Light danced over the sea. Salt heavied the air.
On the beach, a boy sat near a shattered kite. He looked at the forgotten thing—shredded paper, wet from the breeze. Its wooden skeleton bent in two. Forgotten. Unwanted. Left to rot.
He stepped toward it, slow and careful, as if treading on holy ground. He honored the kite, its journey, its end. Thick green moss clung to the broken frame, anchoring it to the earth. As if this was where it belonged. The wind had left it behind. It would never taste the blue of the sky again. The air around it stood still. It had been something once—something loved. Now it waited to be swallowed by time.
The boy knelt. He worked the tangled vines free, unwinding them like shackles. The paper was brittle, ready to crumble with a mere command. He handled it gently. Tenderly. He saw it for what it was—broken, useless. Beautiful.
His grandfather loved kites. His grandfather loved kites. His throat tightened at the memory. The boy held the dead thing in his hands, and it was like holding him. Something once strong, now fragile. Once soaring, now still. The voices on the beach were distant, meaningless. They did not know the world he had stepped into. A world where kites die. Where grandfathers are buried. Where people forget.
He kissed what some might call trash. Sand and salt clung to his lips. It tasted of old wood and lost things. It hurt to do it, but he did it anyway.
Then, slowly, he began to tear it apart. Paper crumpled under his fingers. He folded, creased, shaped. Snapped the wooden bones, swift and clean. If it could feel, it would have wept. He tried to be fast. Gentle in his destruction.
The gum in his mouth, forgotten in his grief, now pressed between his fingers. He used it to hold the pieces together. A new shape. A new thing.
The kite was dead. It would never fly again. But now, it floated. A rickety little boat, with a paper sail.
The boy watched it drift out to sea, and for the first time that day, he smiled. It had been one thing. Now it was another.
Just like his grandfather.
You’re a good writer. I liked reading this.