Arthur often leaned against the porthole and whispered, saying that life is just a sailing against the wind, and all encounters are fleeting waves.
He said…
"I remember the pier in Venice in the dim light of morning, the white doves flitting over her raised hair, and the gondola's oars breaking the gold foil on the water.
At that moment, a hundred years of solitary voyage suddenly had an anchor point.
Sometimes I think that if she had not turned around under the Bridge of Sighs that day, and had not let the sunshine gild her outline - I might still be wandering in the maze of time, measuring the endless nothingness with my pocket watch.
But now, I've learned to tell the course by the stars in her eyes. It is a guide more precise than any compass, and a more moving rhythm than all the mermaid songs.
Let us engrave this story on a whale bone tablet. It is as long as the tide of the Atlantic Ocean, as gorgeous as the crystal chandelier in a sunken ship, and as grand as our encounter across a century. "
Purpose: "Charlie IX" fan fiction, commemorating childhood, a happy time with little regrets