I was brought into existence by a dark skinned man who was a slave to a gold smith. He made me with care, comprised of scraps carefully saved after his master had done for the day. For a final touch He inscribed on the inside of me, the initials W.M and S.R. He carried me in his pocket for three days till one evening he took me out, on a moonlit night on a cliff by the sea. He held me up in front of a girl with pail skin and fair gold hair. The words, "Will you marry me?" Washed over me and with the answering yes, I was placed around the girl's finger. With those words I was no longer his, I was both of their's, joined by there love and hopes for the future. A symbol of a love that could not yet be. Then there was a lamp and shouting and I was ripped off of her finger and thrown over the cliff and into the sea by a man whose face was contorted with rage.
Moonlight glinted off of my circular surface as I flipped through the night air and splashed into the ocean. I sank to the bottom and spent 10 years sitting with the clams and mollusks on the ocean floor. One day a trap descended and snapped up the clams that surrounded me and I was caught up as well. The trap emerged from the water and sunlight glinted off of my shiny surface as the fisherman sifted through his catch. He paused when he saw me and scooped me up, slipping me into a pocket in his yellow water proof overalls. I stayed there I until he docked his boat. The he took me out and crudely etched the initials M.J. into my surface. When he returned to his home he slipped it on to the finger of his child and said "this is for you." And with those words I was no longer his.
I was her's. A symbol of her fathers love. As she grew up her parents told her fairy tails about my origins but none of them were the true story. One day 18 years later as she was sailing with her father, I slipped off of her finger and once again floated into the sea.
This time though, before I could go very far, a great grey and red bird snatched me from the watery embrace of the ocean and flew me to its nest on the shore. There I was placed among the sea glass it had collected to show its young when they were born. I was there only enough to watch 5 sets of eggs be laid, hatch, and grow up to fly out of the nest. When each chick was hatched, the mother bird, who originally brought me to the nest, would show me to her young, telling them that I was their's. And with that I would be passed on, a symbol of a mother's love for her young. Then one day a great squall came and the nest was blown into the sea. I was lost in the ocean, subject to the tides along with the sea glass and rocks that scattered the ocean floor where I lay.
The one day another storm stirred the sea bed where I rested and I was born aloft and into a piece of kelp that floated to the surface. Together we floated to a harbor where a marine boat had docked. A young marine is his uniform was pacing the shore when the sun caught my glimmering edge and shone in his eye. He lifted me from my slimy bed and, after scratching in me the initials, P.K., placed me in his pocket where I lay for 4 weeks, until he took me out, on a sunny day in a park. He held me up in front of a girl with blue eyes and black hair and spoke the words, " will you marry me?" I knew that once again I would be changing hands but in stead of saying yes, the girl spun and left the heart broken soldier in the park. But the marine did not lose hope he put me in his breast pocket and kept me for three years while he traveled the high seas. Then one day the sound of gun shots and cannon fire filled the air and a bullet passed through the hole in my center, leaving a hole in the soldiers heart where his love had left one three years ago. And he fell from the boat to float to the bottom of the sea. And I stayed with him for three years, a symbol of love that would never work.
As his clothes rotted and faded along with his memory I fell once more, to the sea bed where I succumbed to the tides and the waves. I lay in the sand for a generation, slowly moving along with the tides. One day half of me surfaced, the sun catching on my edge, and I caught the eye of a dark skinned young man who was waking at low tide. He lifted me from the grippes of the sand and placed me in his pocket. He too, like my first master, inscribed in me initials, these being, D.R and N.W. He placed me in a box for 3 weeks until one night, in the living room of a small apartment he took me out and presented me to a young, light skinned girl, with green eyes and red hair. He uttered the words "will you marry me?" With tears in his eyes and she replied yes with shaking hands. And with those words I was not his, but their's, forever a symbol of love that was finally possible after so much time.
