MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

Without dwelling on the details, it's enough to say my childhood was not a happy one. It's no coincidence, that my happiest memories are those of escape from an oppressive stepfather, and a stifling environment. Memories are our history; their intensity and significance give them their longevity. It's one such event from my past which instigated the falling of the first domino; or planting of a kind of seed in a young boy's mind. Only now at the age of fifty do I feel the need to see it in black and white, in a sort of place of its own.
As a child growing up in the fifties and sixties I spent many of those rare memorable hours combing the mud flats on the foreshore of the River Humber, which was about one hours walk from the Hull slums, where I was brought up.
The Yorkshire city of Hull sits at the estuary of the Humber which is wide and treacherous. This ideal position had made it a major historical maritime port. Hull, during my youth, could boast of having probably the largest fishing fleet in the world, with more than one thousand deep sea trawlers. The amount of shipping on the river was phenomenal. Every kind of craft visited or worked on the river, from small yachts to oil-tankers or large cargo vessels.
Although the city was then booming the pay and the living conditions of those who worked in the fishing industry, and those industries attached to it were atrocious. Street after street stretched the length of the docks, both east and west, from the city centre. The houses where I lived to the west were around a hundred years old, purpose built to house the low paid workers of the then new and expanding fishing-trade. The small two-up-two-down-roomed houses had the minimal of amenities. The things we now take for granted in our lives were just not there.
During the summer holidays from school I would often be a part of a roguish, ragged band of kids from the street making our way from the tediousness of long hot Summer days, and the confinement to the bizarre kid-crowed broken pavements by the large noisy lorries, heavily loaded with fish or timber coming and going to the many fish factories and sawmills in the street.
It's no wonder -- living under these conditions – we would be so intent on our chance of an adventure -- escaping through the dock-land streets from the claustrophobic ugliness, the prying eyes, and nagging chastising voices of the adults. Over bridges and through tunnels we would cross the docks and the railway lines, reaching the pier on the river front where the trawlers passed through the lock gates on their way or returning from the fishing-grounds of Iceland, Norway, or Greenland.
From this point the longest part of the walk lay before us -- along an elevated, concrete riverbank, built to keep back the high tides, which the river is famous for. The path, that must have been about ten or twelve feet wide, ran along the river bank, with the docks and factories on the other side, and stretched for two miles. All along this path you could shout to the men on the passing barges, carrying cargoes of anything from coal to corn up and down the river. 
'Hey! Where are you heading? Where are you coming from?' And when you waved to those barges further out the men on board would always wave back.
All along the river wall men and boys would be spaced every twenty yards or so fishing for eels and flat fish. We would watch them casting out their heavy weighted lines, sometimes as far as a hundred yards from the river wall. We would ask each one of them as we passed, if they had caught anything. Most were happy to show their catch. If they were talkative we would sit with them on the edge and dangle our legs over the high river wall and chat, hoping they would get a bite before we moved on.
With all these distractions this part of the walk could take hours. But suddenly, as you rounded a bend in the river you could see a corner where the path and the walls of the factories ended abruptly. In total contrast to the swarming fish stinking streets we had left behind, there was now the smell of fresh air, and a clear view over the mud flats and open surrounding land, where man's concrete hand had not yet reached.
There were thick beds of two metre high bulrushes growing on the higher and drier parts of the flats. When there was a strong wind blowing the noise of their canes cracking together was like some strange ethnic music, and the turbulent movement of their feathery sun burnt heads became a sea of swirling gold -- a thrilling spectacular experience as rich in my mind today as it was then.
Immediately on reaching this point, we would spread out and walk along the mud-flats combing through the numerous objects that the strong tides had brought with them. One had to be careful where one trod, as the mud could suddenly become ankle or even knee deep! Shoes could be sucked off your feet, and lost forever!
What the river had washed up could vary from the mundane to the extraordinary, from a tooth brush to a dead bloated pig. Each new discovery would be called out by the finder, or held up for the others to see. If the object was of particular interest the gang would quickly gather round to inspect it for themselves. Every object would warrant a joke shouted out to the others, sometimes only raising a smile, but at times hilarious.
