Missing

           The bottle blinked out from the crevice where the tide had dumped it. As I gingerly eased the paper out

           it pulped into a mish-mash of dying half-words:

                                                       ...OS...   ...MUDA...   ...ber 194...

                                                       ...uck...   torp..o...   ...feboa...   ...inki...

           I hovered, frowning. High up in the rocks, children's laughter rang out like church bells.

© Sheila Rogers

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