Two
Marbles
Two marbles embark on a rolling adventure, learning about friendship and the importance of sticking together through life's ups and downs.
The
two marbles were rolling down a long long hill in the small resort town of
Victor Harbor in South Australia. One of the marbles was blue with black and gold specks. It was an old marble and had travelled
the world.
Thirty-five years earlier the marble had been purchased from
a shop in a small town in Upstate New York for one-cent. Terry, the boy why had bought the marble
liked it very much.
On that day, thirty-five years earlier, Terry took it to his
friend, Randy’s house to show him. When he told his friend that he had a new marble, Randy suggested that
they should have a game of marbles – not to play for keeps, but just to see how
well the new marble rolled.
Terry took his new blue marble with black and gold specks on
it, sat down on the living room floor and showed it to Randy.
“This is the one I just bought”. Terry said.
Randy looked at the marble and agreed it was a great looking
marble.
The two friends decided to roll their marbles to see who
could make theirs stop closest to a sofa on the other side of the room. Terry, with the new blue marble with
black and gold specks rolled first. It stopped one Terry’s finger width away
from the leg of the sofa.
“That is a real good roll,” said Randy.
He then rolled his marble. It was solid green.
It
rolled across the living room floor, past his father’s big easy chair, past the
television, past a rocking chair, and past the nose of the puppy, the family
dog.
The green marble stopped right next to the new blue marble
with black and gold specks on it.
“I think it is a tie,” said the boys at the same time.
“Time for lunch,” a voice called out from somewhere to
the left of where they were playing and they sat down to eat a couple of
sandwiches that Randy’s father had prepared for lunch.
After lunch they went to the oval to join in a game of
baseball with the other children of Clifton Park.
Later that day in the house where the boys had been playing
marbles the living room was being cleaned. Whilst vacuuming, the two marbles were sucked up. The contents of the cleaner were emptied
into a bag and the bag was put in with other trash and taken out to the curb to
be collected on trash day.
The two boys forgot all about the marbles for several
weeks. When they did think of them
again they looked everywhere but were unable to find them. Neither of the boy’s fathers could
recall seeing them at either house which was a bit unusual as both boy’s fathers
were very tidy housecleaners and always knew where everything in their homes
was.
The children remained friends and when they grew up they
visited each other every seven years, even though one lived in Australia and the
other in the United States.
Meanwhile, the marbles were on their way around the
world.
The trash, including the bag with the marbles inside was
loaded onto the back of a pickup truck and taken to the country dump on
Thursday. On the way to the dump
the truck hit a hole in the road making it bounce. The bag of trash with the marbles in it
jumped onto the side of the road and burst open. The driver of the truck stopped and went
back and picked up all the trash she saw. But she didn’t see the two marbles which rolled to the edge of the
road.
The marbles sat along the side of the road for the rest of
the summer, through the fall and half way through the cold snowy New York
winter.
One day in the midst of December, twelve days before
Christmas, there was a very big snow storm. There was more than a foot of snow which
fell in one day. Trucks with huge ploughs came along. The ploughs pushed everything in their
way to the side of the road. Through the dark night the lights of the truck could be seen for many
miles ahead. Sometime after
mid-night the trucks went past the two boy’s house where they had been sound
asleep shortly before. Both boys
woke as the trucks went past. They
heard the sounds of the ploughs scrapping along the country road.
Terry went to his window. He could see across the road the old
farm house that Randy lived in and saw him in the window looking toward the road
below too. When they saw the other looking out the window they waved to one
another. The lights of the trucks
pierced the full-moon’s night’s coldness and the two boys could see the same
sight. It was still snowing. Big white flakes dropped lazily to the
ground. A few snowflakes stuck to
the window.
The trucks were moving quite slowly. Millions of sparks flew onto the side of
the road where the ploughs scrapped. The two marbles that had fallen on the road the summer before were tossed
into the air by the first snowplough. The boys, looking out their windows, thought they could see the two
marbles amongst he falling snowflakes. Each went back to bed and fell asleep wondering if they really saw the
two marbles that they had been playing with.
The two marbles that had been tossed into the air came back
down on the road in front of the plough that followed the first truck. The marbles were pushed along the road
bouncing up and down for many many miles. Somewhere, far out in the country the two snow ploughs came to a
bridge. The marbles fell over the
side of the bridge and bounced on the frozen river below.
Morning next was clear. The sun shown brightly over a snow blanketed countryside. Over the river flew two seagulls looking
for food. They saw the two marbles
reflecting the sun and they swooped down and picked them up and flew off. The birds landed on a railroad car that
was part of a long freight train headed for a seaport not far away. The birds dropped the marbles onto a
freight train carriage that had a huge box on it. The box was filled with
bottles of Vermont Maple Syrup.
At the busy
seaport
cranes picked up box
after box of freight
from off of the
railcars and set them onto a cargo ship
that was headed for
Australia, far far away.
The ship took three
months to get to its destination.
In Sydney a crane
lifted the boxes of freight off of the ship and onto railroad cars. The marbles on the box filled with
bottles of Vermont Maple Syrup had settled into a corner and were still in place
after the train left Sydney Harbour.
The train travelled through New South Wales, Victoria, and on
into South Australia. In South
Australia the box filled with bottles of Vermont Maple Syrup and the two marbles
was unloaded and transferred to a truck and driven to a resort town by the
sea. There the box was lifted to
the roof of a four story building. The box was pulled apart and emptied. The two marbles fell off of the box and
rolled to the edge of the roof. They stayed there for the next thirty-five years.
One day the building where the two marbles had sat for so
long was being torn down to make room for a new and larger building. As the building fell the two marbles
became dislodged. They fell to the
street four stories below and began rolling down a very long hill. They rolled past two street crossings
and were almost to the third street, when…
It was warm South Australian spring day. The two men were talking busily about
their many activities. The man who
once long ago owned the blue marble with the black and gold specks on it lived
with his two children in Victor Harbor, South Australia. His friend, Randy, who once lived across
the road from when they were children and had owned the green marble was
visiting him.
They were talking about their childhood in Clifton Park, the
small country town in Upstate New York where they once lived. Just as they both remembered the day
they played marbles then lost them thirty-five years earlier, the two marbles
that they had lost rolled past them. The two men picked them up and said at the same time.
“Impossible”.
They looked at the marbles that they had had many years
ago. They couldn’t be possible be
the same marbles they said. But
they were. Here on the other side
of the world and thirty-five years later.
Terry gave the blue marble with the black and gold specks on
it to his oldest son, Sacha and the green marble which had belonged to Randy he
gave to Leigh. He told them that
they were the marbles he and Randy had played with when they were kids.
But the kids just looked at their dad then at Randy and
said;
“Sure dad!”
© Copyright Terrell Neuage 6 1992 Victor
Harbor South Australia
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