The Silver Sea
About a year ago I had
the strangest dream. I was sitting up in bed, reading a book of short stories I
had acquired a while back but had never gotten around to reading. I had just
finished a rather lengthy story but, not quite ready for sleep, flipped through
the pages to find a shorter one. The very next story was only four pages, so I
began to read. “My name is not important, I am one of many…” it began. It was
the story of an old man, one who had lived a long full life of adventures and
experiences. Much good he had done in his life and much had he learned, yet one
thing still eluded him. His life, he knew, was incomplete until he discovered
the answer to the question that had troubled him throughout his life. And so he
set out upon the last and greatest quest of his life: a quest for the meaning
of life.
His search led him
through many adventures which I can no longer remember, but in the end the
trail led up a range of many high, silver mountains. Within one of these
mountains he discovered a cave. Entering the cave, he saw a woman dressed in
white, there as if for no other reason than to await his arrival. Intuitively,
the old man asked the woman if she could help him in his quest. The woman said
nothing but led his gaze off to the side of her where a glowing horizontal line
appeared. As they both looked at the line, it grew larger, as though it was a
large flat screen that rotated until the old man could see an image upon it. It
seemed to him to be a picture of the silver mountains that surrounded him,
their snow-capped peaks a bright white. But slowly the picture began to move.
The mountains began to rise and fall as though millennia were moments. The
motion increased further until the old man realized that the mountains were
waves of a sea; the snow-capped peaks were white caps reflecting the light of
an unseen sun. The sea itself was the color of purest silver. But as the waves
pushed upwards, the uppermost tips that reached for the sky were of a white
that paled the silver.
“What is it that you
show me?” the old man asked.
“It is everything,”
said the woman
“Then what is the
meaning of life?”
The woman paused for a
moment, smiled, and said: “To shine.”
The man looked back at
the lake, saw the water moving endlessly, waves leaping skyward. The upper
peaks shone brilliantly as they reached towards the heavens, then fell back
into the silver as new waves reached their peak. The old man smiled, because
now he understood. And so he began a new adventure, a new life.
“My name is
unimportant, I am one of many…”it ended. As I finished the story, I smiled too,
in appreciation of the old man. After a moment, I flicked back to the beginning
of the story to read it again. I stopped short, deciding to save the story for
another night. I placed the book on the table by my bed, turned the light out,
pulled the covers over me, and woke up. I sat up in bed for a moment, wishing I
had reread the story, and wondering what other stories I might have discovered
in that book.
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