In exactly 20 minutes and 46 seconds, it will be the 150th anniversary of the time when a sweet old couple lived in the forest just south of what is now Sandspit. They lived in a small cabin along the shore, built from logs and rope collected from the beach. They found sustenance from various crustaceans and seaweeds scattered along the low tide, as well as whatever they could forage in the forest. Rainwater for drinking and washing was collected with tarps strung between trees, and they rarely left the safety and comfort of their cozy cabin.
One evening, while sitting around the fire, chewing on a particularly tough limpet, the old woman noticed a strange sound emanating from the darkened forest behind her. Putting the limpet down, she slowly rose from the log on which she sat and crept quietly toward the door of the cabin.
“Where are you going?” asked the old man.
“I heard something,” she whispered back, glaring at him to be quiet.
Once she reached the door, she gently pushed it open and walked to the edge of the small clearing that surrounded them. There, she pulled back the thick layer of small boughs that obscured her vision and saw, off in the distance between the thickets of thin alder trunks and in a very dim light, a strange, human-like figure.
“Who’s there?” she managed to call out, though she was so unsettled by the sight of the figure that she could barely force the words out.
“Do you see something?” the old man asked as he shuffled up beside her.
“I think so. A person,” she muttered.
“What? Way out here? That doesn’t seem right.” The old man was unmoved by the situation and made his way back to the cabin, seemingly more interested in the limpet stew that was boiling over the fire.
But the old woman’s curiosity was piqued, and she moved deeper into the forest in the direction where she thought she had seen the figure move.
Back in the cabin, the old man was greedily slurping his stew with a roughly carved wooden spoon. He was always hungry, he mused to himself. No matter how much he made, it was never enough.
All of a sudden, he realized that quite some time had passed since the woman had left, and he began to wonder where she had gone. It wasn’t like her to be gone for so long.
He put his spoon down, got up, and went outside. When he pushed the door open, he was shocked to see the sun shining brightly overhead—he could have sworn it was pitch black only moments before. Even more shocking was that instead of a dense forest, there was now a vast swath of stumps where all the trees had once stood. He spun around and saw that the beach was no longer a beach but a massive industrial area, with huge machines loading monstrous ships and barges. Workers bustled everywhere, seemingly paying him no attention, as if he wasn’t even there.
He immediately fell to his knees in grief, sobbing for the loss of his beautiful home. He was so horrified by the transformation of the landscape that, for a moment, he completely forgot about the old woman with whom he had spent so much of his life.
Finally, one of the workers noticed him and came over, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Sir, why are you crying?” the worker asked.
As the old man turned around, he looked up at the worker and saw the face of the woman who had left him and walked into the forest—a face so familiar it sent a chill through him.
An uncanny resemblance that caused him to remember her again.
Then, through his tears, he said to the worker, “I was crying because my home has been destroyed. But now, I am crying because I know why.”