3rd Letter: Without Addresses, Without Recipients

He stared out the window; his eyes as blank and lifeless as a copper coin. Outside the sky was burning like a purple flame. The molten orange washed down the mountain ranges and disappeared into the shadows of the deep valley. No wind blew and it was as if everything was held still to watch the sun set, but below him vines crept up his window to escape the coming of darkness and found there a dimness greater than the waking evening.

One by one the bottles scattered on the floor lost the reflection of the sun’s dying rays, and as the glint of the last beam was extinguished, all of them vanished amidst the carpet of crumpled papers slumbering on the wooden planks.

He watched the last ember exhale and wrung his hand around the neck of another bottle. He rocked it gently. When he heard no splash inside, he put it back down. Seconds ticked away, minutes passed, but he looked at the mountain ranges as if there was still something to see. All that was left there were humps of shapeless giants against a blacker sky. Skyward, one by one the stars lit up and the moon unveiled itself from the clouds. He looked up.

The moon.

He remembered the moon.

He was lying there on the grass with his arms embracing his shoulders ever so tightly because of the cold. The moon was staring down at him that night and it was so bright that he could not see the stars. Everyone else seemed to be asleep but the cold would not let him. It was seeping in his combat boots and scouring every inch of his skin despite all the shirts and socks that he had on – not to mention his camouflage jacket.

He strained his ears and heard nothing but his beating heart and the whistling of the wind. There had to be something else he could hear or else he’d go mad. He rubbed his hands once again.

And God, this damn cold. It was so hot just this morning.

He turned to his left. Roger seemed to be sleeping so soundly. How could he? He turned to his right and saw Rizza dozing off just the same. So much for the best bivouac of his life. He sat up. There had to be salvation. All around all that he could see were lumps scattered across the grassy mountaintop. Unstirring. Oblivious. Could it be possible that he was just imagining all these discomforts? Perhaps he was going mad.

Then he heard a sigh.

He turned to the sound and saw her sitting up as well. When she saw him she smiled faintly. “It’s quite cold,” she said softly, her voice shaking. “Can’t sleep too?”

He returned the smile, took off his jacket and then handed it to her.

He banged his head on the window. The memory faded. He found another bottle and took a swig. He honestly believed that the warm beer tasted like paper. Did it, or did he just can’t go beyond the scraps lying on the floor? Crumpled letters with no addresses and no person to send it to.

With broken sentences with-

…broken phrases

…and broken words

…and broken thoughts.

He took another swig and then decided to gulp it all down. The alcohol did not hit him the way it used to. He couldn’t remember how long it has been since he lavished moments of sobriety, or distinguish at least which were the moments when he was in or out of drunkenness. He wanted to lose the feel of his limbs and his fingers and for his eyelids to fall shut, but the traitorous alcohol would not pin him down. He knelt down on the floor and looked at the bottles, looking for the dark one. The clanking hurt his ears and the shuffling of the countless balls of paper too.

His fingers finally touched something smooth. Ah, there you are. He unscrewed the cap and took a taste. So much better. He took a couple of gulps and closed his eyes. He laid his head on the floor, grasping a piece of paper in his hand and hoped for a dreamless rest.

Shafts of light escaped from the moon and slid inside his window. The radiance filled the room with a drop of blue luminance. It touched the paper gently, as if it was able to decipher what it contained despite the splotches of beer, saltless tears and deep etches from a heavy pen.

“Anon,

Do you know? I cannot feel anymore. Or else I cannot feel anything else any longer. There is this endless hole at the center of my chest. It consumes everything: the mornings, the afternoons, the evenings. Because of it no sound can reach my ears. It sucks up the light that fills my room. It has consumed all my tears and it would not give them back. I am hollow because of it. I cannot speak, I cannot move away. It has taken all of me and now it is all I have. Without it then there would be nothing else and I would disappear.

It is all that I am now. It has devoured all my other memories and left only those that conjured it in the first place- memories of you. Memories that scathe my waking hours, making me smile at their first seconds and writhe with despair piece by piece every moment afterwards. Memories of you haunt me at every corner. In every place, every object, my thoughts lead me nowhere else but to visions of you. I can’t help but see you everywhere. Your memories are haunting me, killing me slowly. But now the tortures that you cause are all that I have left. Without my grief I am nothing.

Wallowing is my stake at cowardice, but I cannot pull myself to the other end of the river any longer. The current pulls me with such strength that to fight it would be futile. To fight thoughts of you would be futile. They pain me and yet this pain is bittersweet, because in that reverse haven I have you. You and nothing more, nothing else. And if I stay in this limbo you would linger forever.

I feigned courage to make you believe that I can survive life without you, knowing that you somehow felt something for me. But when I poured my feelings out in the letter that I sent to you before you went away, the truth is I poured everything and left nothing to myself. I was so sure that you would return my love and patch up the hole in my heart. But you did not. How could you not do so? Now I am nothing. Now I am no one. I am a drowned person. Drowned in this bottomless well in my chest; drowned with countless bottles of forgetfulness. Drowned too deep and only you can find me. Only you can pull me out.

This means then that I’m drowned forever in this hollow body. Drowned because this is the only way that I have to be forever with you.”