The small stone fell from a ledge
in a study somewhere
and dropped into a travel bag.

Later the bag was picked up and carried away.

Much later still it was put in a car
being placed on the back seat. The car was
then driven to a port where it was taken off
the seat of the car and carried on-board
a cruise ship. The cruise ship was about
to sail up the Norwegian Fjords. It sailed
there quite frequently, though not
exclusively as it also sailed
around the Mediterranean Sea.

The bag was taken to and placed in
one of the luxurious staterooms.The
owner of the bag and her husband
were celebrating an important event
by enjoying a journey that they had
always promised themselves. The bag
eventually ended up on the deck as the
husband had fetched it for his wife
for an object that it contained. In
getting that thing out, the small
stone got caught up in it somehow
and was pulled out of the bag and
fell onto the deck of the ship,
whereupon it started to roll about.

Ultimately the stone found its way
to the stairs down to the lower deck
where it found a gap to lodge in. The
cruise ship sailed into the fjords
during a sudden heavy storm causing
much turbulence not only on the ship
but in a number of the passengers
stomachs, one of whom, a drinking man
I chance, could not contain himself,
and he was violently sick. The storm
abated however, and all was well.

A crewman took on the task of
cleaning up after the apparently
bibulous gentleman and washed down
the deck, and in doing so, washed
the small stone through a gap,
specially there for the deck washing
purpose, and into the fjord whereupon
it sank to the very deep bottom.

Such are the mysteries of life, but
in that one pebble’s journey you can
gauge the unpredictable future of
every man, woman and child and creature
on Earth.

Isn’t life utterly bewildering?

It is unlikely that the ever-moving tides
in the fjord will not have moved it elsewhere
many times since it fell in off the ship,
out of the bag, out of the car, into the car,
into the bag, and off the shelf
in the first place.

How it arrived on the shelf is
a story for another day.

Utterly bewildering!

©Joe Wilson – The pebble of life…2014