Fort Messages 2

Two leashed dogs, The Mickster and Kali, mushed down the trail through the dunes to the beach. I had to halt them every 20 yards or so because a sideburned and mustachioed man wearing skinny jeans with two leashed cattle dogs ahead of us, kept stopping to fiddle on his phone. At one point, he blocked the steep ascent to the beach, texting away, and I yelled (kindly) out to him to move aside. He turned to me, gave a shrug, seemed surprised by my request, got out of the way, and let us pass. He kept texting, too.

Twenty minutes later the team and I arrived at the fort. I was anxious to see if anyone had left some new messages in the tin can. I hitched up the dogs to a driftlog and opened the can. New writing!

The first message was from a grandmother, April, who wrote her two grand kids and two dogs enjoyed the fort. She marked the message as having written it on a certain date and at “0830.” Military time.

The second message was from someone named Brandy, who wrote “Chin up! Life’s a beach!”

The third message was from someone with the initials A-K-T (from Oregon City). The date and time on the note revealed I had missed this visitor by 15 minutes! He wrote: “You are a little slut and a pice (sic) of shit / life is a bitch but your (sic) a whore.”

I laughed. I laughed inside a driftwood fort! Thank you writer. Thank you A-K-T! I got your message, all of it, the known and unknown of it all.

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