Dear S.,
Last week, in the midst of a million boxes and an army of wandering movers and a thousand decisions to make and a hundred inconveniences and requests to use the bathroom and all the windows wide open to bring up the furniture and a sudden freezing cold outside despite our hemisphere being on the verge of the spring equinox, I received a letter, at the address that had just become my new one, whose postmark showed the date April 4th, 1985, or forty years ago, with no sender details.
It probably got lost in some obscure storage facility somewhere, said the guy at the post office when I went to inquire about it. I didn’t have to, but I figured I’d go, before even opening the envelope, as both occurrences -- a letter sent several decades ago being received last week, and it being delivered at an address postal workers wouldn’t possibly know about yet -- bore the marks of sheer impossibility. What do you mean it got lost, I asked, more out of genuine curiosity than to challenge or complain. The guy held the envelope in his hands and looked up at me over his glasses. Mail gets lost all the time, he said, with the subtle irony of someone who wouldn’t have let this happen had they been the one calling the shots. Then, after briefly shaking his head, he continued: they deliver it, no one’s there to pick it up, it stays in the box for weeks, even months, sometimes years, then, when the place finally gets a new owner, they dump it back at the nearest post office, where it gets labeled as unclaimed mail, stored in a smelly repository, and forgotten about. And I couldn’t help but recognize that, in the perverse world of postal services, this seemingly absurd succession of events has a higher-than-zero probability of happening, whether or not it makes any sense.
Except, I said after a short silence, during which the postal guy was about to turn his back to me and resume working, the forgotten part. And so who, after forty years, retrieved this forgotten envelope and decided to deliver it to me? And based on what? I mean, is there a process where some of your colleagues -- say, once a year or once every five years -- have to go through the forgotten mail in the smelly repositories and resolve to give it another try, even after so many years? Does any such procedure even exist? Also, and I'm sorry to take up so much of your time, but assuming it does exist, why didn’t they attempt a delivery at any one of my previous addresses, and how do they know that I just moved, like literally a few hours ago? That’s a lot of questions, said the guy, to all of which I’ve got only one, simple, answer: I don’t know.
Walking back home, I held the envelope safely tucked in my coat pocket and thought about the smelly repositories. I imagined them as windowless, cavernous spaces where human presence was rare, the air stale, and narrow paths carved between millions of envelopes stacked to the ceiling, forming a labyrinth that, once entered, wouldn’t let you out until you found the letter you’re looking for. But how? I imagined those places organized into sectors, each dedicated to a theme based on the contents of the letters, as if whoever had the delicate task of storing them could tell, just by looking at the envelopes and the handwriting on them, what was written inside. And of course, one of the most populated sectors would be called ‘Love’ or ‘Love-Related’ or ‘Things of Love’, something like that, and it would occupy at least half of the smelly repository’s space. Another sector might be called ‘Disputes & Explanations’, perhaps. And each of these sectors would be divided into subsections with more granularity; for example, ‘Love’ might contain ‘Breakups’, ‘Nostalgia’, and ‘Melancholy’. Then I imagined distant voices echoing through the narrow paths of those labyrinths, muffled and almost suffocated, as if trapped inside the envelopes -- the voices of those who wrote the letters. After all, I thought, what are letters if not transpositions of emotions and voices into words that remain on the page forever, continuously uttered, in eternal repetition?
I sat on the couch, exhausted, and thought that I hadn’t yet opened the envelope, busy as I was figuring out the surroundings of this bizarre situation first. Which was strange. Had I been unconsciously afraid of opening it, of liberating a little voice that had been trapped in there for forty years, of letting out a tiny puff of air from 1985? Profanation, it felt like -- that’s the word.
The handwriting was unrecognizable -- round, regular, light. It belonged to a woman, I was sure. A woman who signed herself as Rita, I discovered by glancing at the very end, or so it seemed. Except I didn’t know any Rita -- not that I could remember. I went through the one-page letter with the same attention and meticulousness of an Egyptologist trying to decipher hieroglyphics, word by word, letter by letter. Curious and at the same time terrified to learn what the me of forty years ago was meant to be told, I felt as if I were peeking into someone else’s life -- not Rita’s, whom I wasn’t sure I knew, but mine. Or rather, a life of mine detached from the one I am living today.
Here are my answers to all your questions, which I have numbered for order and clarity, it started, without even addressing me by name. At that point, before going any further, it became immediately clear that not only had I at least been acquainted with this Rita (whose coordinates and details were obscure to me), but that what I held in my hands was the last exchange in an epistolary relationship with her -- the second-to-last of which I had apparently written myself to ask a number of questions.
Then, the list of answers begins:
I know you don’t like these things, and neither do I. But I had to go. It wasn’t a form of disrespect, I just thought it’d be annoying for you. Many asked why I was alone, and I made up all sorts of scenarios impossible to believe. And yet, almost everyone believed me, as I’m good at this kind of shit. Making things up. Always been a pro at it.
Not always. I have to be honest. But this is the natural course of things, there’s nothing I can do about it. I hope you appreciate my candor.
Every moment’s a little bit later, they said. I don’t know what they meant. Or maybe I do.
Eventually, they are. Not sure when, though. I’d love to give you a heads up when we get close, but I won’t be able to do it. And I’d love for you to give me a heads up when you think we’re getting close, but you won’t be able to do it. Frankly, I think it’s impossible.
It’s that dream you had, the one with the two men standing beside your bed, watching you while you were sleeping, then vanishing moments after you opened your eyes. Not the scene per se, but your detailed description of those two beings -- their skin, the shape of their craniums, their odor, their clothes. I told my therapist about it, she listened in silence and said nothing when I was finished. I believe she falls asleep when I’m there. I’ve got no way of knowing as she sits behind me. Do I have a soporific way of talking? You did fall asleep a few times next to me, but perhaps it wasn’t because of the tone of my voice.
Definitely not. Shame on you for even thinking that.
Yes, I would. But I won’t force anything. Forced things are bound to create resentment and, ultimately, disaster.
I don’t mind. I’ve known you for years, and you’ve always been a curious thinker. An overthinker at times, even though I know you take this as a compliment. I like writing thoughts down, ruminating on the page. Who knows, maybe this letter will never reach you. Maybe it gets lost and stored somewhere, in a smelly postal repository where forgotten letters are piled up and millions of words will never get to their recipients. Until one day, decades later, mysteriously, almost magically, they get delivered and penetrate a life completely out of context. Can you imagine?
I looked up from the letter, my new surroundings still unfamiliar, my mouth slightly open. How do I get to the bottom of this? You’ve always been my confidant of last resort, and I wish I could put more of what I’m feeling right now into words. I wish I could give the thousands of questions fluttering in my head some order, some sense. Please write back soon with your thoughts. I need help. Your help.
"Unsent Letters" is a series released every other week. These are imaginary letters to fictitious or real individuals who may or may not have influenced my life, not always mirroring actual events.
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Wonderfully eerie Silvio. I love you wandering those dusty old rooms, imagining all the love and grievances lost in fading ink.
#6 is the Answer of the Day!