September 2012 — Seeds

There’s an island at the end of the world, a rocky fist rising from blue-green waters and a beach strewn with pebbles that tumbles into frothy waves. This is where dreams are grown.

Every morning as the sun spills across the horizon, sprinkling the ocean with shimmering tinsel, Old Man Somni steps barefoot along the beach. His back creaks like the ancient hulls of the wrecks along the shore. His face is a salt-kissed map of memories. His bones are driftwood and his hair is a long tangle of white and kelp. His clothes, the ragged offerings from the deep, but his eyes are yet bright, stained ocean-azure from looking too long at the sea.

He hunts for special pebbles, some smooth and mottled silver, others brown as eggshell. Despite the ache in his joints, he stoops to scoop a handful of the stones, weighing each one carefully as he sifts saliva through his decaying teeth.