived into the port.
Alicia listened to him and as she did so, she sat smiling to herself. Here was the boy that she had liked since the very first day that they had walked home from school together. For all the time since, she had never known if he had possessed any passion for life. She had always enjoyed their walks and their time together but he had never engaged her in a conversation that stimulated her before. All too often, she had tried to get him to talk, to open up, and it seemed to her that he was like a tightly shut clam, that he was not interested in her or what she had to say. She talked and talked to him partly because she did not like to walk in silence and partly because she wanted him so desperately to talk back to her, but he had always been so quiet. She had wondered for a time whether the problem might have been that he was not an interesting person, or even worse, she had feared that it was simply because he was not interested in her. She was now relieved to discover that this boy did, after all, have a soul.
After a time Eli stopped talking and became silent once more. Alicia was happy to let the silence settle over the two of them. At that moment it felt like the right thing. Nothing had been said by either one of them, but Alicia had the feeling that this day, something significant had changed between them. She was now sure that Eli was interested in her and she was also now sure that she liked him back. They sat in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, all the while the waves rolled in and broke on the beach and the sun began to sink below the horizon to end another day. Like so many of us, the setting of the sun makes for a poignant moment, a moment when it seems right to remain silent, a moment and time for quiet reflection, as if the last rays of the sun are holding us in their spell. It was no different for Eli and Alicia. They sat side by side in silence, watching the clouds in the sky slowly turning from white into all different hues of orange, violet and purple. Eli reached for Alicia's hand and held it in his own. It was the first time that either of them had touched the other and as their fingers entwined together, each of them felt the rightness of the moment and of the physical bridge that was now between them, allowing them to transfer energy between themselves. The sky grew dark, the first stars appeared and with them, the moon rose to cast its light down upon the earth below.
Although she did not wish to break the moment, Alicia stirred. "We should be going", she said. "My parents will wonder where I have got to. I'm not usually home this late. It is dark already."
Eli did not want the day to end but he too knew that he needed to be home. He pushed his foot down into the still warm sand to make ready to stand and as he did so, his foot pushed against something hard. He leaned forward and buried his fingers in the sand until they enclosed around a small stone. He pulled it up and looked at under the light of the moon. He could feel that it was smooth and round, having been shaped by the action of the waves and the sand over many years. He turned it over and over in his hand, feeling the history of it, reading the story of this small pebble with the feel of his fingers. Then, on the spur of the moment, he handed it to Alicia. "This is for you", he said, "I want you to have this pebble as a token to remember the first time that we sat on the beach and talked, the time that we watched our first sunset together, and the first time that we sat under the gaze of the moon and stars."
Alicia took the small stone in her hand and looked at it. It was nothing special at all, just an average looking pebble that could be found all over the beach. This was not exactly the memento of the evening that she had been looking for. She had been hoping for a kiss and she was not able to hide her disappointment. "It's just an ordinary pebble from the beach!" she exclaimed. "There are so many others just like this one I could collect. Why is this one so special?"
Eli thought for a few moments. "Look up to the sky" he said, "do you see the moon?"
Alicia looked up. Of course she saw the moon, how could she not? "I see the moon Eli", she said. "I see the beautiful moon looking down at us. But what has that got to do with this small pebble I am holding in my hand?"
Looking up at the moon, Eli began to speak. "The moon is a huge piece of rock. The pebble in your hand is a small piece of rock. They are one and the same and yet, at the same time, each is different. Each of them has a story to tell of their own history, of their own making. If I could place the moon into the palm of your hand, then I would do that for you Alicia. If I could, I would reach out my hand and pluck the moon out of the sky for you, but I do not have the power to do that. Instead, I give to you this pebble. The moon and the pebble are one and the same. The moon travels around the Earth because of gravity. The gravity of the moon causes the ocean tides and the tides have helped to create life, and they have created the pebble that is now in your hand. Another word for gravity is love because when we are in love, we are drawn to another soul. The moon is drawn to the Earth and that is what keeps it in eternal orbit around us. It is gravity that draws the waters of the oceans toward the land in the form of tides, and it is these tides that have shaped the pebble in your hand and determined its destiny. The pebble in your hand has been created by love."
Eli stopped and looked down at Alicia, who was staring into his face with eyes that were sparkling with life, with eyes that seemed to penetrate right through to his very soul. And he liked it. This gave him the courage to continue. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on her, he looked into her eyes and into her soul as he spoke. "This afternoon, as we both sat and looked out over the ocean, I too felt the pull of gravity. I felt myself being drawn towards you because my heart told me something. It told me that I am in love. The pebble in your hand is a miracle of creation. And the pebble in your hand is love. That is why it is so special. Because you see, the pebble and the moon are actually one and the same. I told you that if I could, I would give you the moon, and so I have. You are holding the moon in your hand Alicia."
Alicia smiled and she took Eli's hand in her own, the pebble rested between their two hands, and they each felt its presence against their palms. Hand in hand, they walked the remaining way along the beach back to their village. As they walked, the moon shone down upon them and from between their clasped fingers, the light of love answered.
_________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment