Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
What I had forgotten was that she had an aversion to keyboards. She hated doing anything with them, which of course included computers and phones. The reason was obscure and we never talked about it. So I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that she would choose to write a letter to me, about us. An air mail letter at that.
For a moment I just looked at it. The stamps with their postal markings. My name with a ‘Mr’ instead of a first name and the address details. The there was that familiar and somewhat iconic blue and white sticker in the left hand corner – Par Avion. They were all distractions of course. Just me trying to avoid the actual content of the letter.
The Japanese have a saying – ‘to minimise is to master’. This letter was her attempt to minimise communication and therefore master the situation. Three years just like that? If it had been a text or an email there would be the potential for me to fire off an impassioned reply. She knew this of course. She was trying to avoid further discussion as it would have been too traumatic for her. She wasn’t good at this sort of thing. This humble little letter was her way of mastering a sad situation, avoiding the pain, making a clean break. Those years of life together, mostly good. Over, just like that?
Originally, the relationship was so different to anything that had been before. The sex was great but it was so much more than that. There was a ‘spiritual’ connection, something hard to describe. It was exciting, fun and even challenging, but in a good way. Nothing of any real worth ever comes without effort and hard work, or so it is said.
Next minute, my phone reminded me that I had to be somewhere else. It was an important meeting that I couldn’t avoid. So the contents of this letter, this little Airmail letter could wait, couldn’t it? Story of my life, I thought. Any distraction will do.
It was brilliant, if I don’t mind saying so myself. If I never opened the letter then nothing will have changed. It didn’t really matter what message the letter contained. I was putting it on hold. That makes me the real master of the situation, doesn’t it? I loved the feeling of mastery again. But who was I kidding? I had never really been in that position before, not really. It was more perception than reality, but at least it was helping me avoid the inevitable. A happy ending after all, of sorts. I wouldn’t have to be confronted by her words of finality. I wouldn’t have to deal with the emotions. I wouldn’t have to admit to myself, or anyone else, that I still loved her deeply. Her words could stay on that page, safely entombed in its little envelope. It was as if she too was entombed in that paper prison. I could keep her there forever.