Very few of the day's acquisitions would be of any value: a ball-bearing, tangled fishing-tackle, but sometimes soft drink bottles, which carried a three penny deposit! Three bottles equalled the entrance fee to the cinema!
It was on one such occasion – I must have been about twelve -- while two friends and I were combing the flats that I came across a wine bottleneck sticking up out of the mud. This was not unusual, except this one was still corked -- I thought I had found a bottle of wine...
As as I called out in excitement what I thought I'd found, it instantly became an item of extreme interest to my friends. I swiftly pulled the bottle from the mud, half expecting to find only the neck in my hand. The bottle was intact, but alas, too light to be full of the stuff we had all hoped for...
'Empty!' I cried as my pals gathered around me. I was about to cast it back to the river when I noticed the cork had been sealed with red wax. I held it up to see inside, but it was smeared with wet mud. I decided to take it down to the water's edge to wash it, while my two disappointed companions, with no further interest, returned to their foraging.
Why would someone wax an empty wine bottle... I was curious, I carefully made my way down to the water stepping on stones to avoid the wet mud. As I washed the bottle in the river I could see something through the clear glass. I realised at that moment I had found one of those things every boy dreams of... I could see a piece of folded paper.
'A message in a bottle! I screamed.
My heart raced with excitement at the possible contents of the message. We have all heard those stories of people who find old bottles years after, and thousands of miles from where it had been launched. Some desperate sailor's rescue message launched from his desert island... where he has been stranded for years. It was like some comic-book adventure -- a feeling of being allotted a part in some great event. I called out to my friends again, but they had gone on too far for me to be comprehensible. They merely turned and looked back, then continued their search along the foreshore.
I fumbled in my pocket for my pen-knife, opened the blade and quickly broke the seal. I began digging out the cork. It wasn't easy, and I figured this could take some time. In my impatience I decided to break the bottle. I took it from the water, found a dry area and a large stone. I tapped the bottle harder and harder against the stone until it cracked then broke.
I grabbed at the yellowed paper, but unfolded it carefully. What I read I could not believe. I scanned the words again searching for what, unbelievably, was not there! There was no name of the sender! no date of it's launch! no address, to which I could proudly write reporting it's recovery! Written on the paper was nothing more than a poem... I felt betrayed... What was the point of putting a poem in a bottle? It would have been so easy for whoever had written the poem to have added the information I so badly craved. A poem had absolutely no value to me. Dismayed and confused, tears welled in my eyes. I felt I had been cheated... It was just some trick I had fallen for... At that moment, I had the urge to destroy the paper, and say nothing to my pals. But my curiosity, which had now been roused, took over.
I sat on the stone to read it. The poem was called 'The Tyger', by someone called William Blake, whom of course, I had never heard of. In fact, poetry and I were a million miles apart. My only idea of anything like poetry were the nursery rhymes from my infancy, and those dirty limericks all boys find amusing. English lessons in school consisted of grammar, spelling, and comprehension, delivered by Mr. Solomon (Solly); a thug with a text-book and a stinging cane...
The handwriting on the paper was old fashioned, flowery loops, and difficult to read. The spelling of tiger with a y really irritated me. I was still so angry I just couldn't concentrate on it. I would lose track, having to keep going back to the beginning, and cursing the poem each time.
I stood up and slowly continued along the foreshore reading it over and over trying to make sense of it. Parts of it sounded exciting, although there were some words I didn't understand. The language sounded like the bible; all thee and thine. The second part of the first verse didn't even seem to rhyme. No matter how I tried, I couldn't get the word 'eye' to sound like 'symmetry'.
As I looked up from the paper I saw my two friends a little ahead sitting on a large boulder, which was the place we would always evaluate our days booty before leaving the foreshore to take a path to an old over grown chalk quarry, where we would continue our adventures.
