The Happy Dynamite

There was a stick of dynamite left alone in a box, inside an abandoned small fisherman's boat. The dynamite could not remember how it got there nor the reason it was left there alone. However, it can remember that there are other dynamites with it before.

Inside the dark, cold box, the dynamite could hear the sound of the sea and it longed to see it someday. It heard from the stories of the fishermen how the sea had provided for everything they needed and at the same time, how the sea had crushed some of their fellows' dreams. And, that it only made sense that they use dynamites against it.

The dynamite had no idea what the fishermen meant by using them against the sea. But it was happy knowing that at the very least, its existence was not useless.

The dynamite hoped for a hand to reach in the box and take it out. In fact, it was its dream, its happiness to be finally set free into the sea. But, it didn't know that as soon as it was light up, it would obliterate the things around it, including itself. The happy dynamite was clueless.

The sun finally went up and the dynamite thought someone was approaching to its box. Excitedly, it prepared to be picked up and lighted. But no hand reached into the box and another day passed with the dynamite left alone in the darkness.

The dynamite, still happy in anticipation, waited for days, maybe months or even years, in its sad old box by the sea. When a small hand finally reached inside for it, the happy dynamite could not contain its excitement, and started shaking and moving on its own. The small hand, which belonged to a small boy of eight, instinctively threw the happy dynamite away. The dynamite, disappointed, stopped moving on its own.

The small boy once again picked up the happy dynamite and to his relief, it did not move again. Maybe, it was just his imagination, when the dynamite moved on its own. Shaking his little thoughts away, the small boy proceeds to walk to a campfire, where his parents and his other siblings gathered.

Alas, not only could the dynamite hear the sound of the sea, it also started seeing glimpses of it. It was beautiful, probably more so because of the setting sun throwing a spectrum of colors across the sky while its own light danced on the sea's horizon.

Remember when it was mentioned that the dynamite was ignorant of its real purpose and how it could destroy things around it and itself? Unfortunately, the small boy was ignorant of this fact, too. As it turned out, the small boy and his family were from the city and with that, the small boy had never seen a dynamite in his entire life.

He didn't know what a dynamite looks like.

He didn't know that a close contact with fire is all it would take to light it up.

He didn't know that a dynamite explosion could cause irreversible loss.

He didn't know it all while he threw the happy dynamite right into the campfire, his other young siblings getting closer in their curiosity.

The happy dynamite finally got what it wanted. And probably some other, too.