JUNE RELEASE- A DEATH NOT YET ARRIVED
June 10, 2026
A Page from Beau’s Journal From the journals of Beau © 2026 Starr Hall. All rights reserved.
I arrived later than usual tonight. Not that I keep track of time, but the light had already deepened outside, and the room had settled into itself. The bar was full, not crowded, but lived in. Conversations were already in motion, glasses mid-pour, the kind of evening that had already found its rhythm. I took my usual place, the table that always seems to be there when I arrive. I have never asked for it. Never needed to. It is simply where I sit…table seven. I began calling it that because of her. I removed my watch, as I always do, its movement something I have tended to more than once, and set it beside my glass, its presence no longer needed in that moment.
Time has a way of interrupting things that should be allowed to unfold. I set it beside my glass and let the evening carry on as it does, through conversation, unhurried. Somewhere in the evening, I became aware of her. I cannot say when she arrived, only that at some point she was no longer absent. Some people enter a room, others seem to exist within it already, as though the space had been waiting for them. She felt like the latter. We spoke, though I could not later recall how it began.
At some point, she was there across from me, as though she had always been part of the table. I remember her hand on my watch, a light, steady tapping against the glass. The night came to a close when she stood. A small nod, nothing more. And then she was gone.
I remained a moment longer. The conversations had thinned, chairs turning inward, glasses being cleared from the table. I finished my drink and left. It was only halfway home that I noticed, my wrist felt lighter than it should have. My watch was no longer there. I turned slightly, as though to retrace my steps, but the air had already changed, the quiet of shuttered doors and finished evenings. I will return tomorrow to retrieve it.
-Beau
FIRST CLUE: He returned the next day, the table was as he left it, or so it seemed. If you wish to follow what he noticed, begin where he sat. The second clue awaits at this location…
CLUE TWO: His watch was not the same, not his work. Why? Look where moonlight lingers longer than it should… behind the curtain, where the glass holds the room. There, a familiar story waits- a green light across the water, kept between its pages. A letter waits there.
THE FINAL CLUE REVEALED A LETTER FROM ESTHER TO BEAU- Beau, You are a man of many things, but not of time. You set it aside as though it were yours to leave behind, as though it would remain where you placed it. It doesn’t. You were never meant to be measured by it. So, I left you something else. Not to replace what was lost, only to remind you… it was never yours to set aside. Keep this. You’ll understand why soon enough. I will see you when the seventh returns. L, E~
Final clue for next month’s release: Next month, it will begin again. It is not a date. It is not a time. Be ready.
