It’s Australia Day, and it brings back the memories of the two of us going to the beach to send messages to the world.

He wanted his to be found by strangers on the far side of the world. I wanted mine to return to his hands, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but to his hands only.

It wasn’t to be. Going to school in the country means one day, if the parents want a good education for the child, that a move to the city is inevitable. He left. Boarding school. I thought he’d hate it, and would write every day, that he’d look me up the moment he came home in the holidays.

It didn’t happen. I didn’t see him for twenty years. He’d become an accountant in the city, and I’d moved there to make it easier to keep my business needs up to par. He’d become rich, but I’d become a mega-rich.

We went on a date, with lunch on the beach, and notes in a bottle. This time, I handed him the bottle and told him to open it when he got home.

The next morning, a single rose appeared on my doorstep.