Happy Place

• Ashleigh Murphy, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2019

As I walk along the moist sand, there is a bitter taste of seawater that has entered my mouth from the sea breeze that has suddenly come my way. Although I come here all the time, my eyes still cannot adjust to the stunning scenery. I look at the rocks beside me and notice the brown rocks have turned a magnificent gold as it clashed with the gazing sun behind me. Just looking at the appealing rocks reminded me of when I was little, and how I climbed the rocks trying to be Spiderman. I would climb up the rocks pretending to shoot webs out of my hand.

Unfortunately, being Spiderman didn’t work out, for I would always fall and graze some part of me. As I stop to reminisce, I feel the crumbled sand squeezed in between my toes, spilling out over them like a volcano of lava. I am jolted from my thoughts by something that has caught my eye… what is that? I look harder and it is like I am in a dream… in a fairy-tale. It is too beautiful to be in this world, too beautiful to be my reality. I am seeing the sun dance across the ocean like a tribal warrior. The sea turns a marvelous pink as the sun faded and is now a calming orange. I don’t want to leave because I am happy here… the weight of the world has lifted from my shoulders and this is the only place I can be a child, adolescent, and an adult all together at once. But just like the sun, drifting further behind the waves of what now seems to be a blanket of vigorous water and I too will have to drift back to reality, to the responsibilities and the never-ending workload which people mistake as life.

This ending comes too quick as the clouds have now rolled in towards me like a bulldozer trying to scoop me and take me away. Like the defiant child, I want to rebel but then I feel a drop… and then another… It has started to rain, and I have no choice but to surrender. I walk away with my chin on my chest, and a warm glow in my heart knowing I can return.