I had known these two boys, Alan and Johnny as long as I could remember. Johnny, tall and slim with blond curly hair and blue eyes was one year older than Alan and I, and very much the leader. Alan and I were next door neighbours and in the same class at school. He was small for his age with very dark features and a broad smile. He had recently acquired a habit of spiting through his teeth, which I'm sure he thought made him seem older with the gang than he was, but which got on my nerves.
When I was close enough for them to hear me I began reciting the poem in a loud exaggerated over dramatic voice, complete with lunatic hand movements:
"Tyger Tyger. Burning bright.
In the forest of the night.
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art,
Could twist the sinews of the heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? And what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp,
Dare it's deadly terror clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears.
And watered heaven with their tears.
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright.
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

As I finished I looked up from the paper -- their faces said everything -- they thought I'd gone crazy...
'I found it in that bottle!' I said.
Johnny looked excited and quickly took the paper from me. He scanned the poem briefly, turned the paper over and over, then returned to the poem. Alan was reading it over his shoulder.
'Strange! no address or anything...,' Johnny pointed out when he had finished reading it.
'Yeah,' I said, 'just that poem by what's his name?' I took the paper back and read the name again.
'William Blake.'
'Never heard of him,' said Alan, after spiting.
'Me neither,' agreed Johnny.
'I think I've heard of him...,' I lied.
I had really hoped Johnny being older would have known the name.
'He could be famous,' I limply insisted. 'Maybe this Blake character put the poem in the bottle.'
'Why is tiger spelt with a y?' asked Alan.
Before I could think of something to say, Johnny came up with an answer.
'Maybe some old tramp who can't spell wrote the poem, and threw it in the river, 'cause the poor old codger had nobody to show it to!' They both laughed, and although, I didn't find this idea fitting or funny, I laughed with them, rather than be laughed at.
And that was the end of it... The poem had been judged worthless. I popped the paper in my shirt pocket. I hated the fact that they had shown so little interest, but relieved they hadn't noticed the bad rhyme.
Now it was the turn of my friends to show their finds. They proudly displayed handfuls of fish hooks and sinkers, and two lemonade-bottles, Johnny had found. As we walked along the path to the chalk quarry they made a few jokes about my having nothing to show for our trek. Not wanting to lose face, I foolishly reminded them that I had the poem, which for them was the best joke so far!
Although I was very disappointed with the contents of the bottle, I still couldn't help thinking that the finding of it was somehow special...
Over the next days, I showed the poem and told the story to everyone and anyone who would listen. The story had the same effect on one and all. They were very interested until I showed them the poem. At this point their faces expressed the same anticlimax I had experienced on finding it. What made matters worse, was I couldn't find anyone who knew the poem or the name William Blake. I was beginning to fear Johnny's explanation might be true.
After a couple of days of this I stopped carrying the thing around with me. Sometimes before going to sleep at night I would read it. I liked the rhythm, and would read it out loud in different ways. I'd looked up all the words I hadn't understood, but for all this, it was only the way I had come by the poem that occupied my mind. At one point I struck on the idea that the poem was in fact a riddle. All I had to do was to work it out, and there would be a clear message, or maybe a name or address. That could be the reason for the strange spelling of tiger and the bad rhyme. I was certain they must be clues... Alas! I didn't get started. If there were an answer to this riddle I would never find it. I was not up to the feat, and was soon distracted by the activities of the street, and the adventures away from it. With only two remaining weeks of school holidays it became imperative to make the most of the time.
When the first day of school came I had forgotten all about the poem. It was the last thing on my mind. I hated school more than anything. I would have been happy to have been ill on this day. It wasn't the subjects I didn't like, although maths seemed impossible for me to learn. It was more the constant bullying – and not least by some teachers – that I dreaded the most. The slightest misdemeanour could result in anything from the cane, a slap, the slipper, or even a kick in the backside! And if the teachers didn't get you, then the little gangsters would! For many kids the playground was a nightmare. A place where swaggering cliques of goons moved about looking for victims. If you weren't in a gang then you were a potential sitting target. And to complain was considered by all in the school as 'telling tales', and not the done thing.
