The Pebble

The sun was high, and just ahead of me. As I looked down the shadow behind me must have been no more than an egg shape the size of my rucksack. I had travelled the world, and was back home.

I looked down at my feet, and at the stones on the beach around me. There is nothing special about this beach, at least I never thought so before, yet, at my feet, the sunshine caught a handful of stones and just one pebble stood out from all the rest. It was perfect, not too large and by no means small. It was a perfectly proportioned circular disc, rather like a flattened ball, but what I describe here is just a shape. This stone had not just a shape it had a fabulous form.

It emanated charisma, a pebble with character. It was a special stone, more valuable, more unique than any gem. Its colour was an off white, not a loud, glaring, hygienic white but a subtle hue that was pasted, tastefully, with minute and beautiful freckles that were only a shade darker than the stone’s supple flesh.

I bent over to pick it up. My hand reached down towards it until I suddenly had to lurch backwards and stand upright once again. Not even a finger touched that stone. How could I? It was just too perfect, and it was at rest, at home. Just a small rock, with a huge personality that ushered eons of cosmic energy out of its tiny body, which wrapped around me, and filled the universe with peace and wonder. I was entranced by its sight and encapsulated in its charm, and I knew that I was suddenly on another journey.

I took a step backwards but the sun still haloed that circle of stones, and that magnificent pebble stood out like an oasis in a desert. I could see the whole beach. A myriad tiny stones from the size of a potato to a small tablet: browns, greys, whites, blacks and yellows, all merging into one ten mile wide beach, which had an overall colour of a chalky grey.

I stepped back once again, onto the two-meter high sand dunes. I stood there amongst the sparse grasses that would have reminded me of the wonderful savannah safaris I had experienced, had I not been under the spell of that tiny pebble, which was still, full in focus. I strained to wrench my line of vision upwards, away from the beach, and slowly, but surely, I could see the sea. Tiny waves of clear water rippled quietly onto the stones at the water’s edge. I saw more pebbles, washed over by the dying breakers, and the waves of an ebb that was pulling back to reveal even more stones, but still, there was only one pebble that stood out. I could no longer see it, but I was looking at the horizon, at the whole world ahead of me, through a mystical haze that was generated through that one pebble’s inner beauty.

To the right of me the dunes were dotted with windswept pines and to the left an ancient, wooden gangway came from behind the dunes, out of the mist, and ended at the old wooden steps that went down onto the stony beach. I did not remember it being misty when I came to the beach but now it seemed to be, at least behind me. I am not even sure if I looked behind me. I just knew that there was nothing behind me, not any more, just an empty space, from whence I had come.

Ahead of me was the pebble, the beach, the ocean, and I could only see it through that golden mantle of haze that was emanating from the stone. Then I realised that I was not just looking through that haze, I was in it. I too was shaded with that golden veil, a part of it. Was I also a part of that misty nothingness behind me, or just of that golden wonder ahead of me?

I looked, once again, down from the dune, onto that wondrous stone, and I saw my feet, the circle of light and that tiny geological miracle below me and I realised that I had never moved from that spot. I had been on a journey, without moving from that fleck.

I looked at the stone and those wonderful freckles, some deep, some superficial, were all coordinating with each other, all in the right place at the right time. As I stared at them I could see where I was, what I was doing, and perhaps even, where I was heading. This was not just a mental picture on a stone. I was actually in seventh heaven, looking at the firmament in reverse, a negated view of the sky at night. The inverted sky consumed my whole vision, was my entire surroundings, just as if I was standing alone in a field at night, but with no light, no moon, just the stars above. Yet the great celestial expanse above me was bright, that same beautiful pastel skin colour of the pebble, and the stars were her incredible, subtle brown freckles.

I could see dark shapes flying across the sky in effigy of Tolkien’s dark riders, yet they were no menace. They were there to remind me that evil exists. That good exists I could perceive, through the stone. As my eyes accustomed to the brightness of the inverted night I could see, where once the ocean’s horizon stood, white silhouettes of a city towering up above that grey line ahead. Black lights shone from those distant, transposed buildings and I realised that New York was the most exciting city that I had ever visited. A place of paradox, of good and bad, of lushness, poverty, splendour and triviality. Where people smile and children cry, where love is in the air and where the lust for revenge is conceived in two buildings that were not inverted in the golden haze ahead of me. This city is truly wonderful. It is unique, yet it is the same as any other place on this earth.

The mist behind me blew into the golden veil and washed away the visionary city. I looked down at the stone; she was talking to me again. I saw her round and oval form, and her freckles began to move, slowly, very slowly. Not as they did when they were stars, because the stars moved from west to east in just one night, this time they would need weeks to get to their destination. They were now moving slowly, but in a rush, and all together, they were heading northwest. The more I looked at the pattern of the stone the more I could understand. My distance from the stone became greater and greater yet, instead of the stone getting smaller and smaller, it became larger. What was a small pebble was now as large as the beach, and spreading outwards, to the horizon. From above I could see that off white complexion, with its freckles fleeing off to one side, as if it were the size of a country. In its smooth, porous skin I could see small clouds of dust rising up from around the running brown spots below. As my vision settled, so, too, did the ground below me. There was now a relief to the east. I was looking south, way down, and along the magnificent escarpment of the glorious rift valley and at the many thousands of wildebeest and zebra that were migrating through the arid savannah in search of water and nutrition to the northwest of the Serengeti at Masaai Mara. I felt the pain as millions of hooves pounded down, almost in panic, onto the dusty ground, the skin of my wonderful pebble. I could feel the cries of children as their parents were tortured and shot, the passionate sighs of mothers desperate to give their infants the last milk from their dried out and haggard bodies. These are not gnus but people. Individuals, tribes and whole races who, in spite of their huge survival problems are all wonderful people. But the black riders are there too, like everywhere else in the world. Whilst I was in Africa in reality I knew that it was the most wonderful place on earth, but did I not think the same of New York?

It had been such a wonderful morning as I had walked to the beach after getting off the coach to go home after my long trip. A simple urge took me to the sea before I went home to my folks, and here I stand now…

I look around me as the sea splashes gently onto the beach, the pine trees bend even more forwards towards the town, and the mist has gone. A bus rushes past carrying just one passenger who looks out across the sea…

Have I stood here for an hour or a minute?

I looked down, and could see my feet. A small ring of sunshine fell onto some stones below and, amongst them, one stood out, proud and wonderful. It was a tiny little off white pebble with a lovely smooth surface, freckled sparingly, like the skin of a beautiful woman’s face.

I had seen so many amazing things on my journey yet this stone stood out as one of the most beautiful things I had seen. I bent down to pick it up but had momentarily forgotten the weight of my rucksack. I began to topple forward but managed to pull myself upright. My hand had not even touched the pebble.

As I looked down at it once more I thought, “Just as well, that perfect little thing is where it belongs. This beach, this horizon, this tiny fleck of earth, is the most wonderful place on this planet.“ And so it is, wherever you are, that pebble is there, at your feet. Be inspired by its golden veil.

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