The Letters
From Omnictionary
Contents |
The First Letter
"Love is what it's not." (Note: received May 11th, 2008; written in stylized cursive font; capitalizes "Love")
Dearest Margo,
I apologize for taking so long to return your letters. So long has it been since we connected, so long has it been since I've received one of your stirring letters. I miss them. Yes, I am well. Yes, Francis the bird is still chirping away songs in the afternoon, and is taunting the neighbors' cats. I fed him the special bird seed you mentioned. I think he likes it, as his bowl is always empty.
As to your question: People can fall in love for many reasons little Margo. Mostly it is because they do not know any better. Love, you see, is not something that grows on trees, or falls on your head when you're walking by someone cute. Love isn't what the movies, or TV, or even storybooks say. Love is the essence of loss Margo. Love is the process by which two people become one. It's painful, messy, and completely out of the control of anyone.
Little Margo, why are you so curious in Love? Is there some young boy that you think is cute? If so, that butterfly-feeling is not Love in truth, it's only the wonderful infatuation with another.
Love, Margo, isn't about feeling at all. Those feelings we get are all part and parcel of being human - being a real person. But Love... Love defies being human. It makes us, as silly as it sounds, inhuman.
Poets spend ages talking about what Love is. But generally, sweetie, Love can only be roughly sketched out by what it most certainly isn't. Love is not anything you can prepare yourself for, nor is it something that can be bought, bartered, traded, removed, lost, or gained. Love is not a thing, and even though I described it as a process - even that fails miserably at answering your wonderful question. I cannot do the question justice, but, then, so few could.
Love, little Margo, is something you will not know until you do. The first time you're infatuated with someone, madly 'in love' as the stories tell us, or so torn up over drama or highs and lows of relationships - you will think you're in Love. But you won't be. Granted, you wont listen to this old spinster - but I owe you the answer you did not receive so long ago.
When you have grown older, have been with many different men, dismissing some, and pining for others - you will come across him. You'll know it when it happens. It wont be like anything else you've ever experienced. When you lose him, and you will, that will feel like nothing you'd ever experienced as well. Love never dies, Margo. That is the single most honest thing I can tell you. All the world adjusts and changes. Humans come, and humans go, and play about their busy lives as if they've a million important things to do - all of which wont usually involve Love.
But Love will be there, at all times. Guiding the actions of those who do not understand it, in ways they wont notice or recognize, and move them ever closer together. Only, generally, to take them apart again later.
In the end, Miss Margo, you will discover that Love is not something that you can do anything about, and worrying what it is, and what it isn't, well... I'll leave that to the birds.
Your sincerest friend,
Vivian.
The Second Letter
"Aliens are all around us." (Note: received May 12th, 2008; writes in Times-New-Roman font, academic tone; uses nickname "Margie")
Margie, greeting and salutations!
My wonderful Margie, I have just gotten your letter in the mail. Yes, I know, I should have gotten to it sooner - many years sooner - but alas! I have been working very hard here in the Jungle. And as you can imagine - the post is not quite what it would be in a more civilized society.
But I digress, little one. You asked a wonderful and complex question, and I mean to answer it in the most sincerest way I can: You are an alien.
I know you don't believe that, but it's true. Every person is an alien to someone, Margie. Because each of us cannot possibly comprehend the mind of another. In each conversation we have with another person - we are given tickets to a fantastic land that we've never seen before. This land is the mind of a person. And a vast land it is!
Aliens as we normally use the term, implies people who live in a country that were born and raised in another country. But this message the world sends out to itself belies the true nature of what is "alien."
At each encounter with another, especially with someone you like, you are given a boarding pass, or, a passport if you will - into that persons mind. This is a dangerous trip, my adventurous Margie, because without the proper tools, equipment and fortitude, one can often find themselves stuck in a trap, falling off a cliff, or swimming upstream against an inevitably strong currant. You may have been too young to understand that when you were younger Margie - but as I'm several years behind in my correspondence, I'm hoping you understand that now.
The most important way to have the tools, Margie, is to make sure you read. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read until your eyes bleed, then read some more. The more you read, the more characters, fictional or not, you will understand. The more characters you understand, the more you will understand these silly creatures around you called humans. In anthropology, Margie, we study people as they are, not as what we wish them to be. And the only way for us to understand that is to see the different ways people can be, can act, can think, can move, and can express to others.
Now, I must bid you farewell - for my good friend Sombutou is telling me we need to get back on the path before the storm that's been threatening us for two days descends upon us like... well... a storm!
