MARCH 14, 1996

Many years ago, I took a trip to a tiny sliver of land adrift in the Adriatic Sea, in search of half-buried treasure with an archaeological expedition. They were convinced some fragment of the Trojan Horse remained there, and one of the wiser members amongst them invited me along knowing I had a propensity for such lost things. 

I did. I do. Every breath in my lungs longs for the half-forgotten. But I was younger, then, young enough to think that myth and legend could never equate to fact. At the very least, it was an all expenses paid vacation where I could sit in the sun, brush some dust off some old wood and stone, and every now and then nod sagely for a group of American explorers. 

We didn't find any of the Horse on that particular trip, but we did find something there, something meaningful. It was a bottle with a paper in it, so worn through the exposure to the sun that it was almost illegible, and in a script none of the archaeologists could decipher, let alone translate. In my hands, though, it was heavier than gold. I convinced them to let me keep it, to ruminate on it overnight, to hold it in my possession as we took the speedboat back to Italian soil.

That night, I lit the candles in my attic apartment, windows wide open to the sounds of the nearby sea, and uncorked the bottle, emptying its contents onto my desk. The paper was more a woven fabric than anything pulped, and I could feel my fingers sinking into it as I handled it, as gently as I could... but it nearly fell to ash at my touch. At last, I breathed deep, and exposed an already ruined fragment to the candle's flame. 

The smell of the smoke changed, becoming sweet and fragrant. I closed my eyes, and found myself standing there in a garden full of white flowers, bushes laden with small red fruits already beginning to ripen in the noonday sun. Somewhere nearby, the sound of water bubbling in some fountain or pond, lapping against stones in a delightful sort of music that felt as warm as the sun itself. And at my right hand, an acrid smell, charcoal ground to nothing and blended into ink. It swelled in my heart, the sensation of longing, of overwhelming desire to see someone, and not just anyone -- that someone, that particular one, who couldn't help but occupy my every thought. 

I cannot say if the writer ever found their recipient, with some other letter, perhaps, or by the perilous paths through the mountains or across the sea, but I know that there was love there. I can still feel it, now, conjure it in my mind, taste red currant and the salt of the sea on my lips. 

That is the power we hold, the gift we can give. All other exaltations of magic, all other feats we can manage pale in comparison. History is alive when we touch it. Nothing is ever forgotten so long as we can find some small fragment of it. 

Immortality, the true immortality of story passed down from heart to heart, is but a remenoir away.