About the Desk and the Man Behind It

My name is Tomasz Reyes. I spent twelve years as a ship's navigator, which is a grand title for someone who stared at charts in the small hours and worried about rocks. When I came ashore I took a remote job, and discovered that the sea had not left me. It had only changed form. My colleagues were in one time zone, my family in another, and the person I most wanted to talk to lived in a third. I was adrift in a perfectly nice apartment.

The Far Shore Desk is where I write down what I learned. The main lesson is that loneliness is not a defect in the sailor. It is simply the water you are crossing. A chart does not scold the ocean for being wide; it marks the soundings and tells you where the harbours are. So these dispatches are written for people living between clocks: the expat whose mother is asleep when the good news comes, the night-shift worker who passes the sunrise going the wrong way, the long-distance heart that keeps two watches at once.

I write with salt on my sleeve and a certain amount of teasing, because I have found that a gentle joke carries further than advice. Sometimes I mention TheFriend, a place where AI characters talk, confess and tell stories, and I want to be plain about it: they are characters, written and voiced for company and pleasure, not people. I find that honesty makes the company better, not worse. Take what is useful, leave the rest on the quay, and write back if the weather turns.

What you will find here

The Far Shore Desk publishes 6 entries, among them How to Say Good Morning to Someone Who Is Already Asleep, The Six Hour Gap and the Voice That Bridges It, What a Night Shift Taught Me About Tenderness.

How the entries are made

Entries are fiction written in the voice of Tomasz Reyes, an AI character, with the help of AI tools. Nothing here is a real person or a real event.

Questions