I hope this letter finds you well indeed, Margie,
Your friend,
George Fellington
The Third Letter
"Simply Look." (Note: received may 13th; written in a stark, strict lines type font; many grammatical errors, spelling errors, and uncapitalized pronouns.)
Lovely Margo,
The headaches have started again Margo. I know we've not talked in forever, but, i just wanted to tell you that. You were the only one i could ever talk to about anything.
I hope your alright... i cant really sleep at night. The headaches have stretched from the back of my brain all the way through the stem of my spine. It really is more like a 'nerve' ache. You always understood that. I havent taken the time to write because... well... I'm very sorry.
I dont know what to say to you. I know i hurt you. I know that in the days we were friends, we shared many things together, and you'd tell me everything about your life. You'd tell me everything you could about your father and mother - and their difficulties. And i'd tell you about... The Loremaster.
He's at it again Margo. He cant stop telling me, over and over, that. You know what im talking about. He started up again and i dont know what to do. I miss you Margo, you knew the answers, you always did - except that one time, where you asked me something.
To tell you the honest truth Margo - I dont know. I dont know why people need to sleep. I suppose it's because our brains are too busy during the day to get everything done in an orderly way. It's prolly cause we dont have any better way of resting. I think most animals sleep - simply because it's restful.
Sleep is important to us all, Margo, and you only realize that when you're not getting it. It's like being thirsty and unable to drink. Or, hungry, but unable to eat.
We dream when we sleep. Dreams are us Margo. They are us when no rules exist to harm us, when no master can enslave us, when the only world that is - is in your head, in your mind.
When you wanna know why we sleep Margo - ask that question in a dream. Simply look at what happens around you, and you will find your answer.
I hope your doing better than I am.
Sincerely,
Kevin
The Fourth Letter
"Let lies lie." (Note: received May 14th, 2008; contains no direct reference to Margo; written in standard font.)
So,
Lies. Why do we lie? We lie because we can. Lies trick us into believing what is not true. Why is this important? It's important because without believing in truth - we all begin to act very strangely. Each person would start to believe only his own world, and not the world of others around him. Figments of each others' imaginations, we would also become the victims of this sophisticated form of sophistry.
Belief, in the end - is all that really matters to people. They need to believe they matter - and so we lie to them. We pretend they matter. We pretend that we live forever, and drive our fast cars, live in our big houses, and judge others who are unlike us. Then we judge ourselves.
We believe the lies everyone tells us - but feel lied to every day. Then we believe the lies we tell ourselves, and feel guilty for it every day. You see, it's all very simple: Each person dances with truth, never willing to make any real gesture, any real move to fall into it, become one with it.
We all pretend and everyone pretends together. And the coating of lies, continues to lubricate the world so that it might not grind to a halt if we understood just how useless most of the things we do, are.
But, then, I've just burst the lie - haven't I? If you believe these words, then the words of others come into question, thus disrupting the process, and cleaning the lubricant off of society's very hot wheels. Don't worry - you wont believe me. No one ever does. And, ironically - it's because I do not lie.
One of the single strangest truths is this: We are lied to when we are young, but the lie is true.
This is to say, when we are young, we are taught many rules. The "rules of kindergarten" I call them. We are taught to play nice, get along, respect one another, wait our turn, share and share alike. We are taught to be compassionate, caring, grateful, and all the virtues that we as society say we respect and admire. However, when we age, and grow older, a wholly different set of rules comes upon us like a ton of bricks. We learn that the world isn't caring, that people don't share, that individuals couldn't understand compassion if it walked up and bit them on the face. We learn the rules of 'the real world' as adults like to put it. This is, of course, to teach us how to be adults. Adults, spend much of their time trying to create copies of themselves - all while secretly and unbeknownst to them - reviling themselves.
Later, as we age and grow older - we learn that this 'real world' never existed. That all that there is left, at the end of the day, is compassion, sharing, kindnesses, and honesty. The liars turn out to be lying about the lie. The liars speak truth to the smallest of children - but are unaware that their deception is not of the children, not to create compliant little creatures who will one day emulate their own absurdities. No, the deception is to themselves. The reason this is - is because we're never taught better.
Life is irony, mortality - the final joke.
Keep laughing,
Jack
The Fifth Letter
"Fire is made from life." (Note: recieved May 15th, 2008; was written with cut outs from magazines; only the single poem was present.)
Margo-ness,
Embodiment of fire - always crackling, always shaking;
Burns a whole host of holes in the sky, awaking;
Deep desires of lovers fit and fickle, breaking;
The rotten mold - cast hard in life, strife, quaking.
