It started with an email. Short, direct, and strangely impersonal for a request that felt deeply personal which Read's "Write a heartfelt eulogy for a man you've never met Make it sound like you knew him well the letter was concluded with Payment upon delivery.
At first I thought it was a scam Or maybe some kind of joke, because nobody asks a complete stranger to write a eulogy And how was I supposed to make it "personal" when I had no idea who this man was in particular, Curiosity got the better of me, I replied asking for details Hours passed Then another email arrived, He was a good man, A secretive one, Loved the sea, Lived alone and that I should make it poetic, That was it No name, No background, No explanation, Just a request wrapped in mystery, I just sat there staring at my screen, debating whether to accept or discard, few things start running in my mind but firstly who is this man and Why couldn’t the person emailing me write the eulogy themselves
So, I did what writers do I imagined and I pictured an old sailor, weathered by time, his life measured not in years but in waves, A man who spent his days watching the horizon, lost in thoughts only the sea could understand, then I became to write about his quiet wisdom, his solitude, the footprints he left in the sand that the tide always reclaimed, I did my best in the writing, When I finally hit send I half expected to receive a response back, But guess what minutes later the payment arrived even More than what I had asked for No feedback, No thank you Just silence.