Shattered Shell Read Online Free PDF Page B

nurse was sitting on a stool next to her holding her trembling hand.
    "Kara," Diane said, her voice strained, and as she moved forward to hold her, I stepped back, not wanting to be part of such a private scene. I felt out of place, out of time, like I didn't belong. I was out of the room, my stomach aching, my hands cold, and I felt like going outside and sitting in the snow. The staff in the emergency room looked over at me like I was a prisoner making an escape, and I walked back to the waiting area, and I waited. The little girl was still there, her head resting on the older woman's lap, though she was now sleeping again.
    I took a cup of coffee I didn't want and sat back, and then I was reminded of something. It was a memory of an August a few years back, of walking along Tyler Beach. I had rested for a few minutes on an outcropping of granite boulders, watching the waves do their dance, seeing the hundreds of tourists stretched out before me, and then I watched a young girl, about nine or ten, playing in the sand. She was turning something in her hands, over and over, and was singing something. A young boy about a year or two older, who I presumed was her brother, was nearby, playing with bright yellow Tonka trucks. Mom was napping on a folding lawn chair. The girl stood up, holding something in her hands, and I saw it was a seashell, about the size of her small fist. I know next to nothing about seashells, but this one looked special. It was light purple and had complex curvings that looked as if it had been sculpted in an artist's studio up in Porter.
    I smiled at what I saw, but only for a second or two. Her brother had noticed what was going on and had come over, carrying a dump trunk in one hand. With no change in his expression, no words, nothing at all, he grabbed the shell from her hands and began walking away. She followed, shrieking. And then he turned and held the shell up, taunting her, and as she reached up he threw it at the rocks. I didn't hear a thing, but I saw how the shell was broken and destroyed, the pieces tumbling to the sand.
    The girl kept on shrieking. Mom stirred herself up from the lawn chair and mumbled something about you kids behaving, and the young boy was looking up at me, defiant, not caring, for he knew I had seen it all and wasn't about to do a thing. His chin was jutting out and I felt a breathless chill, for I saw something dead in those eyes, and I hoped the trio had been visiting from a state far away, and that I would never have the chance to encounter this boy again, especially when he became an adult.
    At his feet was something that only a few moments ago was a thing of beauty, a symbol of intricacy and life and peace, and now it rested on the dirty sands, broken and shattered, all because of some dark urges in that young man's mind. And all it took was a few seconds.
    Shattered shell. It reminded me of a young woman, now someone completely different from the person she had been this morning, lying on a hospital examining table, being poked and prodded by strangers, in pieces, shivering from the fear.
    I sipped at the coffee and burned my tongue and waited.
     
     
     
    About fifteen or so minutes later a man came through the emergency room entrance, tan trenchcoat flapping in the snow, and the way he carried himself instantly said "cop" to me. So the cops had been called in. He was about my height and his eyes looked intelligent enough behind round horn-rimmed glasses. He wore a checked driving cap and what I saw of his hair was black, and his eyes and expression dismissed me as he went to the counter and held his badge. The door to the emergency room quickly opened and just as quickly closed.
    I waited some more. The man with the bloody head and mustache came out, coat draped across his bare shoulders, while the doctor --- a man this time, not Dr. Morse --- explained something to the now-awake woman across from me. The little girl was standing up, saying cheerfully, "Daddy,