The Little Girl and her Sailboat

Her first memory is waking up on the little sailboat.

Painted on the side was a sentence she had not written.

" I cannot escape the consequences of my actions," it said.

She hoisted up the sail because she was hungry,

and found a little island, where there was a little house.

They gave her two loaves of bread, in exchange for taking them

to another island and back.

Soon she became part of the great lake, shuttling people back and forth

taking care of them

helping them to live their lives.

Each time she would see a white flag flying, and go to a little island to

take care of its people, she would ask them

"do you know who I am?"

"do you remember where I came from?"

and many of them seeemed to have something to say, but not enough to help.

So she remembered all that they said, to try and figure out

the answers to her

questions.

One person thought she was from somewhere else, and that there, she is different.

One person thought that she was a gift to the lake.

One person thought that she was sent to the lake as a punishment.

One person said she should be happy where she is.

One person thought she should go back to a better place.

The people on the islands guessed a lot

and made up things they thought people wanted to hear

perhaps.

Now life must go on at the lake

and on the little islands

and she is an important part of the lake

but one day a question popped out (or in)

"what about me?"

and with that one question

which just popped out

she could not stop thinking of where she came from

and who she was

and she didn't think that going to another lake,

while a nice thing to do,

was going to help her to understand herself.

So she sailed away from the islands

to the end of the lake, where no one goes.

She had bread on the boat to last for two weeks.

When the water started moving so fast

that the sails did not matter

a gnome appeared on the boat, of course.

The gnome pointed into the sun and said that there was a tall waterfall

nearby

and that if she wanted to take the little sailboat over the waterfall

there would be a wonderful place at the bottom

or so he'd heard.

The gnome said that there is a lake at the bottom of the waterfall

or so he'd heard

and it is so much different and so beautiful there

perhaps

but even if it is beautiful

as he has heard

the girl in the boat would still be a girl in a boat.

Perhaps the lake would be wonderful

with free bread everywhere

but you just never know.

Before the gnome disappeared from his visit to the boat

just as he had appeared

he tied a rope onto the boat

that leads back to the lake, and said it could be used

whenever.

The girl in the boat looked around, and realized that this part of the lake,

the lake she had known for all her remembered life,

was different.

Curious.

Exploring here would be interesting too.

But the possibilities of the waterfall were great indeed

and late one night  she decided, alone

to point the little sailboat at the waterfall

and over the falls she went.

She did not land in another lake

she did not land at all

she fell with her little boat in the waterfall's water

and fell and fell and fell

and she felt terror

then she felt like she may now be part of

a falls that falls forever

with no lake or no end,

and a day passed, and another day,

and she ate her bread,

and lightly held in her hand

the rope that would take her back

to a part of her old lake that was so different,

a part that looked new.

When she ran out of bread

she and her little boat were still falling,

passing an occasional branch,

but falling alone.

She wondered if there was an end,

if all her questions would be answered there,

if she should use the rope.

If there had been someone with her to talk to,

she'd have felt better about believing that

there was no right choice.

She wished there was something more insightful

than words like

"it's not the destination, but the journey"

but no one could know.

So every choice was the same - something new to learn

with each one,

hoped the little girl in the sailboat.

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© 2012 John Allison