SINGLE PAGE STORY SUNDAY* - INTENT: In…

SINGLE PAGE STORY SUNDAY* - INTENT: In a ten-room hotel on the far side of the island, a busboy with a marble brain clears a table. He has one emerald iris and topaz teeth, but as the top half of his skull is missing, people first notice the smooth, white and black-veined sphere.

Some say he was transformed by the gods as punishment. Others say the gods rewarded his bravery. His mother doesn't want to talk about it, and his little sister charges a piece of fruit to those who want to see her brother open coconuts with his teeth.

The manager of the restaurant values the boy's work ethic. The owner of the hotel takes the family out on his yacht once a month in gratitude for the additional tourists who come year-round to see the boy with the marble brain.

Since his transformation, the boy's family and community have prospered beyond their wildest dreams.

A worthy consolation for his failure.

That's what he tells himself, in the pre-dawn hours, when he sits on the cliff, his jaw aching, looking right and left to be able to see with one eye what he used to see with two, his neck tense and strained with the weight of his decision.

A decision no god had any part of, for only a human would seek to combine the animate and inanimate for a chance at immortality.

* fanciful microfiction of less than 300 words

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