Oh Chariot

An Excerpt From A Letter
"...And it was like Christmas on Tuesdays, and like other holidays on other days, you know, the non-Christian ones that I don't really know things about but I assume are good. Never to be outdone though, Saturdays were always the secret winners. The secret looks. Our secret knowing. The kind of knowing that is worth a whole conversation in and of itself, without even a sound. We had that on Saturdays.

And we had a lot every day. It was an amazing three years. My god...was it really three years? I swear I could know people forever and think it was just a day. We never spoke, but we did in so many ways. I could feel the hint of movement in the air when the room became still as she breathed, shallow at first, then deeply as she became calm. I could paint it for you if you were here with me now, I know I could explain it with my hands. You know me, I was never one for good talk.

But this is beyond it anyway, talk that is. It's beyond me or you. It's the interweaving textures of our common existance. It's the smell of new shoes. It's the importance of ice cream trucks. It's how two people could be madly in love without asking eachothers name.

I just don't understand...you know? How could she know me? How could I possibly be the person they called? It's the tiny dotted lines drawn between us, shaded in a little bit more every time we meet. It's got to be. We all know everyone somehow, we just don't pay enough attention and follow the dotted lines. But some people did. Someone knew there had to be more to life than waking up and going to sleep. Someone knew that everything is something to someone, that anything could potentially be everything to anyone. The value placed by sentiment, love, pride...it infinately dwarfs whatever monetary or social values we have, or ever will.

I saw this girl every day of my life, for three years.

That's one thousand, ninety five days Max. That's three thousand two hundered and eighty five meals. Do you know how many times I've worn a raincoat the last three years? NONE! I don't wear raincoats! I barely use that old piece of shit umbrella anymore. And she saw that, she saw me, every day. She knew me Max.

When she didn't wake up, I was the one they called.

I just...I don't even know.

She's been with me all the time since the day I met her, you know? In the not real but kind of real sort of way? Does that make any sense? Like I could look at something, and I could imagine how she might feel about it. I felt like someone else on earth knew that I hated raincoats, and I didn't even have to tell them.

You're like a brother to me Max, and I don't want you to worry when you get this. I know I waited too long to write to you, but you know how I get sometimes. I just want you to know how happy I am. It's not even like a kind of happy, it's a real happy, like when we used to sit on the bridge and talk about the importance of popcorn in the daily life of pigeons. It's like I know I matter again, in the bigger way.

I just wanted to tell you how important you were to me. It's nothing bad, and I swear on that old pair of ratty shoes we used to carry around everywhere just to swear on. I still have those somewhere, for the record. It all just reminded me about how important you all are, all of you, people I mean, everyone. We all matter to someone. You've put up with me for 23 years now, you know that? Just make sure and think about me every now and again, it will reach me eventually, you know, through the dotted lines."