A fragment of the last letter or word ever received from my great uncle George, found along with the above photograph in Uncle Arthur’s ‘secret chest’ along with the other difficult & awkward items.

“My dearest Abigail, I trust this letter will cross ocean and desert to find you comporting your self in a continued state of bravery and the normal stoic wisdom you draw upon in my times of absence. Today a wondrous thing happened! The Berber guides took us up some difficult terrain to the entrance of a hidden valley that shows amazing signs of Greco Roman Culture further south than anyone ever dared dream finding it! I’m so excited my dear one! Tomorrow we leave camp again at dawn to thoroughly explore this amazing canyon. I am optimistic we will overcome the hesitancy of our guides to enter this place with a little bribe and some inevitable squabbling. They keep insisting on some drivel about a curse—the usual high drama my dear, clearly a ploy to get more money from the mad Englishmen, I'm quite sure of it.. We will progress without them with if need be. I’m sending some undeveloped emulsions along with these notes and letters and please, please take great care in getting them to Professor Higmans at the Royal Museum. He will know what to do. In the mean time I remain your faithful George and hope that this discovery means that soon our over-tired little troop will be able to come home in triumph and then we can move on in our lives, my precious bird, to fulfill all our dreams!”

Signed: George Tomland the III, Somewhere south of Tamanrasset, 1879

Lately I've been more and more enamored of the combination of words and images.  Often Poetry, but in this case a little piece of micro fiction.  Just makes me smile.