October 22, 1947

Dearest A,

The white sheets of frozen dew spread across the lawn when I opened the door this morning. Winter has arrived early, but for me it arrived last year when you left me, left this country—never to come back. The birds hardly sing, the water gurgles down the mountains only to be mixed with mud and flow away to some far away land. These things remind me of you. When you were here everything seemed to be happy, bubbling, and enchanting. Now it is all dark, grim, and wrecks of death.

I am not blaming you for anything. Luck did not favor me. It favoured some man who in a million years would not have thought about you, would have never longed for you, would not create verse after verse for you. Did he even notice the scar lines on your chin? No, I doubt it. Like an artist, I patiently watched you. For hours, days, and years. But this stranger purchased you, made you his, and now I am left with cheap copies of you in my memory.

Sometimes, I don’t know what I should do. I hate the British, and I am not happy with my own countrymen. Why did they fight for freedom, and now I see you have put me in a prison? I have stayed away from everyone; I have shut my mouth, and now I do not have any opinions. I feel I don’t have any right to any opinion. I feel like I exist in compulsion—a sort of hazy hope that the world would change. My story would become better, and I would have a rosy ending. That is having faith in fiction. But from History, I know things will not end up as predicted or hoped. So, my hope is in that now.

The chickens cluck in the distance, and the coldness seeps through the floor as I shiver while writing this. I hope you found happiness, and I doubt if I will ever find mine. Though it might seem cliché, I have to say you were my sunshine, joy, and also my tormentor.

I sometimes imagine how you would spend time with this stranger. Will you have a secret language with him? Will he understand you like I did? Will he care like I did for a decade? The walks in these hills, me holding your hands, and kissing under the tree by the lake. Those memories I do not often visit, fearing I might do something unprecedented like walking to Britain or hitchhiking there to find you.

PS: I have stopped talking. I have voluntarily become mute.

———-

December 14, 1956

I have written so many letters, but I could not make myself post them to you. I don’t want to intrude in your blissful life. More than I live my life, I imagine how your life is proceeding. I assume you have children now. A routine life: washing, cooking, some country clubs. You might have forgotten me, but I have not. Not a single day has gone without thinking about you.

Hundreds of poems in my attic. And tear-stained parchments hidden away in my mother’s trunk. Many people have asked me to marry, and why I won’t. I can’t tell them abmarryout you. It would only make matters worse. I thought about joining the parish, a life given to austerity, prayer, and serving the poor. I have a farm to see to, and now that I have become an orphan, going back and becoming a priest seems impossible.

The only happiness in my life now is writing, walking, and talking to my sheep and cows.

——–

March 19, 1960

I have crossed 40 now, and I no longer feel the youthful energy that I had. I woke up with a searing pain in my legs. The doctor says I should not hike in the mountains for some months. Oh, I love the woods. I have started to talk to the pine trees; they know everything about you. I told them how heartless you had been. How you slept on my shoulders beneath the pine trees, and now you have gone away millions of miles away.

The sadness never subsides.

——

April 10, 1970

Fifty years of living. What have I accomplished? I would blame you for this misery. While you lived your life, I puttered on with your thoughts. The psychology books say that it was not some person but my own childhood traumas. Now thinking about it—probably true. If I may diagnose myself, I have been afraid of losing. In the woods when I was 10 years old, I was lost, and that picture is so clear in my head. Then I lost my dad, then my mom, then my house.

Just when I began to trust you, like clockwork, you left. So, my subconscious, like C.S. Lewis wrote once, wrapped itself into a cold heart. Any kind of love was disdained, and I have lived all these years this way. But I am not Scrooge mind you; I have helped so many people but did not help myself. I couldn’t even keep you; I don’t deserve love. (I understand you will be laughing at such foolishness, but some people are fools to begin with.)

Some days I thought to forget everything and start over, but no, no, no… life has this weird way of chastening me. Time does not heal anyone; it only makes you forget about the scar. But the scar is there always, like a memorial to things past.

——

February 4, 1990

The doctors have finally given up on me. No family, except for my servant caring for me. I will give this house and the little savings I have. It would benefit him. Sometimes, I regret meeting you. If we hadn’t met, my life trajectory would have been different. But I trudged along and finally I have come to a place of no return. I do not know if you are alive or dead. Whatever death is, I am hoping I could meet you, walk with you, hold your hands. If there is nothing else, my thoughts must dissipate like vapor; these letters, these fragments of memory would be able to convey my love, almost chaste.

Everyone would say this is utter madness; I agree it is. Your gift kept me from finding peace all these years. The gift, so tenderly packed and given to me, and I lived with it, afraid of loving someone who might potentially hand out more gifts to me, and I couldn’t bear it.

I lived. I helped. I made a name for myself. Knowing all this is vanity, but there was only one way not to succumb to the gift you gave. The gift of a permanent depression and of course silence. 

———-

March 6, 1991

Dear X

I do not know who you are. You do not seem to write your name. The Dear A you mention so fondly also happen to be my aunt. On December 25, 1947, when they were crossing the pacific  she died. 

All the trauma for nothing.

I am sorry. 

Authors Note:

Mr. X did not read the letter. In the early hours of March 4, he silently passed away.