Daily story, June 9, 2025

We collected shells in a bucket and argued over whose were best. Bigger or shinier or more perfect or more unusual: we all had our arguments. Really we all just thought the day couldn’t be as special as it felt if it was special to someone else, too. When we got them home, the shells all looked as dull as each other, and the ones at the bottom had crumbled into coarse sand. We kept them until we moved out, and never looked at them.