Shell

The shell I have in my bathroom is quite a large one, white and very pretty.  It has a pearlescent quality and looks delightful on the pale blue shelf I fixed to the wall. I’ve no idea where the shell came from, it seems to have always been here. Perhaps it was a gift from someone, I don’t remember buying it, so I wonder where it actually came from? I mean which beach or sea-bed? It may not even be real, but it looks real enough to me. 

I decide to take a picture of it and see what Google says about it.  And there are no exact matches, apart from one which looks like a drawing, not a photograph, from a very long time ago.  There are no descriptions of the drawing so I Google the drawing itself and come across a website with a picture of, maybe, my shell and some words about the drawing.  

Apparently, the shell is exceptionally rare and this drawing of it, from 1793, is the only recorded image of it.  The drawing itself is also very valuable and is kept in an “unknown, possibly, Italian” museum under lock and key.  Of course, I can’t tell if the shell in the drawing is my shell, but it has many of the characteristics described on the website. Its dimensions, the pearlescent quality, and the number of rings (well, one ring, a spiral - but the number of turns is the same). 

I go up to my bathroom and look inside the shell for the first time.  Nothing that would suggest it was man-made.  I hear a noise.  This is strange, the noise is coming from my bathroom window, which is open.  I put the shell back on its shelf and the noise fades out.  I pick the shell up again, turn it over and the noise doesn’t come again.  It was an odd noise, very natural sounding, and no - not of the sea.  It sounded like a crowd of people, speaking softly, in a foreign tongue.  They sounded like a happy bunch of folk, perhaps at a festival or quiet celebration.  I pick up the shell again, and still no noise. I put it back and go downstairs to the website.  If found, then this shell is not just a lot of money, but actually priceless.  No one would be able to afford it.  In the interests of history, nature, and the “general goodness of men’s hearts” (the website reads like it was written a long time ago, before the internet) the shell should be protected and ideally not put on public display for fear of it being stolen or damaged.

It’s on my bathroom shelf, gathering dust.

I hear the sound again now, close to my ear, and I can hear some voices.  Perhaps Italian? I use Google Translate to see if any of it makes sense in Italian, and I get “Come and fly away with us” when I put in “Vieni e vola via con noi”.  Interesting.  The shell is now on my desk, in front of me.  Why now?  Is it because I turned it over to have a good look inside? And I’ve never done that before?  I am really trying to think of where the shell came from, and I vaguely remember it being a gift from my partner’s sister.  Or was it?  Also, that shelf is relatively new, I bought it from a local vintage upscaling shop and fixed it to the wall myself.  I remember (a couple of years ago) that it was a very satisfying thing to have done, putting up a shelf.  And then to place the shell on it.  Where did the shell live before I put the shelf up? I’ve no idea.  The upscaling shop is no more, I suppose I could have bought the shell with the shelf? No, I didn’t.  That shell in front of me now has no history that I can remember.  It was always here and never was at the same time. Schrödinger’s shell.

Did I just go upstairs and bring the shell down here? I don’t remember doing that and the happy crowd noises are all around me now, coming from the shell this time, not my office window. I say, “Yes, I shall come away and fly with you!” And immediately the noises increase and are now in English.  The shell is getting bigger and I can see more detail in it, the swirls around it are forming into sea-scapes, with beaches, then crowds of dancing mermaid-like people - with no fishtails - they seem to be inviting me in with some soft singing.  Like the sirens of old I think, it’s a trap, but such a lovely one, and I’m not in a ship to be shipwrecked, just me in my office with a beautiful scene now surrounding me.  My office chair is dissolving, the computer is shimmering, I write these words in thin air and now I’m here on the beach saying these words into the blue sky and sparkling sea.  

“Hello!” I say, and the great crowd of beautiful people say “Hello, come with us,” as they beckon and drift backwards towards the sea.  I’m saying all this, as I follow them, into the air …

Now I’m back in my office.  The shell is not here so I go up to the bathroom and see the shell on its shelf.  It looks a little different now, the swirls are now recognisably a beach with sky and sand and sea.  And there I am.  I’m a solitary figure in the middle of the shell.  It looks like I am screaming out to myself. A kind of warning.  I find my trusty magnifying glass from the desk drawer in the office and go back up to take a closer look.  My figure is trying to tell me something, but I am frozen in the shell and I can’t work out what I’m warning myself about.  My figure is holding something up with one hand, and my other arm is flung out.  The thing, yes, the thing I am holding is the shell, obvious really, and it looks like I am to throw the shell back into the sea.  Yes, that’s it.  Lob it into the briny.  But it’s worth millions -  if I can get it to an expert.

I come downstairs again and start to Google a bit more, but there is only the one website.  I do some techie stuff and get the names of the website owners and email them. I get a reply immediately: “Go to your nearest beach, a pier if possible, or get a boat.  Drop it into the deepest sea you can.  Do it now, today, take the day off work.  Do it now. And let us know it is done.”  

Nah, not doing that.

I put it up on eBay at £359,000 to see if I get any responses.  That’s the value of my dream house which is for sale over the road.  I put the link to the drawing up there too, as proof of my shell’s authenticity.  I’m getting a few idiots who question the price of course, and no bid, which is reasonable.  Now, the eBay listing has vanished, I get an email from them saying that it violates (such a horrid word) their terms and conditions.  Which ones? They don’t say.  So, eBay is a no-goer.  There are no other sites I’d want to put it up on.  Also, now I’m looking at the link I put up, it is saying that the site is down for maintenance, so the drawing is gone too, though I have copied it (save as) to my hard drive, and yes, it is still there in all its glory, looking just like my shell.

I get my magnifying glass out again and take a longer look at me in the shell.  Am I really warning? Or encouraging?  I can’t see the expression on my face in the shell, but - looking at it from a positive point of view it does seem like I’m dancing, or just enjoying the freedom of the beach and sand and sun.  I turn it over and hear the lovely sound again, and I feel good.  I suspect that the feeling good bit is the sirens luring me onto the rocks of life, perhaps.  Perhaps. Or perhaps not?  I decide to feel good and see where that is taking me.  

Sparkling sea and lovely voices and mer-people without fish tails and I’m back, saying these words again into the ether and they are being written down somehow on my computer, into Google Docs by Magick!  Yes, it is weird.  Dancing and singing I join the people and sit down with a group of them on the sand.  They are saying words, softly.  Believe in myself, believe all is possible, whatever I’d like and desire and think lovely thoughts, feel lovely feelings and have a life, filled with joy and fun and happiness.  Woah!  But it feels good. 

I drift back to my office, the chair and screen un-dissolve around me.  I look up, out of the window and see my dream house.  Well, wouldn’t that be nice, I am thinking, and I’d have room for my train set at last!  

It’s a bit later now and I’m just about to answer the door, someone is here, not sure who …

… it was a bloke and a woman with some kind of big cheque.  It read “£359,976.77” on it.  Of course it does.  I do remember now, vaguely, entering a national lottery, just mainly to donate to their homeless charity.  The woman and bloke took my bank details.  And I’m looking at my balance now. I’m paying my credit card balance off - £976.77.

I pick up the shell again and go back to the beach.  I move into the house over the road, I talk to the mer-people and I have a fabulous train set-up, all built by myself, because it is just fun to do that.  I don’t work now, I dream and go places and look good, feel fit and I have more real friends than ever before - who all know about the shell, but somehow think it’s all my doing, this luck and good fortune.

Talking now to Adirouis, a mer.  She says to give the shell away now, because I don’t need it.  Give it to someone who will let it amplify the good things, not the siren-like luring onto any of their life’s rocks.  

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