Ring of Gold

Ring of Gold: Flash Fiction

  In the night when it's stark and still, she dries his slumber tears. Their son is caught in a raging storm, stronger than Zeus. His boat is broken. His sun is clouded. His sight is all grey.

"Shhh.. my little dove. Shh. It was only a dream. Dreams can't hurt you." She whispers as she strokes her son's hair.

"I could feel everything, mama! It felt like I was drowning!" He cries.

"I know... I know. You're not now. I have you. Everything will be alright."

  She begins telling him a story. The story of the ring of gold. There was a young girl, just about the age of twelve. She was becoming a woman and she was very scared of what was to come with her in her journey. She begged her mother every night to be a child forever. She cried until her sorrow drained her of energy and made her sleep. Her father slept in pain every night in secrecy. It wasn't the pain of a vessel in his body, it was the pain of the heart.

  The very first night of the winter when a blizzard did not keep everyone in misery, the girl's father awoke from his nightmare abruptly, startling his beloved out of her sleep. He began to sob.

"My love?! What did you see? What happened?!" His wife asked as she held him.

"It wasn't... It wasn't dark like all the others! It wasn't melancholy... it was... gold"; "Gold was all around me, but my eye was caught on a single diamond. It wanted me to reach for it, my bride!"

"...Why didn't you take it?"

He looked up at his beautiful wife and stroked her cheek with his hand and said,

"Tonight I will take it... and this will no longer be a dream. I will see you and her in the gold and I will hold that diamond in my hands, looking down at it's beauty... forever."

She looked into her husband's eyes with tears hugging her. She held his hands against her face and kissed. When she pulled away, she pressed her forehead against his and said,

"When you hold that diamond... will you cast it's light down on us? Will you hold us in a ring of gold?"

"Please tell me everything else you want me to do for you... I want to give you everything I can."

"Oh, my darling... my sunrise... that's all I ask of you. You give me everything when you look into my eyes; when you smile down at me when we make love; when our girl was born; when you tell me your dreams and when you remain the bravest man alive for accepting the world."

  She kissed him one last time and laid her head on his chest. He told her to tell their daughter that his dying wish was for her to not fear womanhood and to stay in the present with her mother, embracing everything that comes to her gracefully. He told her to remind her of the ring of gold and the diamond.

"That's your father's favorite story." The woman says with a smile.

"Can I tell it to him?" Her son asks excitedly.

"Of course, my dear! You have the best voice for it."

She leads him into her bedroom, where his father lays awake and calm. The boy pauses for a moment and waits for his father to turn his head towards him. Their eyes meet and they smile.

"Beautiful boy... come here." He says weakly, but happily.

  He embraces his son and kisses his head. His son holds his hands while he tells him the story of the ring of gold, but he stops when his father begins crying. His mother kneels next to the bed and holds her husband's hands, giving them a kiss. He sits up and holds his son in his lap as he softly says,

"Everytime I hear that story, I see a diamond right in front of me. I've seen it my whole life and everytime I hear that story... it gets brighter and closer to me being able to touch it. When I was your age, I spent too much time trying to do what I didn't know how to. I wondered every day why it was so hard for me to get to that diamond even though it was right in front of me. I was so focused on one diamond when all this gold was around me the whole time. But the day you were born was the day that diamond chose to just be in my heart and it's been shining ever since... until today. It's done shining because it wants to be in your heart now, my sweet boy. You have the light in you to keep it shining forever and I want you to always be grateful for the gold that is already around you because it will never go away and it will never be less valuable than any materials."

"...Dad... I got that light from you. You'll always be the one keeping my diamond shining." The boy says with the biggest, warmest smile and tears in his eyes. He wipes them away and says he doesn't want to cry. His father pulls him to his chest and holds him tight. He pulls his wife onto the other half of his lap and holds her.

"Let me tell you another story. It's about the sun and the moon. The very first time the sun was ever hidden away from the moon was the day clouds of grey covered it and stormed all over the ocean. The moon was scared that she would never see the sun again and she cried for days until rays of the sun peeked through the clouds when it began to set in the evening. She could see his light reflecting over the water and the clouds heading to the east and the west. Even though they were miles away from each other, she could hear him whisper to her that she was gonna see him everyday for the rest of her days. Maybe not the same way she did before, but he was always gonna be there. That night when he slept under the horizon, all of her tears became that bright, white shining light that we see on clear nights. All of the pain she felt and the fear she held onto turned into strength. Strength so fierce that she can light the whole night. To this day, the sun and the moon are still deeply in love and share their wisdom with all of us here on Earth." The man says looking up at the moonlight through the window with a smile.

"The sun and moon are going to take good care of you, dad. I'm gonna ask them to."

"No... you don't need to ask them, love. They could hear it in your heart." The woman says looking up at her peaceful, resting husband. She kisses his cheek and holds her son's hand as they fall asleep. There was no sobbing. There was no worry. Only the moon and her ring of gold.

Fin -

© Written by Bailey Gibson