In the Ether …Part 1 …Cosmic SOS

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
— Maya Angelou

Written in the Stars

Hey Mel,

Yeah, this is another drunken email sent in the late night when no one's awake. I should know better than to even bother but it seems I can't keep my hands off a sore even, when it's clear, it will just hurt more.

I know why you jetted off to Britain—can’t blame you, but wish you didn't. Heading south would make sense in winter—well, maybe not this year.

You had an island all to yourself. It must have been glorious—all those waves pounding on rocks like the day we were in the marshes and then came out onto the shore of Lake Ontario. I can still hear the roar of that wind driving those breakers toward us.

I miss you girl and wish it had been different. If I hadn't pulled that stupid prank, you'd still be here. Writing in snow on the frozen pond, Melanie Fears, when you know all along it wasn't you but me. You wanted to commit, I didn’t—that's pretty clear.

I just want to ask you to forgive all the stupid things I said and did. I know you'll say, well, that's you—you can't change the past because it's the way we lived. I know I can't alter it, but I want to. I just want you to know how I feel.

So, I'm ending this here and wending my dizzy way to bed, I wish it weren't alone, but I can't take back the things I said.

Mark

It was crazy sending that drunken email at 3 am especially when I knew Mel would never be coming home again. She tried, she booked a flight to try to work things out with me, but Fate intervened and her plane went down somewhere over the North Sea.

I can say I needed closure, all the trite things people say, but I think I just missed her and wanted the pretence she was just away...gone for a visit, and now, somewhere, probably in France.

But she wasn’t—her sister Cyn had her cremated and her ashes sprinkled over the North Sea.

I try not to feel bitter but can't help thinking it was deliberate.

Cyn never liked me much and I don't she really cared for Mel either. She hated obligations and visiting a grave—well, that would be an on-going commitment.

So, I had nowhere to go to visit her remains, but I had an email address, so I sent my MS in a bottle like an SOS, into the wild blue yonder.

And all I was left with the next day was the chagrin and the ache and it just kept getting worse, at least until yesterday.

I was working on my laptop, grading freshman papers at 3 am, when the notice popped up--a reply from Mel.

At first I thought it was a message from the email provider, saying the message was undeliverable, the account closed.

But when I open the post the first words told me I was clearly wrong.

It was from Mel. How could that be?

To be continued…

© 2026, John J Geddes. All rights reserved

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