Unsent Letters #8: The Sun

Dear John,
The sun was out today. I took myself out with a book and lay there for hours. It was like I was a depleted battery sucking up the energy. It felt good to be warm again. I took a book out with me but couldn't concentrate. Which doesn't surprise me - I didn't think I would be able to concentrate, but like the sun, it felt good to just hold it in my hand.

Smal touch stones my mother would say. Small things that anchor us in the here and now. Who would have thought she would go all new agey.

I'm sending you some beautiful sun John - breathing the gorgeous rays of light into every word as I write them.

I hope it is warm where you are - somehow.
Love Sissy xxxx

Unsent Letters #6: Anger

Dear John,
I'm angry. They say that it's cathartic. They say that it is good for me. Someone has even tried to tell me that it is a compass and I should look to where it is pointing to get my answers. To find some healing.

Well if my anger is a compass it is pointed squarely at the police.

Two of them turned up here today and stood at the door expecting to be let in. I looked down at the pile of mail growing for you on the table by the door and wanted to scoop it all up and hide it before they came in. But of course there was no time.

They of course stared at it and stared at me. No one made a comment though. It was like there was a huge pink elephant doing the macarena in the loungeroom that everyone pretended wasn't there.

They said they just wanted to ask a few questions. I told them I wasn't feeling up to asking any questions - perhaps they could come back another time. They told me they had been patient up until now and they really had to ask me the questions. I could feel the sear and the crack in my head.

Told them I had a head ache to come back another time but they insisted. So much for community relations.

I don't know why they bothered. I couldn't tell them anything they didn't already know. I don't know what they were expecting. Me to tell the truth or something? Assuming that I actually knew the truth? I have no idea what was going on in your head at the time. I thought maybe they were trying to pin it on me - given they can't get to you. When I kept saying I don't know they treated me like I was being obstructionist - that's the word I'm sure they used. As if I was purposely feigning a mental lapse.

So now they've got nothing more than they had a few hours ago and I've got a head ache which feels likea canyon is cracking open down the middle of my skull. The medication they've given me makes me puke - so it's have the head ache, or try and keep the stuff down long enough to have an effect then hope the vomitting doesn't bring it on again.

Wish I had have known what you would have done in my circumstances. Gone and hid somewhere quietly like when the Jehovah's came around. Remember the dude that knocked on the door the first Sunday we slept at the new place - before there was any furniture and the three of us just drank and passed out on the shag pile carpet? Who puts shag pile down on the floor in the tropics and thinks it's a good idea.

Remember the guy knocked on the door, 'happy first morning in the new house - as per the jehovah's' - he took one look at me and said 'a picture tells a thousand words and I bet you've got a good story to tell.' I don't remember now if I just shut the door in his face of tried a wise crack.

At least I'm smiling now - even though my head hurts!

We were good together - weren't we John. Bad, but so good at it!

Love you
Sissy xxxx

Unsent Letters #5: I'm sorry

It's all my fault. I'm sorry John.

I was talking to Larissa today. You'd be proud of me - I actually picked up the phone. No screening calls and no procrastinating about calling someone back.

I told her it was all my fault. She drove straight around here. She says it is not my fault and I'm not to think like that. I'm suspicious though. Larissa hugged me. When was the last time she hugged me - ever?

I kept on though. I said it was my idea ... I encouraged you to do ... and this is where we ended up. She was quiet then. I know she wanted to say something but you know Larissa. What would she say. It wasn't something you could just joke about, fob off with a silly smile. She hugged me again.

It must be my fault. Larissa never hugs. It was like she was saying yes it was your fault but you're still OK with me.

Should I ask her if that was the case John?

I want it to be my fault ... but I don't want to have to be responsible for the guilt and pain. I want to say sorry - but first I have to admit I did wrong?

Help me!

Sissy xxxx

Unsent Letters #4: Toothpaste

John,
I'm tired!

How many times did we say that to each other. I dont' remember now what your record for the most number of days strung together without sleep. Mine was three I think - over that Christmas weekend with the English backpacker and the bouncer. It was when I was hanging out with the crazy girlfriend of yours while you were off back home sorting yourself out. Sad it never worked out you between you and Dallie ... but then again, in the end I didn't like her, so perhaps it was a good thing after all.

I was thinking on your name today. For some reason my body is tired but my mind can't be reigned in. I was thinking about all the Johns. The first one coming to mind was John in the colgate add. Remember:

*bash bash bash on the bathroom door*
"Let me in John I bet your using my colgate gel!""

I never asked you if you used colgate gel - or aim. We used Aim at home. How is it we never talked about toothpaste. Did we argue once about the toothpaste we used to get? I don't remember now - but I seem to remember so many other things? I remember we used to get Aim toothpaste and for some reason remember it was the toothpaste which first cracked the 'gel' market - before we knew gel was something you put in your hair to make it stick up like you had put your finger in an electrical socket. I remember when Aim toothpaste came in the pump pack for all the families who lost their lips. Yes - toothpaste once had screw on lids - not flip tops like they have now.

