Tag: writing

A Voice in the Shell

~ Richard Schulte ~ 7 Comments

One person was on the beach.

Linda walked quickly over the sand in her awkward work shoes. She breathed in the chilly morning air. Her thoughts were consumed by the busy day ahead: the meeting with an important client at nine o’clock and the many projects she had to work on because it was already Thursday. Her eyes were down on the sand, unfocused.

She noticed an unbroken shell.

She picked the shell up and instinctively held it to one ear.

“Hello?” said a voice in the shell.

Linda halted, turned about. She searched with confusion up and down the empty beach. The sun was just rising above a dark line of rooftops across Ocean Drive. A gull passed above her and the surf rumbled. Not a soul was nearby.

She looked for a moment at the small perfect shell, then held it again close to her ear.

“Hello?” whispered a voice.

“What? Who’s that?” asked Linda, whirling around.

Was somebody talking to her?

Perhaps she was confused. Calming herself, she carefully turned the sea shell over to examine it. Polished pure white, the small beautiful conch resembled porcelain. The unaccountable voice, she concluded, was just the muffled sound of the crashing ocean, an echo, an indistinct murmur of the air.

She raised the shell once more to her ear.

“Help me,” said a small voice. “I’m lost.”

“Who’s that talking?” asked Linda, listening with disbelief to her own startled words.

“Please help me,” said a voice in the shell.

“What do you mean? Who are you? I can hear you, but I can’t see you anywhere. Did you say you’re lost? Are you saying you don’t know where you are?” asked Linda.

“Please save me,” replied a voice in the shell.

“Who is this? This is crazy!”

“I’ve become lost. I’m lost,” said a voice in the shell.

“It’s okay. Maybe I can help you,” Linda said, her mind racing. “I can hear you, so you must be somewhere close.”  She looked up and down the sand again, much more carefully. “I’m standing on the beach near the intersection of Ocean Drive and 28th Street. The old lighthouse is about a mile to the south, out at the end of Lookout Point. A big ship is on the horizon.”

“I know,” whispered a voice. “I see that.”

“What?”

“I see the place where you are standing.”

“You can see me?”

“I see the wet sand under your feet. I see clouds moving past the lighthouse, casting living shadows on the golden cliffs below.”

“How do you see that? Where are you?”

“I see exactly where you stand,” said the strange voice. “I see silver sunlight on every ripple in the sand. I see the ebb and flow and surge of every wave. I see the dip and rise of every bird, the joy in unbounded air. I see the swell of Earth’s beating heart.”

Linda stood, astonished.

“I see everything,” said the voice in the shell. “But I am lost.”

“I see a lingering blush of sunrise in one vanishing cloud,” said the voice. “I see every pool and channel, the erosions of a thousand forgotten tides. I see the tug of a hidden moon, rainbows in skins of water, and unshed tears. I see beyond the horizon.”

The small voice spoke more quietly. “I see a needle of silent pelicans threading the crystal surf, the beauty of white spray rising. I see small splashes of green where blue ought to be. I see bones of driftwood, mother-of-pearl atoms, mute messages in polished stones.”

“I see everything,” whispered the voice. “I see broken flotsam, bits of time and bits of memory. I see the tiny brown crab skittering by your feet. I see the polished white shell in your fingers, a touch of wonder on your face.”

“Yes, you know exactly where I am,” Linda replied quietly.

“Will you take me with you?” asked a voice in the shell. “I don’t want to be lost.”

Linda gazed at the unbroken shell, her eyes opened wide. Until that moment she hadn’t understood its mystery.

She carefully put the small shell into her pocket. She continued slowly across the sand.

A Miracle on Sixth Avenue

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

John walked slowly toward his parked car. Sixth Avenue was just another street in the city.

Without thinking, he searched the sidewalk with downcast eyes. Cigarette butts, rotting food, a discarded bottle, a dead cockroach, bits of toilet paper. Disgusting stains, crushed things.

A plume of smoke up ahead caught his attention.

As he neared, John noticed a crowd of people had gathered close to the rising black smoke. Excited faces were staring down at the freeway from an overpass.

A van was on fire below. Traffic on the freeway had been stopped by a police car with flashing lights, and two firemen with a hose were getting ready to put out the flames. The empty van, alone on the concrete, simply burned, nothing more.

At least forty people on the overpass leaned forward to stare down at the freeway. More were arriving, drawn by the smoke, as ants are drawn to sugar. Every person in the crowd held up a phone, carefully framing a photograph. A photograph of an empty van on fire.

The people checked their phone, appeared unsatisfied, changed the angle, held it higher. Needing to capture destruction, meaningless and distant. They watched with perfect fascination and took a second and third picture. A hundred identical photographs.

John kept walking. He’d never before felt such a wave of disgust.

That night he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t purge from his mind that crush of people. Gawking, predictable, animal humanity, eagerly recording flames and black smoke, because flames and black smoke seemed exciting. Why? For what reason?

