Late in the decade, the nineteen forties coastline village

His fingers tired from the all night typewriter

Idolized Raymond Chandler and hard boiled stories

He toiled

He wrote

He let his mind wander into darkness

Morning with no sun, in need of black coffee and maybe some eggs

Threadbare raincoat moved along the stone path from the tiny cottage

Fog everywhere

Fog horns

Ships unseen

Bell rang as door opened

Empty stool at the chrome counter and a fresh news paper waited

She filled the cup with out talk,  and shoved a greasy menu

“Whadya havin?

“Java”

“OK”

Fedora stayed on as others ate without curiosity

Day after day night after night he toiled

At night the cafe was a beer joint

with onion rings and dancing to the juke box

At a lonely stool one night just around midnight

An ex-sailor came in drunk already and talked about

a body

out in the water

dead

cops with flashlights all over the beach

He ran down there to see the story

the drama

the tragedy

a murder

a murderer was on the loose

in fear in the tiny cottage

he toiled

his typewriter ablaze now

The cops never found the murderer

But he discovered a story

that lives on to this very day and hour