Just like cans of drink (and beer) had ring pulls - now they have the other sort. I remember Bill getting a ring pull can from the vending machine at the beach and us all howling with laughter and daring him to drink it - it was probably old and off. Actually it was everyone else howling with laughter and daring him ... I was just hanging back like always.

You weren't there - it must have been some other holiday other than Easter.

I don't even know what toothpaste you use now John?

Sissy xxx

Unsent Letters: Affogato

Dear John,
It's better here today.

Larissa came over and dragged me out for coffee. You know what Larissa is like - I couldn't say no and she agreed to just walk around the corner. She also "made" me try something new - says it is time to live a bit and I didn't even take offence at that. How can you ever be mad with Larissa?

So I had an affogato - expresso and icecream. Weird and wonderful all at the same time. It made me think of the night we went to the casino for my birthday and you "made" me try a Black Velvet. While coffee and icecream go together (though technically the temperature difference makes it a bit wrong) - I have to remind you that the Guiness and champage did not.

I thought about global warming as I watched the icecream melt. If I can grok the whole icecream melting in my expresso metaphor of global warming - why can't others. We need someone to come down and slurp up all the excess water. But then we'd probably just have a drought and it would be worse than a 6m rise in global sea levels. Guess there's no easy answers.

Larissa found out I'd never had take out coffee before - meaning she "made" me go and get a long black to take away with us. I have to admit I felt just a little bit cool wandering out with the coffees in a carrier - Larissa ordered a caramel latte just so I could carry them all out. Like I was some office wench doing the coffee run. Why I would think being the office wench would be cool I don't know. How is it we never took coffee out? I guess coffee always meant sit in - why would you want to waste good coffee rushing around between point A and point B in life?

We walked around the block, then people watched at the bus stop for a while. Larisa can be so filthy at times. It took forever for the coffee to cool which meant having to listen to more of her comments than I would have otherwise chosen to. She thinks it's funny whenI blush uncontrollably. It must have been the expresso.

The hits of expresso were just what I needed - though now I'm feeling a bit shakey and wired. Remember when we drank five short blacks and then went to see Romeo and Juliet? It feels a little like that - only I didn't return home to discover I'd been wandering around the street with a huge rip up the back of my dress and my bare arse hanging out. Thankfully I was wearing jeans and the seams are pretty sturdy - well at the moment.

Larissa says I need to speak to my folks about money. I don't want to bring it up if they haven't offered. You'd think they'd have offered to help. As if there isn't enough to deal with already. I want to see if there is another option before I ring them for help.

I got out Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness and played the rat in a cage song over and over again. I wanted to feel angry but there's nothing. No sadness, no regret, no guilt - just emptiness. And at night - fear? Maybe I'm not a lost cause if I'm afraid.

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.

Do you feel like that rat John? Is it like being in a cage?

I miss you.

Sissy xx

Unsent Letters: The Darkness

Dear John,
It's dark. So dark. They tell me it won't always be like this - but how would they know. They tell me that like night, day finally comes ... but really, what's the point of day. It's just walking death.

I wish I could hear your voice - something tangible, something real to hold onto in the darkness. You'd think I would have grown out of my fear of the dark but it seems more real now than when we were kids.

I'd blame you - but it's not your fault. I'd give anything now for you to be hiding around the corner from the toilet door - ready to spring out and scare the shit out of me.

Well I am scared. More scared than I have ever been.

Are you scared too John?

Sissy xx

Unsent Letters: Dear John

Unsent Letters is a writing exercise I started over at Write Anything. For the next 21 days I will be posting a fictional letter from one character to another.


Dear John,
I can’t help but think that one day it might be ‘one of those letters’ every time I scribble those two words at the beginning of a letter. So ingrained in the cultural vernacular those two words are. Perhaps I should change your name – could you be Johnny – Jon? Jim Jude. I wonder if Jude is a shortening of Judas?

I’m sitting here listening to the Rolling Stones as I write this. Anything to fill the void up with. I can’t stand the silence. I once thought the silence was lonely – now it just feels like a terrible vortex that will suck me in if I let it through the door. So I fill the flat up with noise. Guess it is not terribly nice of me to call the Stones ‘noise’. Guess also that anything turned up loud enough becomes noise?

Is it quiet where you are?

What are you listening to John?

It’s getting late. I should try to get to sleep. I never seem to be able to drift off before the CD ends. If only there was enough money for an iPod and I would have a week’s worth of music at my disposal. Maybe then I would actually sleep.

Hope you are sleeping wherever you are John?

Yours,
Sissy