On Wind Shore, the four-year old tree sapling stood by itself, alone as usual, lonely and wistful, on the quiet shore. Waves swished against the sand they had smoothed in the same place over and over again for so many years. The sky was a pale gray swirled with clouds. Shore winds blew over sand and water.
The sapling sighed. Although the view was quiet and open, it was too gray, too flat, too cold, too pale, too colorless, too lifeless.
Wind Shore was always so bland with little sunlight, and no golden sand that children liked to play with- only sand that was grayish brown, rough with rocks mixed in. The water was clear but always too still and motionless in spite of the wind. It was grayish, too, because of the thick heavy clouds that always hung over the sea. The clouds were the main reason for the grayness. It blocked most of the blue sky and sunlight out. Due to this reason, Wind Shore did not have any visitors. Life at Wind Shore was peaceful but bland, gray and grim.
Now, starting its fifth year, it was filled with spring hope again, despite the dreary winter.
Now the four-year-old sapling was slender and delicate, and smaller than other trees its age because of the lack of sunlight throughout its life. It had a very slender trunk, and thin delicate branches spread out in a variety of directions. It had leaves placed sparingly among the branches, which always started off a pretty yellow-green in spring, turned a dark green in summer, turned red and feeble yellow in autumn, and of course, fell off in winter.
The sapling had been a tiny little feeble thing when it was dropped at this shore by the wind, and had spent four years by itself. The water only provided water. The sand only provided sand. The sunlight was barely able to squeeze through the thick gray clouds. Because of this strictly limited supply of sunlight, the sapling was not able to grow properly through four years, but it had survived.
But nothing at Wind Shore provided love and friendship.
One autumn evening, the sapling was watching the dark gray clouds darken into a foggy night black, when it heard loud flapping and swishing. It tensed and waited.
And from the top of the cliff came a large seagull. It was broad and fearless, and it whooshed through the air and flew around the shore for a few minutes, then landed right beside the sapling. The sapling tensed even more, with surprise and nervousness.
The seagull looked up at the sapling with glittery eyes.
“Name’s Tessel,” he said loudly. “Yours?”
The sapling blinked, and needed a few moments to realize that the gull was talking to it, and was asking its name.
“I—I—I don’t have a name.” it stammered, and then was embarrassed by that fact.
Tessel stared at the sapling, and then guffawed. “No name? Well, I’ll give you one then!” he paused. “I’ll call you Chopstick. You look like one, all skinny and stiff.”
The sapling stiffened. Chopstick?
Tessel laughed again. “Well, I’ll probably stick around here again. See ya later!”
He whooshed away, leaving the sapling breathless under the cloudy black night.
The sapling replayed the whole interview with Tessel again by himself, and was bewildered, but had a strange happy feeling that this was sort of a beginning of a friendship.
The next day, the sapling felt, in the gray dawn, that something exciting, something different was going to happen. It looked, strained to see anything different in the thick gray clouds stretching ahead, looking into the cold water’s depths, staring down at the sand.
The winds swooshed over to the sapling and swirled around it, rustling its leaves and shaking its branches. The playful group of winds came and went, and the sapling, ruffled and breathless, waited.
The sun rose, bits of gold and pink light peeking through the clouds. Water seemed even clearer than usual, winds seemed happy, even the thick clouds seemed a little more friendlier today.
It yanked water up its roots and drank thirstily. The sapling was full of happy energy and hope. Tessel was coming back! They might be friends! Something different and fun might happen today!
The sun was still not quite fully up. Not quite morning yet. About seven o’clock? The sapling waited impatiently. It had waited patiently for a friend for years, but now that it had one, all its original patience seemed to be blown away.
After that long day, at about the similar time of the previous day, Tessel came back, flapping his wings loudly. “I’m back!” he shouted loudly. “How you feeling, Chopstick? I was hangin’ out with my friends! Whew! A crazy lot.”
“I wish I had friends.” said the sapling sadly. “You’re the only one who I’ve ever talked to in my life, Tessel. Except for myself.”
The large seagull blinked, and then offered a grin. “Tell you what—we’ll be friends. I’ll come here every day. At this time. We’ll talk. You like that?”
“Oh, yes!” the sapling whispered.
Tessel nodded, flashed another grin, and flew off.
And so, day after day Tessel came, and he and the sapling talked about all sorts of things, and jested and laughed a great deal. Tessel never stayed long, so the few minutes of loud, hilarious conversation were very precious to the lonely sapling.
Tessel had a queer way of talking- he talked about huge, exciting, unbelievable things, such as flying through the clouds, and plunging into the water, and rising into the air with the wind, so simply and boldly like it was no big deal to him, while every sentence was like a new world to the sapling.
And of course, the thing that meant most to the sapling he had said was his offer of friendship. So quick and simple. That was Tessel’s way. His friendship always made the sapling laugh breathlessly. “CHOPSTICK!” he would always bellow. “I AM BACK, CHOPSTICK!”
So it went- every night, their friendship grew, and the sapling was happier than it had ever been in its short life.
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(First Prize in Age 13 Short Story, The Power of the Pen Writing Contest 2016, Hamilton Public Library and The Hamilton Spectator)
