This Washed Up In A Bottle!

Dear Friends,
I address you as friends. I hope that, in our last conversations, I have said all of the right things to each of you to prevent any one of you feeling slighted by my grouping you in the same class. The class of friend is the highest class to me, and I do not use the word lightly. If you have received this letter, then you have received my assurance, as much as it is in my power, that I love you.

As you know, I have left you. I have given each of you different reasons for my departure and told no one the real reason. I confess to lying. I have asked God for forgiveness, and have received peace in response. I feel assured my lies were white ones. I did not want to get into arguments with any of you during my final precious moments among you. I just wanted to enjoy, in our last days together, the familiar taste of unguarded conversation among those who know how to be human. Now that I am gone, I want to tell you where I really went.

If Providence has seen fit, I am in the vicinity of a coral reef near a chain of islands that shall go unnamed. In fact, if my hopes are realized, and the promises of my Beloved were not lies, I am actually living in a small, underwater cave within the above mentioned coral forest. There is no air in this cave, but I do not need air anymore. You see, I can breathe underwater.

I know all of you well enough to trust that none of you will think I am lying or crazy, but in the interest of sating your curiosity and of guarding against any anger that may be arising in your hearts, I wish to tell you the full story of how I came to know that I had to leave you all and become a mer-man.

(to be continued)