I caught up with a close friend the other day, a friend that I'm sure everyone has. A person that you don't often see though once a catch up has been arranged both can happily debate the largest of life's issues or just as easily slip into a lazy banter of little meaning or quality, merely as an inexpensive and joyous way to pass the time. I sometimes feel that these particular relationships maintain and mesh so well, due to this low frequency of meetings, one could easily accuse the other or one's self of keeping time spent together to a minimum to maintain the languid pleasure of verbosity; fearful that longer together would dull the anticipation for the next earnest and honest encounter.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about this particular reunion, a reasonable amount of time had passed since we saw each other last, giving ample ammunition for livid and lively debates of our changes as well as humorous anecdotes of our happenings. It is one of these happenings which I wish to focus upon within this tale. This occurrence is not an upcoming soul shifter which could result in massive social upheaval, like the resurgence of the crew cut; but rather a tale while seemingly trivial, I feel exposes a new age of interaction, where communication and feeling is once more delivered in a physical object, while possibly metaphoric in implication, but soaked with sincerity in a age of abbreviated text messaging. While I've yet to ask her permission, I'm sure my friend wouldn't mind me sharing the tale and gesture proposed toward her, nor the repetition of our discussion surrounding it, including my vast and bountiful suggestions of increasing enjoyment and idiocy.
My friend was the resent recipient of a rather strange object, delivered by hand to her address, placed in the mailbox with the usual assortment of bills, offers and Australia Post catalogues. The text, while small in size carries far greater implication, inscribed with a message so universally interchangeable and applicable it can be used to describe the affinity for adult, child and animal alike. The object itself again small, harps of a trade and method unsurpassed for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years which is yet to be replaced effectively by modern technology. Three words written upon a wine cork, Josie is sweet'.
The first query that springs to mind is who would bestow such a present upon my friend, it is without any jest that my crony suggested a old acquaintance with a family history a mental illness. Josie told me that long ago as a small girl, a small boy once had a school yard crush upon her. While not particularly adept at broadcasting his fondness, he did understand the classics. As signs of affection would often deliver by hand chocolates or assorted sweets to Josie's address, which to his dismay though he probably never knew, were on most occasions consumed by Josie's younger siblings. This same boy has had the pleasure of many recent encounters with Josie whilst she worked at the local Blockbuster, a casual patron thought he was, they did have several conversations surrounding an upcoming primary school reunion and Josie's move back home after a longstanding relationship came to a close. It is Josie's theory that this now strapping young lad may have sent the cork as a sign of his resumed passion.
While I treat everyone's mental state with the utmost sincerity and respect, the nature of this gift was quite amusing to me, puzzling me to a riotous laugh which followed by a lengthy period of suggestion and queries surrounding the cork's meaning. You may be interested as I was to the shape and variety of the cork; it was a regular cylinder not a champagne cork, which may make more immediate sense, having celebratory and romantic implications more so than regular wine. There was no red staining to the cork either, which would suggest to me that the original bottle was white, something which is I feel far better than being red, as red in my eyes holds far more sinister intentions or speaks of a great sorrow which white wine does not imply.
The other inquisition I made was to the nature of the writing, picturing a practiced and loving script one might expect old plays and manuscripts to be written, though to my disappointment it was marked all in block capitals. Josie did mention that it would be difficult to write in cursive on a cork, though I disregard the difficultly of cursive cork writing as if this was indeed a sign of deep affection, the sender would not be hindered by the cylindrical shape, possibly drinking many bottles in a attempt to obtain enough corks to legibly convey his short sonnet. The listless scribble of block letters hardly conveys much consideration, which suggests to me that the writing was not given the careful consideration the cork and message received.
Despite my ability to ramble to the pretext behind the cork, please do not feel that I may have overlooked the possibility that an inebriated friend may have dropped the cork into Josie's mail. A joker, perhaps on a wine-fueled path of mayhem around the kind surroundings of Moorabin, could quite easily have written of the cork and placed it in the mailbox to later embarrass Josie at a social occasion. Though for the record no such phantom wine scholar as stepped forward. Though possibly fanciful I like to believe that this gesture was indeed the work of a misguided or crazed suitor ahead of his time; delivering heartfelt emotion on noble and archaic objects, a trend which will shortly impede though never overrun the toils and coolness of modern technology. Though I know it sounds crazed to say it but I feel we should all take a page from his book of random item communiqué. Imagine how you might feel if a close associate gave you a say, a traffic cone graced with a sincere note of how they enjoyed your resent dinner party, or a peculiarly shaped giant zucchini, etched with the tale of resent trip to the south of France . Wouldn't that make you feel slightly perkier that a beep, beep and shortened sentences using numbers in place of words such as to' and for'; I think it might.
