The stewardess finally
broke off her gaze. I was the victor of the staring, but little else was won.
It seems my encounters with other people were more often than not becoming attritional.
So much of my life had been spent being there for others, I was done trying to
please people. I needed a way out and I found it, in an invitation from an old
acquaintance.
Howard sent me a letter, who
sends letters anymore?
In this letter it was
related to me that he was in need of a sublet in New Orleans and every person
he knew and tried had been a fruitless endeavor. The letter looked photocopied,
so I assumed it had been sent to many people that were far cries from his close
friends, it could even have been a scam. But at this point I was willing to
follow any path open to me.
I had met Howard on a
business trip to New Hampshire seven or eight years ago. Back when I had a
steady job that forced me to maintain a regular schedule. Back when life seemed
so much simpler. I would wake up, take my morning shower, get clothed, and
drive to work. Stare at a computer screen for nine hours. Have a boss
periodically come in and tell me to stop working on whatever I was working on
and focus on a different project. This would happen two to three times a day. I
gave up on even trying to finish anything.
My only reprieve would be
the random trips to weird small towns across the country and my lunch hour. I
coveted my lunch hour. I never actually ate lunch, or breakfast for that
matter, I would only eat a massive dinner each night. My lunch hour was
reserved for my one escape from this world.
It started about two months
ago; I would receive a package in the mail every few weeks with a random short
story. Each elegantly hand written, with a letter attached, the first one I ever
received read as follows:
Dear V,I hope all is well. I know we left it on bad terms, but I decided I would send you stories until the day we can meet again and resolve all the baggage between us. I miss you so much. Please be safe. You know how to find me; I wait for you every day.-A.
On my lunch breaks I would
go down by the river with the most current manuscript and get lost in the
artistry painted by A. Whomever they were, they knew how to masterfully build a
universe inside your head that was beautiful, sad, wonderful, crazy, clean,
dirty, anything, nothing, and everything. You could feel the hope and sadness
of A in each and every phrase, each and every story. I found myself only living
to get the next manuscript. If one didn’t come before I had finished the newest
one, I would go back and select one at random to reread.
-V-
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