To my horror, the first period was a double English lesson with Solly, who could explode over something as trivial as a misspelling. He was the most hated teacher in the school. He was huge, over six feet tall, thick set with heavy hanging jowls and dark hollow eyes, which gave him a brutal appearance -- frightening! I decided to keep a low profile.
The first task of the period was the giving out of a new textbook. Solly warned us that these new books must be handed in after the lesson in the same condition. And anyone who didn't do so would suffer the consequences...
I received a book and began flicking through the pages to see what the year had in store for us. Suddenly, my eye was caught by one word. I had stopped at a page towards the back of the book with the title, 'The Tyger'! There it was, the poem! The same poem! I was so thrilled my skin tingled! The poem was dated 1795. The sense of mystery was overwhelming!
I looked to where Alan was sitting two rows forward from me. I was hoping he would turn around, but he had his head in the book. I wanted to show him the poem, to tell him that William Blake was indeed a famous poet!
I began reading the poem, my poem! My poem by William Blake! I was oblivious of everything but a strange swimming sumptuous sensation, with a feeling of acknowledgement and identification with something completely out of my experience, which because of my age and naivety I could not have expressed.
My meditation was promptly interrupted by a sharp stinging pain, and a popping sound in my right ear! At the same time my head was jolted to the left, then quickly centred again by a strong grip on the back of my neck pushing my head down until my face was pressed into the book laying on the desk! Solly's face was now one inch from mine. I could feel and smell his foul breath on my face as his voice boomed in my ear! 'I SAID PAGE TEN, BOY!'
As he released me from his firm clasp his hand flicked the back of my head, before he walked off. I raised my head, but. kept my eyes on the book. My ear burned and throbbed... My face flushed with the realisation that the eyes of the whole class would now be on me... I fought back the tears and turned to page ten.
All those years ago, that young boy in that classroom had suffered a grave injustice, his knees had jerked in response; he wanted to get to his feet to confront this brute with his crime. But his legs had stayed under his desk... He did not know what to say. The boy at that age was unable to clarify the heinousness of Solly's abuse, or the intricate wrongs of a system that allowed it. He couldn't then, tell this monster that a child should not be used to vent his own violence upon... He couldn't then articulate that contrary to the title of 'teacher', contrary to all what this charlatan thought that meant, contrary to what he thought he was doing in his classroom, he was, in fact, in the process of turning gold into base metal!
Instead of showing his injury the boy kept his eyes glued to page ten. Overwhelmed by the feelings he didn't have words for, his tears fell on the page. He didn't wipe them away because he knew this would be the signal to the whole class that he was indeed crying...
He had a loud ringing and pain in his ear, but the blow had gone much deeper... Hurt to the core, on the edge of breaking down, he fought back the vocal sobs that threatened.
But all of a sudden, something inside him turned... He breathed deeply, and it rose like a ball to his surface. There again – at the front of his mind – was the poem... It was at that moment he somehow knew it would always be there! No one can take a poem from you! With this in mind he managed a weak smile to himself.
*****
After seeing it in the book, the poem now took on a new meaning for me. During the first break I looked for Alan and Johnny. I found them in the toilets sharing a cigarette. We had all recently begun smoking occasionally. New members of the 'Smoking Club', as the headmaster referred to us every morning in the assembly, as he read out the list of those, who having been caught smoking, would receive the stipulated six of the best!
As I joined my pals by an open window – where you could keep a look out for approaching teachers across the school-yard – they both had a good look my at enlarged red ear.
'Wow!' that smack was really loud! said Alan. 'I was telling Johnny about it.'
'I hate that bastard!' I barked through the sound of my still ringing ear!
'If he ever hits me again,' I'm going to punch him on the nose!' promised Johnny bravely.
'Yeah,' said Alan, 'one day somebody will flatten him!'
'And he boxed your ear for just been on the wrong page?' Johnny asked.
'That's what I wanted to tell you!' I said excitedly. 'That poem I found on the flats is in the new book we got from Solly! That's what I was reading when the bastard came up behind me!'
'The tiger poem you mean?' Alan asked.
'Yeah! and tiger is spelt with a y in the book, as well! It was written in 1795!' I added proudly. 'And maybe it's been in that bottle all this time!'
