Morning all and welcome to winter. it seems the chill is here to stay. Still not entirely certain we had a real fall, but I am alas not in charge of the seasons. So winter it is. And so into the writing prompt we go. The timer at least I can control So 15 minutes please and off we go.
This took an odd turn I wasn’t expecting but I really like the set up. I think it could be expanded or maybe a part of the back drop to the main character’s story. This maybe an idea I blend into another story. I think I might even know which one.
Wednesday, December 4th: I needed to update my information.
I needed to update my information. It was something I had been putting off. All of the bills were squared away. They were all on line and since nothing physical was ever sent it didn’t matter if my physical address was on them or not. I was fairly certain my cell phone bill listed a place I hadn’t lived in well over a decade as my home. I still paid the bill on time and updated the credit card info when needed. That was the part they carried about.
It was the post I was lagging on. I knew why of course. I was enjoying the lack of mail. No, it was more than that.
I was enjoying the thought of Sylvia’s letters not only not reaching me but piling up in a stack with no where to go and either eventually getting thrown away or being sent back with wrong address written on the envelope.
‘Or even better, no such person,’ I thought. I didn’t know if the post office had a stamp for that. I liked to think of the big rubber stamps the post office had stamping no such person on Sylvia’s envelopes.
‘In red ink, like an over due bill,’ I thought.
I sighed. There were probably other reasons I should update my info but not getting those letters once a week felt really good.
Once I was married to a man named George. George was not a particularly good husband and he cheated on me, with Sylvia. I left George. Sylvia felt guilty.
She wrote letters to me apologizing for the affair. She claimed love as an excuse, which in my opinion was a pretty poor excuse. But then I knew George. He was not the sort to love deeply. He loved shallowly. Sylvia’s letters made me think the fault was mine. I knew it wasn’t but I still felt the weight of the implied criticism.
I wanted the letters to stop so I wrote back accepting her apology and requesting that we each move on with our own lives. I wanted to forget George. I didn’t even know Sylvia and wanted to forget what little I knew.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have answered the letters. The response prompted her to write again. Apparently my acceptance of her apology made her thing that she had done something wrong. She felt the need to explain true love to me. Repeatedly, over the course of several letters. I learned by then not to respond and hoped they would stop. They did.
For a time.
Then the wedding announcement came, along with an invitation. Apparently she felt that if I attended their wedding I had truly forgiven her. That I understood their love was true.
I threw the announcement away. I did not attend.
Several weeks passed. They were blissfully letter free. Then the letters started. Angry letters this time after all clearly I could not have forgiven her since I didn’t attend. Several of the people she wanted there did not attend and I was to blame for that as well. Apparently sides had been taken. I ignored the letters and set them in a drawer. Letters begging for forgiveness were one thing, angry letters could escalate and if these did, then I wanted something physical to take to the police.
The anger tapered off and then the letters were her forgiving me as Sylvia and George fell into married life. These too I filed and barely read. Then their marriage soured, George cheated and left. The letters started coming once a week then.
Ten til Midnight 