Dusk of the year.

Jack sat at his desk and looked out of the window.

The desk was ancient, made from the timbers of ships that had sunk carrying treasure from an old world to a new, and the window looked down onto the harbour from where some of those boats had once sailed.

Jack’s eyes were blue.

The sea looked grey, a storm was certainly coming.

Jack pulled opened a drawer and took out a sheet of paper. The drawer was old and stuck half way; the paper was new and slipped out easily. He placed it on the table in front of him and his blue eyes stared at it.

A single tear dropped, staining the page, but it was ok; the words that he wanted to write, like the drawer, were stuck.

He looked up, the sound of a ship’s horn disturbed his silence and he watched as the vessel pulled away from its mooring. He watched as the engines burst into life, a plume of black smoke rising into the blue sky of late October. This was the last boat of the season, already the harbour men were shaking hands and saying goodbyes; they would not return until the spring broke over the mountains that lay behind the town. Jack watched until the boat was no more than a smudge on the horizon.

He took his pen and marked a single x on the paper, folded it and reached in his pocket for the envelope that he had already addressed. He placed the folded paper; it was hardly a letter, into the envelope and licked his lips before sealing it. He turned it over and checked that the address was clear.

Something was wrong.

He turned the envelope over, took his pen and wrote in a script that looked far more confident than he felt.

He talked and talked and I heard him say

That she had the longest blackest hair

The prettiest green eyes anywhere

And Marie's the name….