'No!' said Johnny, 'that bottle was too new, and the paper was not yellow enough to have been so old!'
I knew he was right, but I just wanted them to be as enthusiastic as I was... I felt sure that if either of them had found the poem, they too would have been excited. I wanted to tell them how good I thought the poem was, but had no idea how to talk about it.
While we nervously watched out for teachers and smoked the cigarette between us, I continued to try to talk about the poem... hoping to show them the mystery of it all. In the end, it was the shrugging of their shoulders and the changing of the subject that stopped me from going further.
It was a couple of days later when the next event happened -- if happened is the right word. It would perhaps be more fitting to say this event somehow found it's way to me!
Anything that can't be explained, a child will put his imagination to work, while an adult will try to rationalise it. But to this day I am unable to satisfy myself with reason; that all the events since finding the bottle, and the one I'm about to relate, were not somehow connected like links in a chain, or if they were merely drawn together in the mind by their significance and timing. I'm not an esoteric or superstitious man, but I hope the reader can forgive these traits in a child.
Entering the our living-room one day after school – and unusually finding I was the first one home – I sat in an armchair to wait for my two younger sisters and older brother to get home. My mother and stepfather, who worked, would come home a little later. The room seemed gloomy and too quiet. I turned on the light and the wireless to change the atmosphere. I decided to make a pot of tea for the others to come home to. I filled the kettle from the tap outside and put it on the stove, and set the tea things on the table.
The room with the light on and music playing was now more cheerful. I relaxed into a chair to wait for the water to boil. As the tune on the radio finished, I heard the BBC presenter saying the word 'tiger', then the name,William Blake. Before I could understand why he was saying it, some other voice began reading my poem! I couldn't move, I froze in the chair listening intensely. The voice was clear, deep, and rich. I hung on every word, as if Blake himself was reading it!
The way the poem was now being read gave it a whole new dimension... The rhythm, which I had only suspected I could hear, was now magically pronounced; sharp and regular, And where there had been only arranged words on paper, now there were vivid pictures in my mind -- incredible surreal images of the making of the tyger, and Blake's questions doubting -- who? and how? but yet describing the impossible methods that might be employ to construct such an awesome beast!
I felt the room vibrating with the voice! The world around me, and finally myself began to dissolve, until there was only the voice and the pictures coming over the air-waves -- from how far? Coming through time... travelling from 1795! from the fertile mind of William Blake to all those who may just happen to hear it...
As the poem closed, and the images with it, I was left in a trance like afterglow... I heard the presenter say that the poem is one of the most well known poems in the English language, and had been requested by a father for his hospitalised son. I remember thinking this must be the same man that had launched the bottle!
As I sat in this abstracted state with my eyes closed, I discovered I could conjure up those same living images in my mind's eye, hear the same voice reading the poem to me over and over. My mind seemed to be in a kind of loop... The only movement of time was limited to the length of the poem as it repeated. The music from the radio could now only be heard to dance around my consciousness as it fought to enter it. But another sound was behind the music; a kind of rushing sound, coming closer and closer! The more I concentrated on it the louder it became... Suddenly! it's pitch rose to a unbearable piercing whistle! As I opened my eyes my brother, at that moment, burst into the room shouting, 'Why don't you turn that kettle off, you idiot?' He ran through the room to the kitchen, as I, shocked out of my dream, jumped from the chair and ran through the door he had come through! I knew where I was going...!
I ran out of the house, and the length of the street to the main road. I jogged along the crowded pavement, swerving around women with prams, side stepping shoppers and workers making their way home. Finally, I arrived at the front of the building I wanted, and stopped to catch my breath, before running up the stone steps and through the main door with the sign 'Public Library' over it.
