Of Dandelions and Sunshine ... : Words on Wednesday

The demands began to surface almost as soon as the cave was discovered. Even before the labyrinth of unheard-of treasures, beauty, and wonder had reached the rounds of water cooler gossip and morning coffee conversations.

Located on a previously unknown island smack dab in the middle of international waters with no legal jurisdiction by any one country, it was an island up for grabs.

Or so everyone thought.

How it came to be discovered was almost as mysterious as the question of why no one had ever discovered it before. In an era of spy satellites, "big brother watching," and celebrity wanna-be's posting their every move to the Internet, the fact that the island had never been found or seen before was something geographers found puzzling. Instant islands weren't unheard of in the world's vast oceans. Underwater volcanoes erupting their way to the surface had happened a time or two before. Unfortunately, even floating islands of plastic, trash, and refuse before and after tsunamis or hurricanes had formed in recent years.

But this was something different. There had been no volcanoes, tsunamis, or hurricanes that would instantly create an island in the middle of nowhere complete with vegetation never before seen on earth.

World leaders would later gather to question how it just so happened that one woman, sailing solo around the world, would also be in just the right place at the right time to make such a remarkable discovery. But when they each had their best scientists study the small chest of soil, freshwater, and vegetation that had been delivered simultaneously in-person to their respective offices of power, it was a question that wasn't on the top of anyone's list.

Instead, there were questions based on greed, desire, and wishful determination to be the leader of the world, not just of their respective nations.

Soil that would grow anything anywhere. Vegetation that defied logical growing parameters yet seemed to thrive under even the worst conditions. Not only thrive but have nutritional values that meant there would never again be famine in the poorest of nations. Water that was so fresh, clean, and pure, it seemed as if no life of any kind had ever swum in it.

The woman had been questioned and hounded by the nations and media without mercy. How did she find the island? What made her take that route across the ocean and not the route most solo sailors took? What had she thought when she swam from her boat and set foot on the pristine sands of the island? Had she seen any life on the island? Even the smallest swarm of insects? What did the name of her boat, გედი, mean?

Finally, she could take it no longer and without saying another word, she boarded her boat and set sail. Twenty-four hours later, a long procession of boats and ships followed her to the island and watched from a distance as she ditched her boat to walk the last mile to the island across the water and enter a small fissure in the lone mountain on the island.

The earth shuddered, and a tsunami grew from the shock waves as her true ship rose from the water and took off across the sky, leaving Earth far behind.