Message in the bottle

I was baffled, you were holding an empty Johnny Walker bottle in your hand, and I wasn’t entirely sure what you meant by that.

“Empty bottle?” I asked quizzically.

Smiling in reply, you proceeded to leave the bottle in my arms, turned around and walked nearer towards the bank. I followed as I witnessed you rustling for something in your backpack, trying to dig out something from that pile of mess.

“Where is it…where is it?” With my mouth gaping, I wanted to ask what this was about, but seeing you so engrossed trying to do something seemed to be enchanting in some ways. I swallowed back my curiosity.

“Ahah!” Triumphantly, you thrust your fist into the air as you turned around, your face glittering with joy. Sometimes I do wonder, how was it that you do what you did?

While your euphoria subsided at the sight of my ever baffling expression, your smile remained sincere. Tilting my head a little towards the left, I subtly indicated that I was still pretty much unsure about what you were intending to do.

It was then you held out your palm, revealing a piece of charcoal and a stack of sticky notes…

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“Hey there…what have we got here?” Blacky the dog wagged and sniffed furiously at a protruding piece of glass at the shore.

“Hush boy, hush!” you threw his favourite tennis ball a dozen a yards towards the inland, trying to distract from his new toy, and boy how fast he went.

Foolishly, you tried kicking that shinning piece of glass, only to numb your toes from the impact. Slightly unimpressed, you dug around the bottle and gave a hard thug. Before you knew it, you were on your backside having pulled too hard.

You almost swore until you saw it – there was a message in the bottle.

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“I can’t believe that you still remember that!” I barked against the backdrop of the waves chiselling the rocks.  “I thought you never knew.”

Again, you put on the same smile that you always have, pure and pristine. “I knew it ever since I saw that bottle on your piano…” you finally broke your silence, before adding on “the chip at the neck…it was on purpose so that I could tell.”

“You knew all along? You played me good,” half snorting and half laughing, I rested both palms in my back pocket. “You knew all along.”

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You thought people only write and put them in bottles, but this had not words. Instead in the bottle was a portrait. The lines were crude, uneven and thick, but there was a sense of elegance beneath that murky scribbling. It was mythical and stunning. It was you.

“This can’t be ink…nor lead,” you muttered to yourself, by now Blacky was already feverishly nudging his snout against your thighs, asking for a replay. “Go get them,” you said as you threw as hard as you could, this time even further than it was.

Staring at your own little reflection, you rested yourself a couple of yards away from the water, putting the now emptied bottle next to you. Turning the portrait around you scribbled something on the back, before reinserting the portrait back into the bottle. You almost threw the bottle before a thought struck. Picking up a small sharp rock, you chipped away the neck of the bottle, making a very minute yet easily distinguishable mark on it, before releasing it back into the wild that it may continue on its voyage.

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“So when I invited you over…” I stuttered as I tried to supress my own laughter.

“…I knew it was you,” you responded in equal hysteria. “I half suspected that you put that bottle in plain sight, expecting me to know right away.”

“But….” I shook my head in disbelief.

“Yeah…” you responded, looking at your toes digging into the wet sand, your hands behind your back.

“You didn't show any response to the bottle so I thought…you may have forgotten,” I took several strides closer, and beneath my breath I prayed that you stay exactly where you were. “I thought that erm,” I stumbled trying to find the correct words, “erm…it was pretty cool of you to find it.”

“It was,” you whispered, and as I caught those words my heart went racing. “I figured it would be nice to start on a clean slate,” you continued yet you fixated your eyes over the horizon, ignoring and pretending my stares on you.

Words failed me, so I held out my hand. This time you responded. Smiling, you turned around and held both the sticky notes and piece of charcoal. Picking up all the signals, I gave you a smile, after which I wrap my hands over yours, and led you towards the fallen coconut tree several metres behind and set us down.

“What are you gonna draw?” your voice slightly mellow yet furnished with tinges of hope, you asked.

“I’m going draw,” I drew you near, landing my lips on yours, indulging myself in that moment, holding the world in my arms, I whispered into your ears.

“I’m going to draw us.”

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