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They’re Fossils, He Says
holding his pale palms outstretched, water-stained sedimentary rocks filling his hands, and I smile and say It could be true, not wanting to be the one to correct him, not wanting to stifle an imagination that has turned leftover lake fill into remnants from the Mesozoic Era. This used to be an ocean, he says, pointing to the water, and he tells me about the gray dolphins and the blue whales, the mighty shark with their five rows of teeth, the cuttlefish and the crabs, the stingrays and the clams. Is that so? I say, my face alive with delight, my mind privy to the knowledge that this lake is man-made, built behind a dam to stop the flooding down in the valleys, but I dare not reveal this secret to this imaginative boy. Instead, I say, I’ve never been to the ocean, and I know that he hasn’t either, that all these creatures he talks about — the dolphins and the whales, the cuttlefish and the clams — were introduced to his young mind via thick school books, from reading about mysterious ocean animals that he’s never encountered. Well it was here once, he says, plopping the rocks into a draw bag, tightening the string and flinging it over his sun-burnt shoulder, and we walk together through the forest, up the beaten mountain trail, brown sparrows perched in vibrant green trees, white and yellow honeysuckle perfuming the land, no mighty blue ocean waters anywhere to be seen.
