I was at anchor under a September sun by the Summer Isles in the north of Scotland and all along the horizon the sentinel peaks of Assynt stood watch, timeless and stoic. We had spent days sailing along ancient coastlines and pebble beaches with the mountains in view. The air felt strange and heavy that night, the aurora dancing in the heavens. As I fell asleep under the stars, I dreamt of time and mountains.
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I dreamt I was a pebble, one amongst the uncountable multitude on a beach. I couldn’t see down to the water, though I heard the lapping waves and felt the cold, salty spray wash over me. All I could see were other rocks nearby and steel-grey skies above. I watched the gulls and gannets soar beneath the heavy clouds, brilliant white brush strokes against the grey. I longed to be high above, seeing what they saw. I longed to know a world beyond this pebble beach, something bigger and better. Was it even a life to be one pebble amongst millions? I wanted to know what else was out there.
Endless years passed and I watched the seasons come and go, but nothing changed. I still longed to leave. Then one day I was picked up by one of the gulls. We rushed through air and clouds, soaring high above the sea. I saw the world around me for the first time. The rugged mountains in the distance, shrouded in cloud. The pale autumn sun gently warming. It felt as if I could almost touch the heavens if the gull were to fly just a little higher. I looked at the peaks of the mountains, envious at their grandeur. Oh! to be a mountain, planted deep in the earth, touching the clouds, overlooking the world. I felt like I could almost reach it.
Then the gull dropped me. Air rushed, the world spun in tumbling chaos as I fell down through wet, cold clouds and salty sea spray before hitting the waves.
And I sank.
I descended through the deep blue water until all light disappeared. The darkness was all-consuming. In the lonely depths I wept and mourned for the loss of my life up in the light, on the beach that was my home.
Then a voice spoke to me, rhythmic and deep as waves against rock. ‘Why do you cry, little pebble?’ It was the Ocean herself.
And I told her of the life I had lost and my dreams of leaving the pebble beach, my envy at the snow-capped mountains, eternal and tall.
Her soothing voice replied: ‘But have you forgotten?’
‘Forgotten?’
‘You were that mountain, in eons past. You stood proud then, taller than anything on Earth. You looked out at the changing world from the top of the peak before time and weather brought you down to that beach, shaping you into the pebble you now are.’
So long had passed and my memories of the distant ages had fallen away, eroded by time. All I’d known for so long was the pebble beach, remote and wild. But as the Ocean spoke I remembered the millennia I spent in the clouds, seeing sunsets and sunrises, infinite lifetimes of creatures roaming the Earth. Watching their cycles of death and rebirth.
There was solace and contentment in that memory. Belonging. ‘I remember now. I used to stand tall and proud. What a life mine has been here on this earth. I wish it didn’t have to end like this.’
‘Time and entropy will take all eventually.’
More memories surged back. The eras of splitting up and being shaped. Of finally finding rest upon that beach, pebbles together, shaped from one whole.
‘How did I forget that we were all shared facets upon that beach? Here in the dark I’m all alone.’
‘All things are as one to me, eternally cycling.’
I could sense the currents in the water and the millions of fragments of other rocks dispersed in the sea, an eternal continuity. Yet in the dark it was no comfort.
‘I long to see the heavens again, and briefly I was there, before I fell into your depths. Would you bring me back to my pebble beach?’
‘I am part of Earth as you are. I do not command the sun nor the moon; we all move together in time. But do not despair in the dark. You will see the heavens again one day.’
The darkness was all consuming and dread filled my soul, thinking of the long night ahead. Many eons alone.
‘When?’
‘With time, the earth will reclaim you. And one day, you will break the surface. You will rise up through fire and chaos, into the sky and reach the clouds. There, you will see the sun rise again, eternal in its cycle. You just have to be patient.’
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I awoke to the pale morning sun on my face, with tears in my eyes, as we rocked in a gentle swell. We walked along the pebble beaches of Assynt later in the afternoon, and I felt like I could see all the ages of the Earth. I felt like I could see it as it once was, and how it will one day become. I felt simultaneously part of it all, and completely insignificant. I felt like a human on Earth.
Thanks for reading this essay. It is a little different in tone from my previous ones and I have enjoyed experimenting with it. It is set in and inspired by sailing to the Summer Isles and Cape Wrath in my little sailboat Kismet, which was a transformative experience and subject of the memoir I am currently writing.
A big inspiration is also a song that has become a part of me over the years, and helped me gain perspective through some dark times. It is Swedish artist Laleh’s song “Det kommer bli bra” (All will be well). In particular the lyric (translated): “I am just a pebble in the sea, things are not so bad. A couple of rings on the ocean is all we’ll leave behind.”
And that’s an encouraging thought to me.
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This story is part of a set of themed essays around nature and finding belonging. You can read the other essays here:
Reminds me of something I always said to clients concerned about wear and tear on their house (retired architect) ! "Everything is crumbling and heading for the sea!" Good experiment!
I can see this fable (?) as a picture book: it would have been my favourite as a child!