Short Stories

Carmela

A shining sun and a stroll so pleasant. It could have been any other day. My wrist ached and I let my camera hang loosely about my neck as I shook my hand out. This happened every time. I always curled my wrist too much when I held my camera, for I was uncomfortable with the weight of the device if it were to hang and press against my stomach. I massaged the joint with my other hand and resumed holding the camera.

I wiggled my toes and felt the sand slip between them. It was an odd sensation, given my feet were almost numb with the ocean's chill. I stood, watching the waves rise and fall when I saw something a few metres away. I didn't have to wait long before it drifted over to me.

Carefully, I plucked it from the froth curling around my ankles.

A bottle. An actual bottle with an actual message inside.

Curious and shocked, I popped the cork off and eagerly removed the letter.

I miss you and I love you and I know I'll never reach you again. I've been lost out here for a month and supplies are running low. As far as I know, I'm hundreds of miles from land and there's no wind and no power to force the ship on. But Carmela my lovely, I love you. I always will.
With my deepest affections, Jacques

For all I knew, it was a letter of hatred, written by a spiteful ex who did not know how to handle their emotions. There was an address as the bottom which I took a photo of before rolling up the note again and slipping it back into the bottle. I couldn't read it myself--it was written in what looked like a western language: French, English, German, something to that extent--but I hoped that someone at the post office would be able to.

On my way to lunch, I picked up a box to ship the letter in and a card to send to "Carmela."

I walked out of the store and got in my car, the door practically slamming shut, a default of my age-old bug. I wrote a note carefully in my native language of Japanese. I placed the bottle in the box along with the card and an endless amount of packing peanuts, courtesy of my car, still a mess from my recent move, and addressed the box, cautiously inscribing each character of the address onto the outside of the box, which I had taped in a hurry, now late to lunch with my fiancée. I stopped at the nearest post office and sent the package along its way, hopefully to Carmela, wherever she was.

* * *

Three months later, I opened up my mailbox to find a neat little envelope with curly western characters written on it. It was addressed to me, in Japanese. I congratulated the sender on their ability to copy the intricate characters I'd spent my life mastering.

I opened it slowly, careful not to do too much damage. I found a card inside.

There were only a few characters on this letter, compared to the one from the bottle.

Thank you--
Much love, Carmela

*A/N Hello lovely! Thank you so much for reading and I hope you're having a good day! Love always, C.