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Authors: Harrison Drake
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the gears and mechanisms within. They stay close, but still, waiting for me to need them. I can hear them buzzing though, it was faint at first but it speeds up and gets louder as the darkness comes.
Sometimes, when I’m paying attention, I think I can hear them talking to my son. But what scares me the most, is I think he can hear them. They were supposed to be my burden to bear, my hallucination, my false reality. Have I passed my curse on to him? Did he only get the worst of me?
I surprised myself earlier, walking up to you like that, asking if you were enjoying yourself. It’s no secret this time that I chartered the yacht, not like when I paid to fly everyone out to Kvitøya. I didn’t want you to know that was me, I didn’t want to seem like a braggart, flaunting my wealth. Please don’t think that I’m doing that now, I’m not. I just hoped that somewhere deep down you would know-I do this for you. If I can contribute to your happiness in any way, I want to do it.
It was nice to meet your great granddaughter. I only wish I didn’t fall back into my old habits, never knowing what to say. If almost ninety years can’t change me, nothing will. I’ll always be awkward, different, lonely.
My son’s been staring at the sea since we left port, staring out at the horizon. I love to see the amazement and wonder in his eyes, even now as an adult. Seeing that, it’s like seeing what I missed when he was a child—the birthdays, the Christmas mornings, the vacations, a new bike, his first car. I wish I could see it more often, but I take whatever I can get and I hold it tight.
Another three minutes and fourteen seconds this time, Lena. I hope it lasts, at least it’s pure this time. We’re going to turn off all the lights on the yacht when totality comes, there won’t be a single light except for the corona peering out from behind the moon and the stars in the daytime sky.
I won’t be coming to the next one. Travelling is becoming so difficult for me and to go to Australia for only a minute of darkness, I can’t do it.
Until next time, with love.
APRIL 11, 2070
Lena,
Once more at sea, the wind at our backs and nothing but water in front of us. It’s so poetic, so simple, so beautiful. It reminds me of Hemingway, his story of one man against the ocean. I always liked stories like that, the rise and fall of a single person. It reminded me of my own life, my own loneliness.
But I saw in those characters a will to go on, to persevere. The Old Man and the Sea , The Count of Monte Cristo , and of course, my favourite, Robinson Crusoe . Sure there were other characters involved, but I always saw them as being a story of the triumphs and failures of a single entity, somehow set apart from everyone else.
I’ve had my own share of triumphs and failures, though I believe the scales would not balance. I’m reminded of the ancient Egyptians, how they believed that in death the heart was weighed against a feather. I know mine would be heavier and I’d be cast down to the crocodile god to be eaten.
But does it really matter? I’ve never believed in an afterlife, and I celebrated my ninetieth birthday last year. I’ve had a long life, a decent life. Is it wrong for me to say I’m satisfied? That I don’t want to go anywhere when I die? I don’t think I could bear to see my parents again, to be reminded of what I’d done. It’s only my son I’d miss.
And you, obviously.
I’ve been watching him more closely, and it worries me. I know he’s like me, he sees them, or sees something. I can tell that he’s starting to slip, that his reality is bleeding into ours—yours, I should say. Mine has always been my own. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, but the words never come out right, the point lost in translation somewhere along the lines. I wish I could help him, I wish I could talk to him like I talk to you in these letters.
My own son, yet I’m still lost. Just like a child, a child
Sometimes, when I’m paying attention, I think I can hear them talking to my son. But what scares me the most, is I think he can hear them. They were supposed to be my burden to bear, my hallucination, my false reality. Have I passed my curse on to him? Did he only get the worst of me?
I surprised myself earlier, walking up to you like that, asking if you were enjoying yourself. It’s no secret this time that I chartered the yacht, not like when I paid to fly everyone out to Kvitøya. I didn’t want you to know that was me, I didn’t want to seem like a braggart, flaunting my wealth. Please don’t think that I’m doing that now, I’m not. I just hoped that somewhere deep down you would know-I do this for you. If I can contribute to your happiness in any way, I want to do it.
It was nice to meet your great granddaughter. I only wish I didn’t fall back into my old habits, never knowing what to say. If almost ninety years can’t change me, nothing will. I’ll always be awkward, different, lonely.
My son’s been staring at the sea since we left port, staring out at the horizon. I love to see the amazement and wonder in his eyes, even now as an adult. Seeing that, it’s like seeing what I missed when he was a child—the birthdays, the Christmas mornings, the vacations, a new bike, his first car. I wish I could see it more often, but I take whatever I can get and I hold it tight.
Another three minutes and fourteen seconds this time, Lena. I hope it lasts, at least it’s pure this time. We’re going to turn off all the lights on the yacht when totality comes, there won’t be a single light except for the corona peering out from behind the moon and the stars in the daytime sky.
I won’t be coming to the next one. Travelling is becoming so difficult for me and to go to Australia for only a minute of darkness, I can’t do it.
Until next time, with love.
APRIL 11, 2070
Lena,
Once more at sea, the wind at our backs and nothing but water in front of us. It’s so poetic, so simple, so beautiful. It reminds me of Hemingway, his story of one man against the ocean. I always liked stories like that, the rise and fall of a single person. It reminded me of my own life, my own loneliness.
But I saw in those characters a will to go on, to persevere. The Old Man and the Sea , The Count of Monte Cristo , and of course, my favourite, Robinson Crusoe . Sure there were other characters involved, but I always saw them as being a story of the triumphs and failures of a single entity, somehow set apart from everyone else.
I’ve had my own share of triumphs and failures, though I believe the scales would not balance. I’m reminded of the ancient Egyptians, how they believed that in death the heart was weighed against a feather. I know mine would be heavier and I’d be cast down to the crocodile god to be eaten.
But does it really matter? I’ve never believed in an afterlife, and I celebrated my ninetieth birthday last year. I’ve had a long life, a decent life. Is it wrong for me to say I’m satisfied? That I don’t want to go anywhere when I die? I don’t think I could bear to see my parents again, to be reminded of what I’d done. It’s only my son I’d miss.
And you, obviously.
I’ve been watching him more closely, and it worries me. I know he’s like me, he sees them, or sees something. I can tell that he’s starting to slip, that his reality is bleeding into ours—yours, I should say. Mine has always been my own. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, but the words never come out right, the point lost in translation somewhere along the lines. I wish I could help him, I wish I could talk to him like I talk to you in these letters.
My own son, yet I’m still lost. Just like a child, a child
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