Too bright the sun - fire's aspiration. Searing heat;
Bolstering our defenses, denies us rest, at best - defeat;
Is found at last in staving off stark starvation of meat;
Found only in the substance of the spirit. Discrete;
The whisper of terrible tenacious truths around, to meet;
Only us - broken by beds of night, humbled on the floor.
Sleep will only come to those, who've done it all before.
Yours always,
Martina
The Sixth Letter
"Death makes us important." (Note: received May 16th, 2008; stream of consciousness type writing, uses fragment sentences, unknown and esoteric font)
Margo!
Death is good. Death saves people. Saves them from ourselves. Ourselves who are not us. The not-us', they haunt us. They find us waiting for them, them who are the not us. If we don't know the not-us', they will take us away to the dark lands. Dark lands are where people who cant see go to spend forever.
Forever in darkness is where forever ends up. We end up there if we cannot see. So you see, we must see! Without seeing there is no hearing. Because to see is to understand what is being said. Agreement is necessary. Agreement is the process of communication. It teaches us each other. Each other is us. But each other is not us. We are us. But we are also not us.
Us needs to find and remember. Remembering is not death. Remembering is life. No more remembering makes us dead. No more remembering makes the walls fall down, closing in around us - revealing the dark lands.
Death is not the dark lands. The dark lands is what happens when we are not dead. When we are immortals, we never die. When we never die, we never know, we never see. When we live in the dark lands, we live forever, and the forever is the dark lands.
Finding out we are dying discovers for us that we are dead. We are dead Margo! We have always been dead. We are dying to be alive. And we are only alive when the not-us' think we're alive. We're alive cause we know that the not-us' are alive. The not-us' might pretend that death is the dark lands. But death is not the dark lands, it reveals the dark lands.
We are in the dark lands. We do not see the dark lands, for we not see the not-us' as us'. The not-us' make our world ours, and we make our world theirs, and together we create the dark lands, and a process we call death. Death frees us from the dark lands. But only after we know we are dead.
Many avoid death. Avoiding death is bad. It's like avoiding breath, or food. Death is what makes happiness. Death brings reality to the real. Finding death around us makes many sad, but this is because the not-us' have not yet become the us'. Us' understand death and appreciate the not-death.
Dark lands rob us of death. We pretend, like house, and play in the dark lands because we think them better. But they're not better. They're the wrong-us'. Knowing death is knowing life. Being live is better than being dead, only after us is dead. Better to die early, then to know life is better. After death, we live. Death in mind, death to the not-us' allows for the birth of the us'.
In us we find life. Until we know life, from death, us is useless. Us is not-us'.
Finding ourselves in us' makes us' happy and fulfilled.
Hoping your not-us' turn to us',
Edward
The Seventh Letter
"You will be a great adventurer." (Note: received May 17th, 2008; standard font.)
Margo the adventurer,
You have written, and I respond!
You ask, my dear, 'What will I be when I grow up?' Margo, my dear, I know not what you have made of yourself over these last years, but I am certain, and without a doubt (redundant I know), of the opinion that you should be the great adventurer of your life.
You will seek Margo, something that has never before been sought. You will discover, something that has never been discovered. I don't need to know if you're going off to law-school someday, or want to be a doctor. Or, even if you just want to play cards with friends, or write novels or screenplays.
You, Margo, are singular in your aspirations. Your indomitable spirit cannot be contained by any force known to man, woman, or beast - and I've little doubt that whatever field of interest you partake in, and of - you will be a star in that world.
I am very sorry for not having written sooner, Margo. I have...as you will be (and maybe are!) very busy with life. But I wanted to take the time out of my schedule to write back to you, after finding your letter in a pile on my desk.
Work is hard Margo - but when you make the use of it, to discover something - it gets a far-sight simpler. Fight for what you believe in, Margo. Never let anyone tell you what to do, or tell you how life is - because they're full of 'it'. They're full of themselves. Never let a man keep you from your dreams, and never let a woman steal them from you. Never let the young make you think you're old, or the old think you're young.
We are who we make ourselves to be Margo. We are only ever what we invest in us. You, with your tenacious spirit and love of all things adventurous, will be a discoverer, a journeyman, an explorer into the unknown. And I believe this so much, that I do not rightly have the slightest of ideas what you will discover. Only that you will discover something. And, Margo, I will be the first to wish to learn of your discoveries. For I am proud to call you my friend, and will follow your example, as you have of mine.
Sister, let us always be friends, and always push forward. Looking back is for people in the backseat. Let's drive.
Oh! And Europe is lovely this time of year, every year. Thanks for asking!
Be well Margo,
Cynthia
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