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Island Getaway Contest

Jennifer Swender
Amherst, MA

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Me and the Old Man and the Sea

Hemingway

In the early Spring of that year we traveled by skiff and looked across the waves and thunder clouds to the horizon. In the heart of the storm there were pebbles and loam, wet and white in the rain, and the water was harsh and rushing and green in our ears. Birds flew over our heads and down the waves and the arcs they made colored the clouds of the sky. The ocean too was tired and the tow pushed honestly that spring and we followed the birds sweeping through the sky and the arcs forming the waves, moved by the moon, pulling and the gulls fleeting and afterward the island desolate and white except for the birds.

"Now, Hem," I said. "I've been wanting to talk to you."

"Funny," he said. "There's nothing to say."

"But I have questions," I protested, "about survival, about memory, about truth and fiction, about human beings."

"I don't want to talk about it," he said. "What's for lunch?"

"Little fishes and palm hearts and a bottle of Pouilly Fuisé that just washed up on shore. We're very lucky we found this place."

"We've always been lucky," he said.

"Tell me everything," I said.

"There's nothing to tell," he said. "I've led a very quiet life."

He picked up a conch shell, filled it with wine, sipped slowly.

"I'll tell you about Paris in the early days," he began.

And we were stranded and very happy.

starfish

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