One-Sentence Story: Holding a Marble

Untitled by Alexander Calder

If the earth were small enough to hold in my hand, it would be smoother than a marble, and all its harsh and jagged terrain—the mountains, the canyons, the deserts, and the rocky coastlines where the sea smashes against stone and sprays up into the sky, over and over again—would be imperceptible to my naked eye, and all the things that people on the earth do to each other, and what they did me (okay, I didn’t say no, I did not clearly say no, but there were two of them—two older boys—and I was alone with them, and it was dark, and they took me over to the trees near the edge of the park, and one of them started feeling me all over and pulling down my jeans, and I can’t even say the rest) would be nothing but a swirl of color—blue and white and brown and green—and all I would feel is an icy south pole balancing on my palm.

by Nina Zolotow

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