Grit

A single grain of sand crunched against her teeth and little things and little thoughts seemed of the greatest significance. She considered the might of the grain and if it could actually stand against the force of her enamel and crack her teeth and be done with it. She clamped down hard in a spirit of worry and trust and this singularity fought on despite its isolation. And for longer than a moment she envied the grain’s tenacity and made excuses for the lack of her own by brooding on its hitherto easy life. No previous singling out, nothing special, no adoring fan base, yet a stronger desire to survive than she had shown to herself.

Nearly twelve million people waited for her in the city, just two days’ walk away. She could hide in the anonymity of numbers and occasionally when her bills and her ego demanded she could play some of her songs unknown there and be the focus again for a night. That was the plan as the plane’s brakes screeched and she watched the sand blow across the runway. Perhaps a wheel of her plane tossed this very grain into the air as she arrived to be breathed in as she left. Again these little thoughts: that it was she who threw this grain of sand high and as it descended it marked her time like sand in any hourglass. How obvious it is now, that all things that play out are the result of one’s own hand. There must be no blame but that which you direct towards yourself.

Grit

She remembered the shapes, like sidewinders they were, of the sand blowing across the runway and how she felt, that mix of worry and trust. This can’t be right but it must be alright. And the lone groupie one night like some remnant blast from her past, and the way he proclaimed his devotion and again that mix in her of worry and trust. And it wasn’t right and it wasn’t alright and for his thirty pieces of silver he emptied down upon her a million press photographers from back home and an extradition warrant and he was just one isolated guy in a city of twelve million. The blame she had for him chewed on her more viciously than her fame had done and as she danced around these thoughts here in her wilderness her teeth ground against the grain of sand and yes! her enamel did hold and it won the fight and in winning what was one grain was now many grains of finer sand crunching about all of her teeth. A city of twelve million people was two days’ walk away and tomorrow it would be three. The last of her saliva was a sandy spit to the ground. Her next breath would bring another grain and further thoughts and so it goes.