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

Comments: 19

    I have long been an advocate of standing on the balcony clutching the chicken wire while screaming blue murder at the clouds. can’t recommend it enough, in fact.

    edvard moonke | 09.02.07, 19:03

    I quite like my days in the shoebox under your pillow. Could you put some chocolate in there as well?

    clarissa | 09.02.07, 20:52

    Dearest Unreliable Witness,

    Swoon.

    Shamelessly yours, Ani

    Ani | 09.02.07, 22:51

    as well as the screaming of blue murder, you could also try the new “lead cloud be-gone” spray which acts as a bit of a reverse yet existential Faraday cage, for those times when messages just have to be sent and received.

    available at your nearest megamarket soon, i hear…

    Miles Away | 09.02.07, 23:05

    Oh Unreliable, forever is such a very long time to waste, but I understand.

    lillipilli | 09.02.07, 23:49

    I once wrestled with an alien in my bedroom… oops, wrong answer.

    I will carve such priceless words on my wall. My favorite line is, “until reason proves me either desperate or deluded - that you still spend your days living in the shoebox I stow beneath my pillow…”

    miss july | 09.03.07, 00:54

    Dear Mr. Witness,

    So pleased to see the return of your unsent letters. Or the non-return of them. Oh, now I am confused.

    Yours forever, Bohémienne

    bohémienne | 09.03.07, 01:01

    Mr Witness,

    You’re not the usual rubbish, you.

    K x

    Katie | 09.03.07, 02:10

    Edvard - I know you are a fan of such behaviour. Your neighbours tell me regularly.

    Clarissa - Chocolate? You want chocolate too? Readers are so demanding these days.

    Ani - Pithy. Direct. To the point. Insightful, too.

    Miles Away - I have ordered in a year’s supply. I’m just trying to remember to spray it instead of just inhaling the heady fumes.

    Lillipilli - I agree, but then I’m never quite sure which comes first: forever, or next Saturday.

    Miss July - Carving of my words on a wall is not only welcomed, but positive encouraged. It may even beat being sprayed as graffiti in Paris.

    Bohémienne - You’re confused? How do you think I feel producing such inconsequential “mind dribble”?

    Katie - You are too kind. Mind you, my chosen photographs are “astonishingly dull”, a fact of which I highly approve.

    [Okay, okay. I’ll stop mentioning it in a minute, but let me have my moment. G’wan.]

    An Unreliable Witness | 09.03.07, 08:39

    ha ha you found me! And I thought the shoe box was in your mind…

    Hope your new guardian readers realise your godlike cult status soon and leave you many “swoons”….

    Never mind the dribbling

    Peach | 09.03.07, 10:38

    dear you,

    how oh how does a mere mortal such as i recevie one of your beautiful unsent letters personally? i would like one to keep in my own shoebos.

    yorus forever mizyake

    mizyake | 09.03.07, 12:41

    I wish I received letters like this in the post, written on coarse Italian parchment yellowed with age and in envelopes engraved in fine copperplate, ten years after they were written.

    Ben | 09.04.07, 00:43

    Peach - I do not mind dribbling. Experience has taught me to install wipe-clean floors in my comments.

    Mizyake - You wouldn’t want one of these letters, really. Mainly because it would never arrive in the post.

    Ben - I am told that some crumpled-up paper and an old teabag will providing the ageing effect. I can’t promise the copperplate, however. I have neat writing, but not that neat.

    An Unreliable Witness | 09.04.07, 20:44

    I used to send unmarked letters. Back in the day, as it were. But I became paranoid that my postman had read my deepest secrets so I stopped. I’m inspired to being again, perhaps choose a sympathetic victim.

    Boudica | 09.04.07, 23:41

    i. recognize. you.

    imogen | 09.05.07, 04:04

    Boudica - Welcome. I sympathise. Never trust a postman, I say. They all look decidedly shifty.

    Imogen - You. Is. Anyone. And. Everyone.

    An Unreliable Witness | 09.05.07, 08:16

    I still love reading you.
    As ever, O

    O | 09.07.07, 08:12

    Perhaps your shoebox could be made in to a book?

    Er….or something.

    NAGA | 09.08.07, 01:53

    O - Thank you for your very kind words. As ever.

    NAGA - I have already made books into shoes (though they are a little uncomfortable), so it would be the next logical step, wouldn’t it?

    An Unreliable Witness | 09.08.07, 09:21

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