A young woman looked up from her desk as I entered, still panting from my run. She merely smiled at me, and waited while I recovered enough to speak. I hadn't been in the library since my mother had taken me as a toddler to take out picture books, so I was pretty unsure what I had to do. Shyly, and breathlessly, I managed to ask the smiling woman if she had any books about William Blake. I was so excited when she said, 'yes, of course!' I was so pleased that someone else knew the writer's name! She was about to lead me into the shelves of books, when she asked, if I was a member. My heart sank, as I had to admit that I wasn't. She explained that only members could take out books, and handed me a form for my parents to fill in. As I took the form and was turning to leave in disappointment, she added, that I could look at the books if I wanted!
I followed her through the shelves of books, stopping before one. She quickly scanned it before reaching up to take down a large, dark, and old looking book. She took it over to a table where she said I could sit and read it quietly.
Sitting before this huge and hefty book my anticipation of what I would find inside made my hands tremble! I took a handful of pages to flick through, hoping to find The Tyger, but on the first page I had opened to was not a poem, but a painting! Blake was not only a poet, but also a painter -- an artist! The picture was of a smiling naked man standing on a rock with his arms out stretched, but his body was in flames! It's title was 'Ariel', the man's name, I supposed. I had never seen a picture like this before! It was so unreal, and intriguing!
I spent the next two hours flicking through the pages discovering that Blake had made and wrote hundreds of pictures and poems, sometimes combining them. I had difficulty understanding the poems, as I had with The Tyger at first, but I loved the pictures, and was determined to come back the next day and take the book out to study at leisure.
My fascination with the book was broken by the ever smiling young woman as she said, 'The library is closing now.' She returned the book to it's place. I thanked her and made my way home feeling very pleased with myself.
The next day, I became a member of the library, not only a member, but a lifelong lover of libraries and books... After taking out the big book of Blake's pictures and poems for two weeks, my visits to the library became more frequent. I combed the shelves, and would take out any book that interested me! As I grew out of those boyhood yearnings for adventures, it was the library where my imagination would now be enlivened.
So the boy had found a window! A window to another world outside that of his own! He had seen Blake's Tyger burning bright, had begun to hear the voices of a world of ideas now invading his life, bringing to the previous greyness and narrowness such colour and liberating breadth!
Although, for a few years more he would have to suffer his ever worsening home life, and the day to day cruelty and humiliation of school, we can at this point, safely leave the boy deep in the luxury and optimism of his reading -- endowed with his new found sense of mystery and expectation – knowing already he would soon enter that new found life!
*****
Over the years since then, I have on occasion told this story, during an intimate moment over dinner, with close friends, or to a lover in the darkness of the night. The reactions, while they varied as much as the listeners themselves, can be divided into two distinct types. One of acceptance that the world is mysterious and unpredictable, The second, sceptical, which came attached to such remarks as 'coincidence', and with the argument that I, regardless of the events and the importance the child had placed on them, would, never the less, have somehow, found his way to the world of books.
I have no explanation... I can only emphasise the sense of mystery and power that has been with me ever since. Both interpretations seem somewhat fatalistic to me, and take something away from the power of the whole experience.
Recently, I had occasion to return to Britain after many years of living abroad. I was to meet a German friend in Leeds to fulfil a promise to show her the Yorkshire Moors and Dales.
At first, I thought about flying to Manchester or London, before travelling overland to Leeds. But after thinking about my return for a day or two, I decided to take a different route: leave a couple of days earlier, travel by train to Rotterdam, then take the over night ferry to Hull. Leeds is only about fifty miles inland from Hull, and is easy to get to. This would give me time to take a look around my old home town.
It was curiosity that had brought on this change of mind, rather than any sentimental feelings for the place. After all, I'd lived in many different places over the years, and had much fonder memories of them, than I had of Hull. I think, I just wanted to see what, in the city had, or had not changed.
It was when we were entering the Humber estuary that a strange mix of feelings hit me. I was standing in the stern of the ship enjoying the warm wind and the morning sunshine. I had a strong feeling of coming home, fused with a strange feeling that I may have made a big mistake, that I would be in the wrong place; unwelcome!
After docking, I took a taxi to the city centre, and booked into a hotel. I spent the afternoon and early evening looking around the oldest part of the city, where they had recently built a marina for yachts and small boats, and two new large shopping centres. Later, I returned to the hotel for dinner, then took a walk to the nearest pub.
