Dear Brooks

It was extraordinary. I reached from my coracle to take the rusting handle of a white suitcase as it drifted by. It was heavy with water and I had to pull hard to wrest it from its aimless journey. It wasn’t that large and I sat with it on my lap for some time, staring into the dark waters wondering what this could mean. I could hear the song of curlews and realised that dawn must be breaking; I was so cold and alone. Yet here, on my knees, was the possibility of a connection to someone else. A thread. A rope. A lifeline.

But why had it come to me? Should I open it? Tentatively I slid back the two clasps that had held it together as it crossed the seas; the sudden snapping sound jolting me into the present moment. Inside were the stories of a woman. Her loves, her fears, the things she had lost. Her Bewilderment. I was unpacking her former lives and as I touched and smelled her past I sensed how she had been betrayed. In this battered suitcase her time had stood still. I furled the stories back up and lay them side by side, as they had come to me, nestling together like ducks under a mother’s wing.

My eyes are heavy and I pull a thick blanket round my cold shoulders, rising and falling on the waves, drifting who knows where. As I drift I think of you and your stories and I plan another letter to you, which I will set sail to you soon. Hold on tightly to the deepest roots my love, and you will not drown.

With love B x