Chapter 2

September 17th, 2009

Dear Rachael S,

How are you? I've yet to hear from you, though this is something I understand since you must be now heavy into your studies.

I write to you from Hawaii. Does it seem strange to you that I travel so much? It does not seem strange to me. I have had a permanent address for ten years, but have never had a sense of home.

What does seem strange to me is the nature of my visit to this island. I am on holiday and it is very much a holiday, unlike the last time I traveled here, which did not resemble a holiday at all. Instead, it fell under the catagory of 'suck': the death of a loved one. And not just ANY death of ANY loved one - the suicide of my younger brother, Timothy. Poor Timothy.

This is difficult to write about now, but I will make the attempt. Sometimes when I close my eyes I can see him hanging from his rope, eyes still open, life still on his lips - though barely. This vision stays pasted on my eyelids as if I really did witness such a thing; as if I were the one to discover him and the one to cut the rope and the one to pull him down and the one to cry: "Why!? Why would you do this!? How could you do this!? How could you be so selfish!? You can't do this! You can't go! You can't die! Don't die! Stay! Stay!!!" And I would be the one to see that he would not stay.

It has been two months, Rachael. I know that no one has moved on as much as they appear to have. I have finally found the strength to cry. This is somewhat humorous - that one needs strength to cry. I always imagined it being the opposite. But I will not write about this any longer.

Here is something you will find interesting. I am being pursued by a young man, or so it seems. He has been trying to get to know me for many months. He appeared somewhat entranced by me when we first met. I know this seems like a funny thing to say and I certainly laugh. It's just that he could not keep his eyes from me; and they went sort of googly and pathetic. This made me uncomfortable more than it did flatter me. Shortly after that he began his quest to learn as many things about me as possible. He has asked about my family, about my work, about the things I would like to do when I grow up, about the places I have visited, about where I'd prefer to live when I have a family, about this and about that. The about's never end and I am convinced that if they could, he would start right back again asking the same questions. I do not know how to do anything but ablige him. The problem is that I do not like him.

I do not dislike him either.

I wonder how many marriages are formed on indifference; how many lives are spent together not for the sake of passion but for the sake of being married. There is this school of thought that a good marriage does not require any passion, but instead loyalty and compromise. And then there is the opposite school of thought that marriage is entirely doomed without passion. I am still deciding where I fall on the spectrum.

I suppose I could never imagine myself marrying someone I didn't want (in the carnal sense, of course). But I also think it is completely, completely, completely stupid to marry someone based on desire. So I wonder, "Maybe I should give him a chance. Maybe once I get to know him, I will like plenty of things about him and I will even be attracted to him. Besides, how often does a guy pursue me? Not often enough." When I think back, every man who has pursued me has recieved the same response from me: indifference. But also when I think back, every man who has pursued me, I've not regreted rejecting.

So whether I date this young man or whether I do not, hardly matters to me today. In fact, I doubt that I will date him, but I am learning that God also works in unexpected ways. And for this reason, I ablige him.

On a seperate note, today I went to the cemetery. Here is something that I have concluded about myself: no matter how much I miss someone who has passed, I do not think I will ever understand why I would need to visit a gravesight. How can I connect with an inanimate object? It does not make sense to me. A memory, however...memories are my gravesights. Yes. I think so.


When he was a very little boy he would come to visit her. Sometimes for weeks he stayed as his mother and father attended to their business. For this reason, he grew very attached to her. And her to him. Of course, one should know that she was unable to have children of her own.

At night she would tell him stories; some that her father told her and some that she'd invented in the caverns of her still youthful mind. He loved them all, though not as much as he loved to watch her mouth form words or her eyes give expression to the horrors and joys of each story. Then when she finished them, she would stay with him on his bed until he fell asleep. She knew she had to. If she left him, he would cry and scream or even play because he could not fall asleep without her (though he never needed this much from his parents). So she'd lay next to him for as long as it took, their faces close together looking into black balls of eyes sunken into milky complexions illuminated only by a sliver of a moon. This, in her mind, always made him seem so adult, so human, so broken, and this scared her.

As she waited for him to fall asleep at night, staring into his aged eyes, he would bring his small hands to her face and run his fingers through her hair. At first he would do this so gently, but as his eyelids and his breathing grew heavier, he would start to pull at each strand as if to test their loyalty to her scalp. Pull. Twist. Tear. Pull. Twist. Tear. Oh, this surely was very painful, but she did not mind. She never minded; never said a word to stop him; never pushed his hand away; never even moaned under her breath. She just watched his eyes become eclypses of a granite moon until finally...sleep.

And 'why?' might one ask? Why would she never make any protest? Why not even a small request for a softer pull?

"For love," she would say. "I would lose every strand for the sacrafice of love." And every strand she did lose.


It is late now. A dog barks in the lot next to me. I think he barks at some cat licking her paws atop the carport he sleeps under. I feel sad for this dog because he does nothing all day but bake in the sun as he sleeps, waiting for the cool of night to obsess over a cat he will never catch. Such boasts he makes and all in vain. All in vain.

Sincerely,

Dylan King