• She touched the little locket and smiled. She opened it, and the smile faded. The picture was done, torn out with one small white skin of the top right edge remaining. There was nothing left in her head but a picture of Jesus holding her close to him, whispering in her ear, “Be still and know I’m here.” She went to her room, crawled into bed and cried. Still, she would go to her job the next day, but she would talk to nobody. To anyone, she would be a fly on the wall acting unnoticeable, not bothering anyone. Jesus would still speak to her the words, “Be still and know I’m here,” but the offices were very noisy. All her senses gather is the sounds of phones ringing, people taking, cups of water filling occasionally, and soft footsteps right outside her station. She would get into her car, mute the radio, and on the highway, she could only focus on cars passing her obnoxiously, the sounds of other loud engines, and her gear movements; instead of Jesus saying, “Be still and know I’m here.” The grease steaming and boiling, and the smell of the beef patty would indulge her senses during dinner. She still would not listen, so she was still sad. She touched the little locket, threw it with anger, cried, and went back to bed. She never knew Jesus was there.
    In her dreams, she imagines herself as a small puppy, wishing to stay out of the water while her owner, a twelve year old boy, who was the only son of just a dad, wanted to give here a bath. She felt like she knew him, but his voice was unfamiliar. The twelve-year-old boy doesn’t force her to anything. He calls to her, “Here girl. If you want to be clean all you have to do is go into the water. I’ll wash you right up.” Backing up slowly, she was urged to run.
    Morning broke her dream and the locket was around her neck, worn as a necklace. Before she would notice, her eyes would be rubbed off of filth, and she would stretch her muscles. She took it, threw it on the ground and made sure she stepped on it after she changed. Saturday was alive; her feet were just as alive, and so she hurried outside and jogged. She headed one direction and didn’t turn. Many houses were passed, and she would hardly tire out. Through the windows, she would glimpse at what some families were doing, or watching on TV. While traveling into the neighboring city, she heard a radio playing loud. She understood every word, and the words spoke “Be still and know I’m here.” She stopped for a second, and then turned back to turn the opposite direction, ignoring everything she heard.
    Finally, Jesus was heard, but was understood in his meaning? Not to her. When she got home, she took the locket and noticed that not a dent was init. One tear was spilled onto the floor, and her anger rose up like a mighty eagle, forcing her to throw it out the window and yell, “I hate you,” at her highest volume. Mixed with the grass, the locket became lonely, cold, and rusty from the dew. The chain that it hung from lay out neatly. It’s outline almost made a baseball diamond.
    Past the coldest time of morning, a rat would discover the neatly displayed lock hidden in the grass. By it’s chain, the rat took it back into the sewers of which the rat lived. It would blindly mistake the locket for food, and try to bite it open. The rat’s teeth were sharp, sharp enough to weaken to lock. However, the rat’s teeth were not strong enough. Hungry, the rat would give up and try to look somewhere else after pushing it into the running water. As the locket followed the water, the chain would flail around under water. As the locket swishes from side to side, it banged the sides at each turn, stick to algae occasionally for just a moment. As it brandished, the chain grasped the edge of a pole, and few minutes later, it would be knocked off by unidentifiable sludge. This lock was now only seconds away from its Destination. All drains lead to the ocean, and this sewer was no exception. The rat had unknowingly sentenced this innocent locket to rust in the sea.
    As lonely as the locket still was, it didn’t struggle, but it’s chain broke off of itself. Now it had nothing to hope for, until the end of the pipe came to dump the beach with the filth. The locket felt destroyed, reduced down to an insignificant rock in a pile, covered in mud; it’s a side for nobody to clean up. This locket was shaped like a heart, and it’s pain acquired it to be stuck between two rocks.
    The erosion of the water was forceful as watery sludge continued to poor too far away, along with the tide occasionally swinging the lock open and closed. The locket would sit for hours, completely obedient to what nature told it to do as it tried to knock the locket out of stationary life. Nature would achieve its goal when a fish would carry it back to deep water where little tide would be felt, but once put down, the locket hurried away, inch by inch. The lock eventually broke off, and the door to this heart would fly open. What little tide was left was enough to erode away what remained of the skin of the picture.
    The next fish that saw it must have been hungry and desperate for food. It had swallowed down no less that thirteen rocks and would swallow the locket. Lady luck would be the one to spear the fish. It was too small to have the locket swallowed all the way down its throat. Shortly after it swallowed the locket, it would spot the hook of a fisherman with live bait and it would look like a banquet to the fish. Once the fish started to pull on the bait, its jaw caught the hook. The fisherman started reeling in the rod; the fish choked to death. The last thing this fish would hear is a loud horn of a navy boat as the fish was pulled out of the water.
    “Hey bucky, do you know you’re going to be Friday’s dinner? Haha.” The man piled this fish atop the rest as he mumbled, “Number fifty-two today, and it’s not even sundown yet. This bait holds up his promise.” He was only one of thirteen fisherman hired to catch fish on this boat.
    Coincidentally, this was the same navy boat that the woman’s boyfriend worked on as a chief, and the very next day was when he started cleaning and preparing fish to be cooked on Friday, one day away. As he went through a pile, he noticed a fish that would hardly bend. His boss told him, “Chop it up for fun, and then scrap it. We don’t need hard fish?” As he followed instructions, he started to notice dirty rocks. The knife first jumped into the tail, and worked its way toward the head: Mid section, he also noticed something that looked like a glowing bronze. At first he had thought he found gold, then he recognized the dirty cold damp, rusty, broken locket.
    “This is the same locket I sent to Maria.” He said. His acquired friend heard him.
    “What was it doing in a fish?”
    “I don’t know, but I sent this to Maria with a picture of me in it for her birthday. Why is there no picture in it?”
    “Looks like Maria broke off the chain, took out the picture and flushed it down the toilet.” Now it was his turn. That night he took an engagement right and the locket and stood out on the deck wondering why. He eventually began to pray. Why? Why? God why? Was it my fault… is it anybodies fault? What happened? But he indulged too much in his own prayer; he forgot to listen to God telling him exactly what God told Maria.
    When the crickets started chirping, he said, “I don’t understand why. I remembered to say goodbye, I sent you pictures, and bought you a locket to remember me by, and you throw it all away. I guess this really is good bye.” As he took a step back, he put the locket in his right hand. Like a baseball player, with his left side to the ocean, and let his arm follow through as he spilled his dreams into the water. He repeated the same with the engagement right while saying, “And this is because I know you’ll just say no.” He then sat down with his knees to his chin, struggling to hold in his tears, watching as the ocean pass away.