Unsent letter #6
Dear You,
It seems there was a pause in my celestial transmissions. Are you receiving me loud and clear?
The only explanation I can possibly offer is that the clouds in my broken neck of the woods have been heavier than lead in air these past months. A number of particularly aggravating cumulonimbus took up residence along a cold front outside my bedroom window some seventeen weeks ago, then simply refused to budge. I have since discovered that the only way to get them to dissipate is to stand on the balcony, clutching the chicken wire for dear life, and scream blue murder at them. At least I will know for next time.
Such was the depth of my despondency during these reined in, rained on, drizzled down seasons of sturm und drang that I even took to writing creased and crumpled letters of real words on real paper, though still using reassuringly unreal ink. I promise you that every line I penned was blood-read, sweat-drenched and tear-stained Would I lie to you?
I posted these missives too, hurrying down the corridor from my glorious isolation to buy books of limited edition commemorative stamps from the Indian woman who smiles at me knowingly from the shroud she has prematurely built inside her cardigan. She asked after you each and every time. I told her that I had no earthly idea who she was talking about and that I was merely mailing beyond this mortal coil to my deceased grandmother, since I knew that was how you would wish me to reply. She has stopped smiling at me now, I’m relieved to say.
I will confess that, at times, the chill of this sodden summer froze my bones and welded my goose pimpled flesh to the iron as I sat bunched up, hunched up, chained to the post box. Yet it seemed like such a small price to pay in return for the satisfying moment when, once a week, I would place my handwritten musings into the hands of the postal worker and quietly ask his personal assistance in getting it safely from here to there, even if that meant going so far as to form your cold, pen and inked fingers around the envelope. He always nodded and told me he understood, even if — after the fourth or fifth time of trying — he stopped warning me that I had failed to scribble a mailing address on the precisely placed blank label.
This letter, however, marks a return to my homespun, habitual ways. Since I remain entirely convinced — until reason proves me either desperate or deluded — that you still spend your days living in the shoebox I stow beneath my pillow, I will pull my fraying wits into some semblance of order whilst scattering my thoughts as liberally as cheap and tawdry confetti. Signed and sealed, though never delivered, I will then raise just a corner of the lid and slide this well-kept secret into its cardboard tomb, where it will rest in peace with the many faded lines that have gone before.
Please think on all I have said, all that has been left unsaid. I trust that your telepathy remains as finely-tuned as a shortwave station after dark.
Yours forever,
An Unreliable Witness