The Message in a Bottle

After the storm, the beach was covered with seaweed, pieces of wood and plastic. Iris walked slowly along the water with a bag, picking up the trash, as she did every Sunday.

Near the rocks, something green was shining in the sun. It was an old glass bottle, closed with a cork. Inside, she could see a rolled piece of paper.

At home, she opened it carefully. The paper was yellow and fragile. The letter was written in blue ink, with a date at the top: June 12, 1986.

“My name is Tomás and I am ten years old,” it said. “I live in a fishing village. If you find this bottle, please write to me and tell me about your country.”

There was an address at the bottom of the page. Iris looked for the village on the internet. It still existed, on the other side of the ocean.

That night, she wrote a long letter. She described her city, the beach after the storm and the green bottle. She did not know if anyone would read it.

Two months later, an envelope arrived with foreign stamps. Inside there was a photo of a gray-haired man in front of a blue boat, and a short letter.

“I waited forty years for an answer,” Tomás wrote. “I am a fisherman now, like my father. Thank you for finding my bottle. The ocean is big, but not that big.”

Iris put the photo on her fridge. Since then, every year in June, she writes a letter to the fisherman, and every year in August, a reply arrives.