Obviously the two rocks had to get married, living next to each other like that for so long. The sea was their witness. The fisherman finished tying the knot on the silken rope, the same knot he used to mend his nets. That will hold them for an eternity, he thought. But the sea was jealous, and pushed its waves between them, widening the distance between them until they were bowed, the lovers’ knot holding them true. The sea grew angry and threw up a wave so huge it lost its balance and stumbled. The ocean floor shifted and dropped. Too late, the sea tried to call back its wave but the anger had spread to distant rocks, more distant shores. Islands moved 60 feet, coastlines sank. The sea stared into the aftermath of flotsam and jetsam and strange fish, like the fisherman, sank to the sea floor—as if to mend the rift in her heart. The sea cried, her heart wept molten rock, a new island arose from the gaping wound of her grief, but it was alone, not another rock to marry. But the sea wasn’t about to give birth again so soon. She crept back to the two rocks that the fisherman had married but it was obvious he was gone along with the other strange fish on the bottom of the sea.
1/7/2005 Writers’ Group
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