Once upon a time, there was a pair of lovers that followed each other through each rebirth for centuries. They had loved each other as birds; as fish; as stars; as man and woman. Late in the last century, they were born as boy and girl on a small island. And again, as they had for ages, they grew up together and fell in love, recognizing each other only by touch one evening on behind the school gym. And so it went.
One day, she guided some tourists back to the ferry dock after a long nature tour. As they arrived on the dock, a tall young woman stepped off of the ferry with two suitcases in her hands. She had a face that was round and bright, like the sun, and she set up shop in town selling the most beautiful handmade trinkets out of shells. She made castles of cowrie shells and cut holes into conch shells so they could be played like penny whistles.
The man went one day to buy a trinket for his beloved, a chain of painted shells for his age-old lover to wear around her neck. Soon, every week he would stop by the little shop, buying this or that for his lover until their whole house was decorated with shell lamps and shell clocks and a delicate shell merry-go-round that spun when wound. Finally, one week, he went to the store and didn't come back. His lover went the very next day to the store, but it was closed, dark. Empty.
The lover waited for Orion to fall from the sky so it would again be spring, but spring came and went and her man did not return. When Orion finally came again she went down to the beach and looked out into the deep, dark ocean and saw nothing. She picked up some shells and brought them home and made constellations for the ceiling of their house. She started to go down to the beach every day to pluck shells from the sands. Soon she had enough to cover every wall with shells. And so she lived in the town alone, year after year, and built around herself a fortress of sharp shells that pricked anyone who touched it. And when it was done, she slept as she had not in years, so truly and completely that she never awoke.
