The Coral Island!

(Write a story that remains a mystery until the end)

He lays flat on his back, his arms outstretched, his body in total relaxation. His hunger is waking from a deep sleep. In his mind he can picture his surroundings, the sand, the shells and beautiful things he has scavenged from the sea. He feels the sea breeze and hears the sea birds calling as they wheel overhead. He must get up soon. He knows soon he will again be in the depth of the coral reef with the colors and shapes so beautiful. The reef is like an underwater city, full of towers and caves and twisting tunnels of colorful structures. In this world, the fish are so colorful and full of oddities, spines and scales, stingers, bulging eyes or eyes on long shafts or tentacles. Often a plant moves and becomes a sea creature, it was not a plant at all. It is very surreal when things change, what looks like a rock swims away or a moving plant becomes a fin. It is a world unlike any other, but what a paradise. A paradise in which he swims, he swims with them as close as he can be to being one of them.

When he swims here he wears a bag of woven grasses over his shoulder to collect a few of the best finds but he is quite aware that you should not disturb too much as these are homes and places where food sources grow and exist. It is not his world to spoil, he loves it too much to spoil it anyway. He is a land creature born without gills or fins. He tries not to be an intruder in this seascape but he must learn.  He feels the sand under his shoulder blades, he moves slightly to find comfort again, he must get up soon but rest is important if he is to dive again this day.

The reef makes him tired as he had no way to explore it but to hold his breath.  He goes down to look and touch, to learn, it is or could be a life’s work. Not work for pay but work for satisfaction. He would dive and swim until his lungs could wait for fresh air no longer and then he would rise slowly to breach the water surface. Gulping mouthfuls of fresh air and laying on his back on the surface of the water until he recovers. It rarely takes long, he is building endurance quite quickly. His endurance has improved as he reaches manhood but sadly he will never be “of the sea”.  He would sometimes go down again and again until finally he crawled , totally spent onto the sand of this tiny island to fall into deep sleep, to rest, to restore himself. To wake again to enjoy his finds, eat a sustaining meal and then, of course, to dive, to swim again.

And so slowly waking now, he stretches his muscles and his mind registers the sand and the breeze. He  must feed his body the bits left from his last meal and then go again to the depths in search of today’s food and hopefully today’s marvelous finds. He has no idea what the finds are good for, are they valuable to a collector or a scientist for study? He only knows the pleasure they give him, the color, the textures, he smiles as he thinks with pleasure of smelling the sea on them and the taste of salt if he touches the shells with his tongue.  

The sun on his body is quite warm now, he is almost ready to get up and begin his day. Another wonderful day of diving into the coral castles, seeing the miracles of nature. He can imagine the imprint his body has made on this sandy beach. He shifts his weight again to relieve a place where stone or sand is becoming annoying. Yes he is hungry, he wonders what food is left for him to eat. He casually brushes a fly or sand flea away and thinks once again of the wonderful sensation when he parts the water and joins the sea creatures below.  His hair often feels stiff from the dried salt water and as he reaches up to ruffle his hair to remove the sand and salt, his hand finds the roughness of the grey wool cap he always wears and then an insistent tugging on his pant leg brings reality slamming back.

He shakes his leg and gives a little kick but he knows full well that will never stop a hungry determined young goat from trying to make a meal of his pant leg. Sitting up he looks around, the meadow green and lush, the herd of straggling goats all coming to the haystack now to where he has been sleeping. He is immediately disappointed and distressed. How can the dream be so real? It is so very real his disappointment is intense. He is hungry and the goats will want to eat too. He slides down from the top of the hay rick and closes his eyes, he is trying to recapture the sound of surf, the smell of the sea and the taste of salt. All he hears is the bleating of goats and the clank of dented bells worn around the necks of his most disobedient goats, and the smell, well it is nothing like the sea.

He opens his eyes and looks at an equally beautiful sight, the greens of a spring meadow in the mountains. He can not deny this is beautiful too but nothing, nothing can compare with the coral reef. The haystack is like a tiny island in this meadow, this sea of green clovers but the goats are nothing like the creatures of the sea.  

He knows some day in his future, he will do this thing, the dream is so real and so vivid, it must be a true dream, a true dream of his future. In the meantime they must eat, he and the goats. He digs into his pocket to retrieve the key to the grain house and stops dead still where he stands. Taking his fist from his pocket, he turns his hand over and opens his fist. A light stream of white sand sifts slowly to the ground, all that remains in his hand is a tiny sand dollar shell.