Seth Stringer
As the shoreline flooded with seagulls, and the stars began to shine, it brought back a memory, a question I had for my father.
What are the stars? I asked. Some are angels, and the rest are people who have been forgotten. Will people forget about me when I die? Yes, and that’s the way it always is. You don’t need to worry about fame or being significant. God appoints those people. What if God has appointed me to be known forever? No one is known forever; some are just remembered for longer. Even Shakespeare’s sonnets and Beethoven’s sonatas will yellow and crumble. But for now, they echo in the canyon of life. Only God’s words will live forevermore. I’m terrified of death. One hundred years from now, when we’re both gone, this conversation will live among the stars. Look up whenever you’re afraid and see how many exist in the fragments of time. Look up and see how many lives once existed. We are nothing. We are but a simple drop of rain in the tempest.
After the memory left, I took to the wind-driven waves. I floated and gazed at the stars, and I couldn’t wait to become one of them.