Shell on the shelf

A tiny shell left for tiny hands to pick up and carry, with such delicacy, back to the cottage.

Then to transport hime, tucked in a rucksack, a week later, and be kept when the sand has long been shaken from his clothes and the salt washed from his hair.

Such a small thing, it could be an eye, en elf hat, a button. Zebra stripes in a spiral, once it housed a living creature. Now it sits on a shelf, occasionally touched, pressed and worried by a growing boy with exams to take and girlfriends to meet.

In its curls and lines it holds the memory of a quay-jumping, rock-hopping, crab-chasing summer.

The boy stretches and the shell seems to contract, still as it watches, this unblinking eye on the shelf, a miniature camera, silently capturing a legacy, a lifetime.

created during a mindful writing workshop