Dear Dr. Smith,

The vultures have absconded with my heart! A cold wind blows from beneath the sunder and has killed my dearest dreams! I know you know of which I speak, having followed the papers assiduously from near birth, but shall I just remind you? The dearest Schoon of Man has been shattered by the tax men and the sea and I now have no anchor in my world. I pray you’ll forgive the pun, as it is both accurate and metaphorical. Sleep, sleep for me as I have no call to nor inclination.

How are you? I imagine the children are distraught and your health has been impacted. For this I most sincerely apologize. I cannot in good conscience absolve myself from your present troubles, and I consider it the least I can to inquire as to the calumnies. How is your posterior? I understand there was quite a concern as to its condition most recently- the blood was said to have been flowing as milk in the land of honey. Has your physician had anything more than the usual platitudes? Please update me by next post.

Samantha has been most unnerving of late, her whines and whistles coming at the expense of regular sleep. I am at a lost and have been pushed to the point of suggesting expulsion- a cat, of course, no excuse for interfering with the rest of- forgive me- such a man of import as myself. Do you have any remedy? Please don’t trouble yourself, as your health is of course paramount, but I shall have to remove her from my general location if you don’t, and I would imagine she’d have to be removed from this world if she were to be parted with my company for any length of time. You know my magnetism, of course.

Ah, who do I kid? My thoughts as always return to the Schoon, and I despair over her slow and aqueous death at the hands of those brigands which came for her. Let me set the scene, as I know your interest waxes at the thought of her death.

Exterior, Marina: Night. The Schoon of Man rocks gently in the waves, bobbing high and low as one might expect a cork to do if one were an uneducated simpleton. I sat, a glass of wine cheerfully perched on the very tip of my nose, rock solid despite the motion and my own slight inebriation, waiting for someone to come and watch me. Of course the children were in Switzerland and my wife with her lover but wait I did all the same. No one, I repeat ‘no one,’ came- and here I digress to inform you that I do in truth hold you somewhat culpable for the absence of visitors, since it is well known between us what fun an evening can be between compatriots and friends- and yet I felt a vague dis-ease in the depths of my very gullet. A lingering, tingling drain upon my well-drunk peace. I saw nothing, and heard only the gentle call of the gulls over the racing traffic of the city.

Perturbed, I drank off the glass of wine and settled it on the marble table I keep for such occasions, knowing that of course Paul would shortly be behind to clear it when he knew for certain I was away. Then I stepped onto the bright-lit dock and gazed around into the semi-darkness for a hint of what I was not seeing.

A man appeared, ghostly in his speed and apparitionality, with an envelope in his hand- manila, you know, the kind divorce papers or report cards for poor children come in- which he thrust roughly into my mine.

You may not believe it, but at that very instant I was beset, beSET I tell you, by men in awful suits and cheap windbreakers (a redundancy if ever there was one, I’m sure you know) streaming about and covering every surface of the beloved Schoon’s pristine decking. I scrambled aboard once more, desperate that we might get ourselves under way but as it turns out the captain of the boat was no longer aboard, having been escorted out the far side of the vessel as I was trying to reach him. And so I was left, alone and despondent, as these tawdry hooligans tore down every scintilla of the place where I was most at home after the eviction.

I found myself alone in the captain’s station, and, seized by an impulse I cannot here define, I took into my hand the throttle and pushed us away into the night. The mooring ripped loose, and the dock gouged a sizable depth into the exterior, such that the Schoon, thanks to these monstrous busybodies, began to sink. She gave herself up to the waves an hour later and I, angry and filled with righteous grief, took myself into town and found a suitable five star from which to vent my fury.

Please let me know by return post whether I might be able to visit you. I do so long to be somewhere else, and know that your generosity in these matters knows no bounds. I look forward to the kindling of our warm and personal friendship once more.

Ever your friend,

Steven P. Zygamole,

Financier.