A child knelt, sanding the aft of her toy boat in a shabby yard, dreaming of sailing away—captaincy!
The oceans, however, proved cruel: stern beating, scull battering.
Clutching fatigued sandpaper, she drifted towards unknown harbors,
sinking in a wave of years, her callous old hands surrounded by dust, rudderless.
Ralph Bossingham is a Music Therapist, English Teacher, and a compulsive maker of things.
What a story! I happen to love the ocean and boats. And with your vivid descriptions, I was on the ocean journey with this woman. Tying it in with the sandpaper was incredibly clever.
Lately, I’ve felt that too many of these microfiction stories are so sad that it makes me depressed. Cancer, Alzheimer’s, death…But you chose to write a sad story in such a creative, imaginative way that I can’t stop reading it; I’m up to 20 times and counting. (And I’m not depressed.)
Good job Ralph. Very evocative. Also sad, nicely done. I have filed on hard drive “Rudderless Ralph”.
From childhood to old age, we all have to navigate the seas of time. Wonderful.