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