Six ~ Reach

Dear B-----,

       I know campus mailboxes tend to become a bit lonely, so I thought I'd drop you a note.

       You... would absolutely hate it out here, there's nothing and it's great. I know you think things are pretty sparse at home, but out here there aren't cows for company, just threes and fields of grapes.

       The grapes seemed so strange at first, this far North...but the lake keeps the temperatures a bit more moderated - that, you'd like.

       The house I'm in is a mile or so outside of town, within easy biking distance of the campus. It's very old, the paint's a little worn in places, but the owners take good care of it. I poked around the other day - it was raining anyway - and I found all sorts of interesting corners to investigate.

       At the end of a hallway upstairs there is actually a drop-down stair to the attic, it's great. The musty smell of possessions long-forgotten spills down the steps to the bare wooden floor when the trapdoor is open. The only light in the space is sunlight filtered through a time-encrusted round window, only big enough to frame a peering face, as the ceiling slants down around you. Boxes line the walls, scattered stacks shakily standing amidst an old bed frame, a few discarded lamps, a coat rack whose empty arms reach only the airy fabric of spiders' threads. The floorboards are dark with age, far rougher than those in the house proper.

       Though Mrs. R----- told me I was welcome to nose into whatever I'd like (barely a week, but already I'd family to her and her husband, they're such sweet, warm people - that, and I share her love of gardening), but I want to ask before I start digging through old boxes of their things. A few newspapers, yellowed with age and shaded by mildew, hung over the edges of some boxes - and looked old enough to promise interesting contents.

       I'm sure you would instantly proclaim it old and scary, fearing ghosts and aged derelicts behind everything in shadow, but I've a hunch I'm going to be spending a fair bit of time up there, you know how I love old places. (It's hard to explain why though... such a sense of time and history, the lingering presences of so many people and things they once touched...)

       I doubt even you could entirely slag off the town itself - it may be small, and contain little more than the usual restaurants, hair salons and bars, but it's very nicely kept. The buildings are mostly old brick, apartments on the floors above the stores; finely sculpted fountains in the middle of a green town square, the church windows filled with intricate stained glass.

       Concerts will be starting up on campus soon - there are always some at the bars, but I'd rather avoid that if possible. I should go out and meet people, but being around drunken crowds isn't going to be conducive to little me making friends.

       Getting groped, yes; making good friends, no. There are days a fuck-buddy would be nice, but--- no.

       Oh stop your protests about your virgin eyes, any images I give you are far less subversive in nature than all the "reality" shows you watch. There is far more of the perverse in manipulation for monetary gain than there is in sexuality.

       (And you know me better than to think I'd ever go out looking for a quick fuck - there's just no way.)

       Not much to tell you really. Still no Internet access, but I'd doing fine without it for the most part. I miss my chats with M-----, but we have letters and phone calls, and we're used to long distances between us, what with her living all the way in N-----. I miss all the rest of you as well, of course, and you simply must stop by when you're in the area, dear. I'm afraid my resources limit the sort of welcome party I can give you, but...

       I can promise you a really giant tackle of a hug.

Five ~ Fate

W---- darling,

       Have you still that marvelously attractive boy with you? Such a fine choice he was, my dear, I must congratulate you on such a find. Not only has he an entirely delectable appearance, but the mind beneath those glistening curls of darkest night is so wonderfully malleable. Passion can be an almost frightening things when aiming in the wrong direction, but in him! it is a delightful undulation, lending him rapture and despair in equal measure. He does not understand that such change is intrinsic to his existence, and when he has reached a low point, he cries out that surely the world rallies against him and his life is entirely without worth. Do be sure he does not forfeit it prematurely - there is the potential for so much in him, he could easily hold our interest for some time yet.