I met and talked with three young girls, who told me they were studying at the art college. They told me they liked the city! I bought them a drink, and they listened while I told them of my travels, and the reason for my return to Britain. Later they went off to the disco. Maybe it was meeting them, and talking about my life that started me thinking of my childhood again. By the time I got back to the hotel I had a plan in mind... The next day I would take a trip to the mud flats!
In the morning, I took my small rucksack, and did some shopping for the things I would need. I decided to make a picnic, as it was to be another warm sunny day, and I would be able to spend the whole day there.
The bus ride from the city centre down the main road to the west brought back many memories of things I'd forgotten. Some of the shops and pubs hadn't changed at all! The churches and the Fishermen's Mission were still there, too! Some shops had their windows boarded up, and very few people were walking about; very different from how I remember it...
I got off the bus at the top of my old street, and stood for a moment looking for something familiar. There was absolutely nothing I could recognise! The whole street had been cleared and rebuilt! Now, there were only fish-factories and cold stores. I was unable even to judge where my old house had once stood! I wondered if the route I was taking had been changed so much that it would no longer be possible to get to the river.
I had no reason to worry, the route through the tunnels and over bridges was still there, although the docks had been taken over by discos, a balling-ally, and fast food restaurants.
As I crossed over the last bridge there was the river – wide and wild... as glorious as ever. Now my mind was jumping to and fro through time as I took in the view from the pier. The old adventures of the boy alternated with the one I was now on. After all, it was an adventure...
I followed his foot steps along the riverside path with a spring in my step. I saw everything through his eyes, which at the same time were my eyes! I saw the barges, and the men and boys fishing, though, far fewer now. As I walked I drank in the screams of the seagulls and the splashing of the waves against the river wall. Stopping for a while, I smoked a cigarette, dangling my legs over the edge of the wall, just like I had always done -- the child again... I continued my walk with the boy, remembering the smiling faces of all the friends he had adventured with here, so full of his lust for life!
Suddenly! I had reached my destination, there was the corner with its amazing liberating scene, as dynamic as ever.... I made my way down to the mud flats hoping to remember where I had found my bottle all those years ago. After walking for about five minutes, I stopped in an area I thought it must have been in. There was a large flat rock on the higher ground which I thought would be a good place to eat my picnic.
First, I took off my shoes and shirt, and just laid on my back feeling the warm sun on my body. I took a bottle of Italian white wine out of my rucksack, and opened it with the corkscrew of my multi-purpose-Swiss-Army-Knife. Drinking it direct from the bottle. After eating sandwiches and drinking half the wine, I laid back on the stone enjoying the warmth, and the effect of the alcohol.
I thought about why I'd come, which made me feel a little childish and sentimental. I remembered the day I'd found the poem in the bottle, and how at first I couldn't see it as a message. And how, ever since having that strange experience while listening to the poem been read on the radio, and how the boy had thought that Blake himself was somehow speaking to him. I could still bring to mind, at will, the whole thing, the voice, the surreal images, but moreover, the force and richness of the experience... I realised it was that same force that had now brought me here. It was appropriate that I was here again... doing what I was here to do, in the same way it now seems fitting to be finally writing about it...
I took my writing pad and pen from my bag, and in the most flowery writing possible, I began writing out the poem, while finishing the wine. I didn't have to think about it, I had never forgotten it. It is the only poem I have ever learnt by heart. I didn't write my name, the date, or an address...
When I finished, I folded the paper length ways until it fitted in the bottleneck. I fished in my bag for the small red candle I'd bought that morning. I lit a cigarette and the candle, and dropped the paper into the clear glass bottle, and managed to push the cork back in. When the wax began dripping, I sealed the cork with it. -- wanting to make it air-tight and noticeable.
I took the bottle and made my way down to the water, as far as I could without getting bogged down by the mud. I was still about thirty yards from the water when I launched the bottle high into the air, and watched it sail over the mud, hit, and sink into the river, before surfacing and continuing on its way.

Chris Whitley
Berlin 2000