CONVERSATION WITH…A Sandcastle Fearing Death At All Times

/ overthehillontheyellowbrickroad

Over the Hill on the Yellow Brick Road, I took a walk on a beach and noticed a sandcastle.  I plopped down beside it and started a conversation.

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Hey Sandcastle—

SANDCASTLE:  Stop right there.  Don’t talk to me.

Why not?

SANDCASTLE:  You won’t want to hear what I have to say.

Because?

SANDCASTLE:  I’m obsessed with death. Every time I hear a wave coming toward me, I panic. I’m always worried about when I won’t exist anymore.

Me too.

SANDCASTLE: Really?

Yes. Especially as I grow older.  I try not to let my fear rise to the surface at all times, but underneath I’m always afraid.

SANDCASTLE:  I have two levels of anxiety.  If I hear a smaller wave rolling in, I don’t worry as much because it’s not as likely to reach me.  But if the wave sounds large and roars in my direction, I have a full blown panic attack.  Know what I mean?

Definitely. I worry I’ll come down with a sudden illness and my body won’t be able to fight it off.  Like, right now there’s a flu epidemic in my area, so I stay at home, hide under the covers and watch the Food Network.  It relaxes me. I isolate myself because I’m afraid I’ll get sick and won’t be able to get through it.

SANDCASTLE:  I isolate myself, too.  I won’t take on any tenants. Like snails.  I turn them away.  I’m not sure how long I’ll be here.  At any moment, I might be gone.

Actually, you wouldn’t exactly be “gone.”

SANDCASTLE:  What? Why not?

Well, before you were a sandcastle you were zillions of grains of sand on the beach.  That’s how you started.

SANDCASTLE:  How do you know?

Trust me on this one.  Anyway, eventually somebody came along and molded you into a different form—a sandcastle.

SANDCASTLE:  Your point being?

When a wave eventually washes over you—

SANDCASTLE: Don’t say that!!!!

Hear me out.  When a wave eventually washes over you, you’ll go back to the form you were before—grains of sand on the beach. You’ll be back where you started, but you won’t be “gone.”

SANDCASTLE: This is blowing my mind.

Maybe the wave will even wash you into the ocean, so you’ll be part of the amazing community under the sea.

SANDCASTLE:  You know… I didn’t think it was possible…but you just made me feel better. No more Prozac for me.

Good to know. It just seems there are so many answers to questions about life and our existence in nature.  The answers are all around us. We just have to look for them.

SANDCASTLE:  I wish I had something useful to add.

No worries.

SANDCASTLE: Wait!  I just thought of something.  If what you say about nature is true, maybe what goes for me can go for you.  I mean, if I started in one form, morphed into another, and will go back to my original form one day…maybe the same will happen to you.

Maybe….

Copyrightoverthehillontheyellowbrickroad2018

57 thoughts on “CONVERSATION WITH…A Sandcastle Fearing Death At All Times”

  1. Hey that was cool. Shades of the His Dark Materials trilogy – that we will eventually become everything, as we break into our component parts – terrifying and comforting both. Amazing that you extracted humour from such weighty subjects!

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  13. That’s what I was thinking as I began reading the sandcastle’s lament: what he started as and would go back to being. But… now I have an image of a sandcastle on Prozac and that kinda blows my own mind! 🙂

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  17. Just perfect! LOL for the tenant part of it..
    So deep otherwise. The sand particles which were scattered all over the place got made into a sand castle by , may be some small kids and then it starts worrying about its existence. But Hey! you wouldn’t even exist but for some playful little kids!!!
    Why worry and panic about getting back to where you are originally from… or may be a better place than that! wow! Loved it cathi…

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  21. Pingback: Shine On… – soulgifts – Telling Tales

  22. Ahh, I don’t think this conversation need be age-specific…I think most people experience these sensations: some form of existential angst. I just thought of Munsch’s “The Scream”…Although I love that painting,,,it makes me happy (non-sequitur, sorry) lol

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