The Letter

By Kacper Stepien, HRUC Uxbridge College

“Another day, another dollar.” said the supervisor to our crew. Another standard job, elder gentleman passed peacefully at home. No kids or family. Simple clearing of possessions. As we entered, the aroma of warm dust and buttery biscuits overpowered all other scents.

As we continued to clean, eventually amidst lightly coated oak tables and sofa chairs with dust a top of a fireplace rested a letter. The envelope, paper beige with the years past the stamp, addresses and names bleached by the sun's rays and a red wax, sealing the content of it.

I stared at it. Mesmerized by it and yet, a shred of dread washed over me. How can a simple letter be able to represent so many things? An enigma, no... A holy temple, great tragedies, and existential dread, the pointless and yet priceless back and forth between two old friends long separated by the seas, a final message from a lover bidding goodbye to a love that wasn't meant to be, held within the worthless page pressed between the sides of envelope.

A letter. The whispers of the souls imprinted onto pages, a residue of the person's essence that inscribes it. It is impossible for me to describe the pure childish joy that I felt when receiving a letter as a young child from my grandfather. I paid no mind to the bills of money attached to it. My soul focus was on the words flowing on the page like water. I wished to inhale the ink on the pages and get lost in them. Stories of old painted within with typography.

My body yarned to unseal the enigmatic envelope. But I restrained myself, I do not wish to defile this temple. “Are you just going to stand there or...” my supervisor called me over to me. Snapping me back to reality, I walk away from the letter. For some things are better left unanswered.