I realized that I hadn’t been doing much writing lately on this blog, which is ostensibly supposed to have a writing focus in among the gaming content and Supernatural recaps/thoughts. To that end, while doing a little bit of spring cleaning I found a “500 Writing Prompts” book from Barnes & Noble. I figured I could use that to ramp back up into more regular writing as November’s National Novel Writing Month looms on the far horizon.
The very first prompt, and therefore th theme of the first draft that follows is:
“While at the beach you decide to write a message in a bottle. What would it say? Who would you like to find it?”
Message in a Bottle
I hadn’t had a vacation in a while, so taking the occasion of the long weekend to head to the beach seemed like a good idea at the time. It also apparently seemed like a good idea to the entire metro Richmond population based on the traffic. Once that minor bugbear had been dealt with, it was close to noon. Hotel check-in wasn’t available until two, so I had a couple of hours to kill. Despite the saying this particular Englishman had no real desire to hang out with the mad dogs in the midday sun.
Instead, I enjoyed the air conditioning in a few of the little shops selling bootleg t-shirts with the the finest “Nije” swooshes, “Rich and Marty” caricatures and other such almost pop culture ephemera. After politely refusing the option to have some mysterious Chinese characters painted on my arms in henna on at least two occasions, I figured I had better at least buy something to justify my presence in the store. An ice cold Coke on a hot day held a certain appeal. I evenn paid a dollar or so extra for the “Mexican Coke,” since that still had sugar instead of corn syrup, and because it came in a glass bottle.
After handing over my cash, i went to the sea front, planted my butt in the sand and enjoyed my soda while watching the ocean waves lapping at the shore. I leaned back and listened to the calls of greedy seagulls as they circled the beach goers.
In no time at all, my drink was done and i was lulled into a sense of peace between the salt smell of the air and the almost too bright blue of the sky and sea. Looking at the bottle, I remembered putting little notes in one as a kid and sending the word out to the world by dropping it off in the sea. i couldn’t remember if glass would float, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
Once I found a pencil and paper, I hit my first obstacle – what would the message be? It wouldn’t be anything of importance, since this probably wouldn’t go anywhere it mattered. At the same time, I wasn’t going to take the childhood option of just using “Hi!” and a mailing address, since I’m a bit more aware of danger and privacy issues now. I did want to give any hypothetical bottle recipient a chance at communicating back. I went with one of my favorite quotes, which I’ve seen attributed to Oscar Wilde. I have no idea how true that is: –
“‘I can resist everything, except temptation.’ If you’re reading this let your resistance down, and give in to your temptation to respond at [throwaway email address] and let me know where you found this.”
It’s not a missive that’s going to set the world on fire, but it might be fun. I rolled the note up, poked it through the neck of the bottle and reclamped the metal cap on top. I waded into the sea until I was roughly waist deep in the water. I let the bottle go. It bobbed up and down a few times before I lost track of it.
I check that email address every couple of months just to see if there’s anything there. It’s been more than a year and a half with nothing, but I still hold on to the hope that I’ll see the “1 unread message” caption.
After all, what’s the point of indulging in a little nostalgia without a whole lot of hope?
Thoughts of a Lost Limey 