On the shore of the beach laid a wooden box waiting for someone to pick it up and open it. The present inside was made with care by an eight year old boy named Braden who never experienced happiness and sat on the beach every day to work on the special present.
Braden wasn’t a normal boy who played kick ball on the playground and had friends. No Braden knew things about people that they didn’t even know about themselves which made it hard for him to form relationships with others, even his own family.
Every day this boy would sit on the beach and count grains of sand into an old hour glass that he poured the old sand out of. He knew the person who would pick up his hour glass and he made it especially for them. He knew this person was very sad but his hour glass would cheer them up.
The hour glass had exactly one hundred grains of sand and there was ten grains for every year of this person’s life before they would be very happy. Braden knew that this person had a hard life and they needed hope to go on.
Braden was a small boy with sandy colored hair and bright blue eyes. Everybody would pick on Braden because he wasn’t like the other boys and would sit by himself at lunch and often times ran away to the beach where he spent most of his time. Nobody understood him and thought he was special needs when really he just knew things others didn’t.
The thing nobody knew was that Braden could see time limits of people’s lives. He knew that in twenty seven days Mrs. Blanchester down the street was going to find out she’s going to be a grandma and her husband was going to die two days after that. Braden’s life was filled with sad news all the time and that’s why he never smiled
Five minutes he chanted in his head as he looked out at the ocean and waited for his moment. The box was thrown out exactly sixteen days, four hours, ten minutes, and twenty three seconds from now. He wrote a special note to tell this person about his hourglass begging them not to throw it away.
In his mind Braden knew that this person was special to him somehow and that he would meet them some time in his life but he didn’t know when because sometimes he doesn’t know what the future beholds when it involves him.
The brown wooden box was sitting on the sand when a young girl about the age of seven walked by holding her teddy bear to her chest. She lost her mother last night and was very saddened by it. Her mother had been sick for a while now and just passed last night leaving the girl sad and vulnerable.
When she came upon the small box she stopped and looked at the engraving of her name Ellen on top of the box. She slowly slid the lid off the top and reached inside pulling an hourglass out and looking at the note that said
I know your sad now but something good will happen when this hourglass runs out. Please keep this because it’s very special and I worked very hard on it.
–your friend Braden.
Ellen turned the hour glass and a piece of sand immediately dropped but as much as she shook it no more would fall into the bottom. She looked at it puzzled but just ran home with her hourglass and put it on her book shelf.
*Ten years later*
Braden sat on the beach like always and looked out at the water waiting for his moment. Today Ellen would be happy but he didn’t know why. He sat and waited for the time to come. He still hadn’t smiled and finally was out of the restraints of people being 18.
Five minutes he thought and got deja vu from the first time he was waiting for Ellen to receive her hourglass but now he knew her time was up now. He waited patiently in the sand looking at the rippling waves of the ocean.
Ellen got out of her dads truck and looked at the beach. It was still early in the morning and very few people were on the beach. She walked down onto the sand and saw a figure in the distance.
The figure was looking out at the ocean and his sandy hair was blowing in the wind. She was intrigued by this man sitting there and slowly moved towards him with curiosity as to why she was so attracted to him.
Braden felt a hand on his shoulder and when he looked over he saw a girl with blonde hair and green eyes sitting next to him. He knew this was her as soon as he looked in her eyes. It was her time of happiness, the clock was up.
“Your times up,” he whispered as she looked deep into his eyes and he saw the recognition in her eyes as she reached in her pocket and pulled out his hourglass that was now empty.
She launched herself into him and they embraced as she dropped the hourglass and kissed Braden with emotion that he had never felt before. He felt happy for once in his life and he kissed her back with the same emotion.
As he pulled away she looked into his eyes and he smiled for the first time in his life as the numbers disappeared and he was actually happy about it. The numbers were a curse in their own way and only made him sad but he liked happy.
Ellen kissed this man and then all of a sudden she could see things that she never could before. She knew things that others didn’t and she didn’t like that she could see this now because it made her sad.
She felt Braden’s body leave her arms and when she looked up he was running down the beach and looking back at her every few steps.
After that day she never smiled again and she never saw Braden again even though she searched for him her whole life but he was long gone and never coming back. He already passed the connection and she couldn’t give it back.
Braden lived a happy life but died alone because his heart was for Ellen but he couldn’t go back and get the curse. He just hoped she was able to pass it on to another person but knew her heart belonged to him too.
