When the Sun Goes Down
When the sun goes down, close your eyes, and I’ll tell you a story.
It’s a story about a wave—a big one, the kind that threatens an undertow if you’re not careful.
This is not advice but a warning.
In this story, I will be a stone, and you can be a seashell or a fishbone or the head of a plastic doll with blue hair someone’s child left behind. On the ride home, when the child remembers the doll, his favourite doll, whose head he gleefully ripped from its body and tossed aside, he cries out—a long and remorseful cry—but it’s too late to turn back now and retrieve it.
The trick, if there is one, is to wash up on the shore and not get dragged down to the bottom of the ocean.
Sometimes the water is calm, but not today, not in this story.
Yes, of course, if you want to be a grain of sand, then be a grain of sand, but you won’t necessarily fare any better.
Originally published in The Litter I See Project in July 2023. The Litter I See Project supports literacy. With thanks to Carin Makuz who founded this project and invited me to participate.
About The Litter I See ProjectEach writer is given a picture of litter with the request that they submit a response in any form. The idea is to create awareness and conversation about the problems of both illiteracy and litter in our communities. Carin Makuz has chosen to support Frontier College specifically for their history and ongoing work to increase literacy from coast to coast to coast. All donations made to the Litter I See Project go directly to Frontier College through their website.
This is the photo I received.
Photo by Carin MakuzKathryn Mockler is the author of the story collection Anecdotes (Book*hug Press, 2023). She co-edited the print anthology Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House Books, 2020) and is the publisher of the Watch Your Head website. She runs the literary newsletter Send My Love to Anyone.
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