Nobody writes love letters anymore
On the way he told me about his family and his job: he was a retired manager. Although he seemed like a successful man, there was something about him that inspired sadness, like those black and white landscape photos:
"So what does he go to the beach for? It is a very secluded beach and few people go there," I asked and doubted whether he would answer me. But to my surprise, he answered:
"The answer is long, but there on the beach I will tell you. I won't be long, so please wait for me. I will pay you for your work," he said to me in a friendly way and I just nodded.
"My name is John. -He stretched out his hand and I squeezed it without knowing that this gesture would start a friendship that would last for a long time.
"Mine is Luis," I said and shook his hand. Then Jhon took out a bottle of wine from a backpack he was carrying. He uncorked it, took a sip and offered for me to drink too, so I took the bottle and took a big sip.
"Every weekend I come here, I drink a bottle of wine and then, in the bottle, I put a letter and throw it into the sea, with faith that the letter will reach its addressee. -I wanted to ask him a lot of questions, but I preferred to keep quiet: I knew that in some moments it was necessary to keep silent.
"Before we parted, she made me promise to write to him weekly.
But why don't you send him a text message, an email. This way of sending messages is not at all effective," I said, trying to put some humor into the situation.
"There's the rub, Luis. We promised it would be this way because at that time there was no such technology as there is now, and because we wanted to leave everything in the hands of God, of luck: if it was our destiny to meet again, wherever she was, on the other side of the sea, she would find one of the many bottles I had sent and we would look for each other again.
"So many years have passed since then and I have never received a letter in reply: in every letter I send her is my address and telephone number". -By this time we had drunk all the wine and Jhon took a letter out of his backpack, put it in the empty bottle and threw it into the sea. Then we got into the car and drove away from that place.
"I am divorced, Luis, and my children have already made their lives, so the only thing that really fills my life, are these trips to this beach" -he told me and I nodded. I didn't want to tell him, but I also began to enjoy those walks, that unfinished love story and that sound of the sea that sometimes calmed the soul, but other times it made our lives more difficult.
"Jhon, what if she ever answers?" -I once asked him, imagining that reunion.
"She won't. It's been a long time. I do this because I made a promise of love, not because I had hope. Nobody writes letters anymore". -Jhon said, looking at the horizon, which looked like a blue sheet of shredded paper.
So, when Jhon died, I decided one day to look for one of those bottles and see to whom the letter was addressed, to inform him that someone named Jhon had been waiting for many years for an answer that had never arrived. It was easy to find one of those bottles on a beach next to Medina beach, but I received the surprise of my life when the paper inside the bottle was blank, there was nothing written on it. Then I smiled: Jhon was right, nobody wrote love letters.
All images are free of charge and the text is my own, translated in Deepl
