This is a letter. It is an item with which you may be quite unfamiliar. After all, no one writes them any more. Who has the time? So I will explain briefly what, precisely, a letter is:
Letters are, in essence, quite simple. They are the transcript of a very one-sided conversations. In other words, these are the record of things I am saying to you, without letting you get a word in edgewise. I needn't worry about you interrupting me, because you won't even be reading this letter until long after I've finished writing it.
This puts you at a bit of a disadvantage, doesn't it?
Still, I know that you are going to keep reading, even if you are rendered incapable of affecting my train of thought. Why? Because this letter is for you. I took the time out of my life to write down all of this and convey it personally to you. I take for granted that you are worth the effort.
How does it feel to receive this letter? Feels good, doesn't it? Yes, you are most certainly in luck.
By this point in a letter, one must admire your persistence. I haven't said anything remotely interesting, and yet you kept reading. You could very well have tossed this letter aside and never given it a second thought, but you chose not to do so. Perhaps you are simply lonely and need to feel like someone found your presence worth acknowledging. If this is the case, you have my most sincere sympathies.
Now, then, what is the purpose to this letter? You do not know who I am, and therefore have no means of replying; I, respectively, have no idea who you are, hence the vague greeting (see above).
And yet, I feel that by this point in a letter, we have connected on a ground that cannot be obtained through modern communication. Do you feel a tug of destiny between the two of us? It's there, all right. I can sense.
I suppose now that we have been united by fate, it is inevitable that we should now come together in a material sense. We will find ourselves physically drawn to each other until, someday, we will be in the same place at the same time.
The only problem is that you don't know who I am, and I don't know who you are. When we do meet, perhaps in line at a mall food court, or sitting across the aisle from each other on a transcontinental flight, or in costumes at a science fiction convention, we will not recognize each other.
All that planning, all that divine intervention, so many coincidences and twists of fate, and we will not notice it.
From this point over, I'm sure that for every new person I see, I will find myself thinking,Is that the person who received my letter? Did he read it? Does he want to meet the writer? Is he here? Subsequently, you will find yourself thinking, Is that the person who wrote that letter? Has fate brought us together? Would she be disappointed to see who her correspondent is? How do I know?
There is nothing to be done about that. But there will be that hollow feeling deep within you forever-- that feeling that fate had come and gone, and you just missed it.
I am deeply sorry.
Sincerely yours,
A letter writer