       Such a fabulous introduction you first made him, I was only just able to keep back a smile which might have given you away. You had the same name as he, you were him, the rest of his soul, what would complete and fill the place he had so long been looking to absolve of its painful emptiness. His mahogany eyes widened, dark lashes on pale cheeks, his lips spreading open as a slow-blooming flower... and his breathless whisper called on the fickle Fates which held sway over his life, thanking the unalterable destiny they had given him.

       A strange combination of lurid experience and naïveté lie within his eyes of darkened glass... Do you think you might send him to me when you have done with him?

Four ~ Memory

Dear K-----,

       I hope you're settling in well. I'm still not finished unpacking, but I'm feeling a little more at home now.

       Strange, how quickly I adapt to new realities. In even the midst of our choir's ten-day sojourn through Italy, I felt like those around me were my family, that the endless succession of ancient wonders seen through sleep-deprived eyes straining in the early morning light was my entire existence. It's not that I forget the past, but that it fades into something very detached from me, the distance between memory and I is the same as that between a dream and reality...

       There again, the latter distance tends to be unusually short for me, so perhaps that accounts for things.

       Did I tell you that B----- is thinking of going out of state for graduate school? (Graduate school, that's something adults do, not people such as us...) Silly as it sounds, I'm incredibly proud of him - this is the boy who wrote an essay for English class on how strong his need for the familiarity of home is, who publicly acknowledged the fear of homesickness that held such sway in his life.

       But at the same time, it reminds me of how little I know him now, so many things about him are quite opposite from the brilliant but shy boy I once figured I was in love with... I don't even know if he's had a girlfriend yet or not. Something in him, though, comforts me that his center will always be the same B----- I've always felt comfortable with, who I can so easily chat with about the most inane things.

       I wonder if he feels the same about me, if he wonders who I've become?

       Do I even remember who I was when we were close?

       I've been so many people to the world around me, all of them in conflict within me, whichever ones not let out gnawing from the inside of my skin...

       But I wonder who those around me see?

       Oh but enough of this, when I'm alone and all around me things are so quiet and empty, my thoughts paint the walls in bold strokes, colors lurid and too bright. Nightmarish figures thrown up larger than my insignificant life loom over my dreams and waking.

       Still... I remember when I moved, back in middle school, and my friends passed around a farewell banner for everyone they could find to sign. It still hangs in my room at home, the tears which fell on it during the long drive to a new home now trapped beneath plastic in an uncompostable remembrance. On the back, in large rounded letters, spills a plea perhaps only partially understood by the thirteen-year old hand which relayed it:

              Don't ever change.

What is it that makes a person, what is it I shouldn't change? And I can only grow and learn more, I can't take away the things I've thought.

       But I was going to stop this, I should start a diary again, instead of journalling it out in letters to everyone.

       It's so quiet here, in the sort of way that you're scared to disturb, the softness of the air seems as much a part of the rooms as the worn floorboards... as if the house long ago said everything it needed to, and is now resting, letting memory fill the space of words.

       Thank you for bringing up R.E.M. on the phone the other day though - if anything's right to gently re-fill the atmosphere here, their music would be it. I'd been on a Smiths kick again, but I'd listened to the cd too many times without relent, and it... I hesitate to say that it's too social, it's The Smiths, half the point is loneliness in even crowds, but its still too closely tied to social situations, relationships and people and perceptions for a place like this. Too specific; I need something that will expand to encompass both the tangible world and that of memory. Not to put R.E.M. on too high of a pedestal (though they would certainly deserve it), but for me, at least, this suits. Their "Out of Time" and "Document" albums are inextricably tied to long car rides, Mom mopping the kitchen floor, summer evenings drying the dishes, and approximating the non-lyrics of "End Game" as Mom left to do the week's grocery shopping, while we tried to keep out of Dad's line of sight - if he didn't see us, he couldn't tell us to help him bring in more firewood for the winter which seemed much farther away to us than to him.

       I see the brightness in that girl's eyes in old photographs... and still, sometimes, in an unexpected reflection.