Paperthin
001.
The young woman strolls to the mailbox at the end of her front walk. She is singing a song she forgot the name of. She is wearing a plain gray hoodie and a wool fedora. It is still early in the morning. There is fog on the streets today, and the sky is overcast. At the end of the walk, like a little beacon through the mist, is the postbox. The mailbox is a brilliant fire-engine red, the paint still fresh and bright and happy.
As always, there is a letter. She couldn't remember a time when there hadn't been a letter - they came even on Sundays.
The young woman smiles and brings the letter back inside. She gets back in her bed, leaving the sheets still crumpled and cast aside, crossing her legs. She reads the letter and finds herself again. The woman carefully folds the letter back inside the envelope, pulls a shoebox out from under her bed labeled 'November/December 2008' and places the envelope inside atop a growing pile of similar letters.
Then, she brushes her teeth, eats her breakfast, and catches the city bus downtown to where she works. She spends the morning making sketches for an advertisement for canned soup. The young woman goes to a coffeehouse for lunch, then goes back to work. She spends the afternoon making sketches for an advertisement for a company that makes musical instruments. When she's done with that, she meets with a guy to discuss color schemes for an ad she previously made for an airline company. They decide on primary colors with black highlights, then work is finished and the woman starts heading home.
The sun is going to set soon, and she is furiously writing. In a notebook, she scribbles everything that happened during her day, racing the setting sun. She thinks, I must remember, my existence depends on it. The sun sinks below the horizon just as she disembarks from the bus. She rips out the pages she has written, folds them into an envelope, and slips the envelope into her mailbox she painted herself one weekend.
Her head and her soul are emptying as she walks up the little brick path to her little memory-insulated house. The memories she made during the day are fading, dissipating, like a breath of fog on a mirror. They leak from her pores into the darkening air, into the pattern of herringbone bricks beneath her feet. She feels as if she is walking underwater, wading through everything she is losing. The woman falls to her knees at her threshold, barely able to get the door open. Once inside, though, she is safe. She has spent years upon years building up the boxes piled all around her house, obscuring the walls.
Now, she has no idea what she did during the day. She has no idea who she was, who she is or might become. Inside the boxes are letters to herself from as long as she can remember, telling her who she was. Telling her who she is and what she has the potential to become, if only. The library of herself.
The woman only knows to feed herself, brush her teeth, and shower, and then climb slowly, cautiously into bed, waiting for sleep. Waiting for sleep as one might wait for a bus or a train to take one to faraway places; places one would rather find themselves in than where they were currently.
In the morning, she wakes up, pulls on the same gray hoodie and wool fedora from yesterday and goes out to her mailbox. There is a letter there, a fact that will never change. She gets the letter, goes back inside, and reads it. The canned soup, the coffeehouse, the musical instruments, the color schemes. It all comes back to her.
And for another day, she is complete, she is herself.
It is one way to live, to continue surviving.
One night, a spark from her heater will set the letters ablaze while the young woman is sleeping. Her history, her very self, will go up in flames, the smoke weeping out in all directions, billowing like thunderclouds. She will have been awakened by the crackling and the roaring of fire, of desperately printed letters devoured by the tenfold. She will realize she has a choice - escape with her body but without her self, or forsake both her physical being and her existence for her beloved history.
And in less than a heartbeat, she will make her choice.
As always, there is a letter. She couldn't remember a time when there hadn't been a letter - they came even on Sundays.
The young woman smiles and brings the letter back inside. She gets back in her bed, leaving the sheets still crumpled and cast aside, crossing her legs. She reads the letter and finds herself again. The woman carefully folds the letter back inside the envelope, pulls a shoebox out from under her bed labeled 'November/December 2008' and places the envelope inside atop a growing pile of similar letters.
Then, she brushes her teeth, eats her breakfast, and catches the city bus downtown to where she works. She spends the morning making sketches for an advertisement for canned soup. The young woman goes to a coffeehouse for lunch, then goes back to work. She spends the afternoon making sketches for an advertisement for a company that makes musical instruments. When she's done with that, she meets with a guy to discuss color schemes for an ad she previously made for an airline company. They decide on primary colors with black highlights, then work is finished and the woman starts heading home.
The sun is going to set soon, and she is furiously writing. In a notebook, she scribbles everything that happened during her day, racing the setting sun. She thinks, I must remember, my existence depends on it. The sun sinks below the horizon just as she disembarks from the bus. She rips out the pages she has written, folds them into an envelope, and slips the envelope into her mailbox she painted herself one weekend.
Her head and her soul are emptying as she walks up the little brick path to her little memory-insulated house. The memories she made during the day are fading, dissipating, like a breath of fog on a mirror. They leak from her pores into the darkening air, into the pattern of herringbone bricks beneath her feet. She feels as if she is walking underwater, wading through everything she is losing. The woman falls to her knees at her threshold, barely able to get the door open. Once inside, though, she is safe. She has spent years upon years building up the boxes piled all around her house, obscuring the walls.
Now, she has no idea what she did during the day. She has no idea who she was, who she is or might become. Inside the boxes are letters to herself from as long as she can remember, telling her who she was. Telling her who she is and what she has the potential to become, if only. The library of herself.
The woman only knows to feed herself, brush her teeth, and shower, and then climb slowly, cautiously into bed, waiting for sleep. Waiting for sleep as one might wait for a bus or a train to take one to faraway places; places one would rather find themselves in than where they were currently.
In the morning, she wakes up, pulls on the same gray hoodie and wool fedora from yesterday and goes out to her mailbox. There is a letter there, a fact that will never change. She gets the letter, goes back inside, and reads it. The canned soup, the coffeehouse, the musical instruments, the color schemes. It all comes back to her.
And for another day, she is complete, she is herself.
It is one way to live, to continue surviving.
One night, a spark from her heater will set the letters ablaze while the young woman is sleeping. Her history, her very self, will go up in flames, the smoke weeping out in all directions, billowing like thunderclouds. She will have been awakened by the crackling and the roaring of fire, of desperately printed letters devoured by the tenfold. She will realize she has a choice - escape with her body but without her self, or forsake both her physical being and her existence for her beloved history.
And in less than a heartbeat, she will make her choice.
♠ ♠ ♠
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