October Flash - Day 5

The Flash Fiction Project at Google+ has something new going on!  There will be a visual prompt for every day in October, and I'm going to try to write a (very) short piece for it every day as well. Due to time zone differences, I'll try writing and posting mine early in the morning, so it's a day after the original post for me, but still the same for them.

Let the fun begin! Here is the prompt for today:

Fish -> Fisherman -> Message in a bottle. Simple.

Lenard loved the feel of the waves gently swaying his boat. He loved the sound the water made against the wood. He... Water rarely tinkled against his boat.

He leaned over the side and looked down. A glass bottle was floating alongside; Lenard fished it out. Inside was a sheet of paper.

"Oh no," he said to himself, "not one of those!"

He pulled out the cork and extracted the letter (conveniently connected to the cork for ease of removing). It started with:

"Dear Richard,

I know you have been dead for three years now, but..."

Lenard scrunched up the paper in his fist. He would not put up with that nonsense! After carefully stowing bottle and letter away in a corner, he rowed home to dispose of them.

Somewhere, on another shore... a lonely widow fell in love with her doctor after visiting him about her hand, which hadn't taken lightly to writing 500 sentimental love letters to her dead husband.