Strange Solace

Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a very ordinary house.

But he was no ordinary man. He was a piece of the sea made into human form. 

He could not speak, for the sea goddesses who made him forgot to give him human language.

But although they forgot to him words, they had given him another, more valuable gift. This gift was the knowledge of all the stories of the sea. The stories that are true, those that began as true but became embellished and embroiled with each retelling, and others that have never been true.

And so he told his stories, they only way he could, through pieces of the see itself. From pebbles washed up on the shore and shells buried within the sand. 

He arranged these pieces of the sea into shapes of creatures the people hadn’t seen or could have ever imaged. 

He made mosaics which told of great loves and heroic battles, daring tales of rescue and bold sacrifice, of shipwrecks and merfolk and buried treasure.

And in time, when every surface was covered, people began to come. And the man began to tell his stories, not with words but with his gestures and expressions.

 Because stories go beyond language. Through his tales he transported his listeners, once by one, to the depths of the sea. 

Copyright: image by Photographer Unknown. Used here for creative, non-commercial purposes. Commercial postcard of Shell House, Southbourne, England. Published by E.T.W. Dennis & Sons Ltd, Scarborough.