People were shallow and disgusting.

But what in the world is new?

And so John walked from his parked car up Sixth Avenue the next morning, a remnant of that dark shadow in his mind.

The sun was up. At the overpass there was no smoke. Cars passed in a blur on the concrete below. The incident was erased. Time swallows everything. Just different trash on the sidewalk.

“Good morning,” said an approaching person. The stranger’s eyes were wide, directly meeting John’s own eyes. A sincere, friendly smile was on the stranger’s lips.

“Morning,” John half-smiled.

And the passing person was gone.

The sun rose higher.

A small miracle had saved everything.

…

This short story originally appeared here!

An Unexpected Sunflower

~ Richard Schulte ~ 18 Comments

Lucy was surprised to see that an unexpected sunflower had sprouted in a corner of her backyard. Where it came from, she didn’t know. Every day she carefully watered the plant. It quickly grew.

When the bud opened the bloom was just glorious. Large, yellow and beautiful, like a cheerful sun in a small green world.

Gazing at the sunflower, Lucy felt that life was indeed good.

Every person on Earth, she thought, deserved the feeling that life is good. Why not? Suddenly she had an absurd impulse: to give that one magical flower to the entire world.

Every person should see it. Smell it. Touch it.

At last Lucy settled on her best idea. She’d give the sunflower to a friend, who would then pass the flower to another friend, who’d pass it to another friend… And so on.

Seven billion people on an impossibly big planet wouldn’t see her flower, but a few would. That’s the best she could do.

Several days later she carefully harvested the sunflower and placed it in a tall vase. She brought the flower across town and gave it to her Uncle Carl, who was under blankets with a bad case of the flu. A note was tied to the sunflower’s stem: Once this small bit of sunshine has been enjoyed, please give to a friend.

“Thank you,” he said, sincerely.

The next day Uncle Carl was visited by Alfonso, one of his war buddies. “Now you have to give this to one of your friends,” he said. “And add a little water.”

The sunflower descended like a beam of golden sunshine when Alfonso handed it to his daughter, Maria. She rose from her dining room chair, stunned. “That’s for me?” she asked, with absolute disbelief. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” he smiled. “You’re my friend, right? But read the note. You now have to give it to someone that you think is special.”

Maria gave the flower to William.

William gave the flower to Jerry.

Jerry gave the flower to Daniella.

Before class, Daniella handed the sunflower to her Geometry teacher. Mr. Harrow didn’t know how to react. “Read the note,” she explained.

“But the flower is drying out,” he said. “It won’t last much longer.”

“You’re the best math teacher I ever had. So take it.”

Mr. Harrow took the vase containing the sunflower home. He read the note attached to the stem: Once this small bit of sunshine has been enjoyed, please give to a friend. He wondered who had bought the vase. He placed the vase by the television and thought of his late wife.

Next morning the flower had entirely wilted. The crumpled petals had lost their brilliant color and several had fallen off.

Mr. Harrow removed the note from the stem and put it in a drawer. He carried the vase out to his compost pile, and quickly tossed the flower onto the heap. The vase he carefully cleaned and placed in a corner of his quiet house.

The following spring Mr. Harrow took a slow stroll through the backyard on a gloomy, gray day. As he came around the garage he was taken by complete surprise. Two sunflowers were rising from the dead compost.

The small miracle caused Mr. Harrow to wipe away a few tears.

Perhaps, he thought, being a teacher of math wasn’t such a useless thing. Because he appreciated the revealed meaning of the sunflowers. And it was: simple multiplication can quickly encompass the world.

If seeds were carefully harvested from a dying bloom–and just two seeds sprouted–one sunflower might become two. Then, repeated, two sunflowers might become four. Four sunflowers might become eight. Eight sunflowers might become sixteen. And in 33 generations–33 years–one seed might produce well over seven billion sunflowers. Enough sunflowers for everybody. Everybody in the world.

Mr. Harrow found the old note in the back of the drawer. It still read: Once this small bit of sunshine has been enjoyed, please give to a friend. He then added in his own writing: When the bloom finally fades, harvest the seeds and grow more sunflowers. He made two photocopies of the note, one for each of his miracle sunflowers.

In math, even the smallest fraction contains world-changing power.  One in seven billion seems like nothing, until it is turned upside down.

. . .

Lucy lay in a dark hospital.

The memory of her miracle garden had long vanished.  She had become very old.

Judy, her granddaughter, came to visit one late Thursday afternoon. She was holding a surprise behind her back. She presented a sunflower, like sunshine, in a new vase.

“Can you believe it? Out of the blue my best friend gave me this! Isn’t it amazing? And it has a strange note. I’m supposed to give this flower to someone I love. I would like you to have this.”

Attached to the stem of the sunflower was a small photocopied note. The first half of the handwriting Lucy recognized. It was her own.

…

This short story originally appeared here!