A Letter to a Sailor

Dear Craig,

I’m glad you’re on active service now. My younger self would have been disgusted at the thought I would end up with a sailor.

The nights that we spent together mean more to me than any demonstration.

Sometimes, terrible dreams wake me up and I wish you were here to hold me, to stop me floating away into darkness forever.

There isn’t much time left.

Every morning I walk down through warehouses and car wreckers to the creek and throw something from the flat into the water; televisions, hand luggage, African masks, boxes of pornographic daguerreotypes. Each day something different.

At night, when I can manage, I walk back down to watch the gulls stepping across the mud and silt, perching upon the growing pile of my possessions sinking into the close slippery blackness.

I’m becoming lighter by the day.

Soon there will be nothing left.

When I open my eyes in the morning, brightness bounces around the flat, and my breathing echoes like waves.

I’ve thought about it and I’m glad that you won’t be here when I go.

Enjoy your wife and your children, they deserve you.

I won’t bother you again.

All my love,

Charles