Letters To Nobody

Chapter 11 - The Library

Chapter 11 - The Library

  Dear Genesis,

I was relieved to find another one of your letters after the first one I wrote. I was afraid you'd be too unsure and maybe a little too creeped out to reply, not that I would've blamed you.

I hope you're doing okay. How are Vivian and Lara treating  you?

It took my mind a moment to remember that this mystery human knew all about Vivian and Lara, not to mention they would know my dad, my mom, and Erin and Snowball and even my dead cat. I tried not to think about it too much, otherwise I would faint.
My eyes drifted back to the fairly neat handwriting on the white piece of paper in my hands.
If the handwriting had anything to say about who this person was, a wild guess would be that it might possibly be a girl. I wasn't certain whether that was a blessing or not. I knew how much some girls liked to talk.

I don't want to pry and you don't have to share anything you don't want to, I just want you to know that you can trust me, as crazy as that must sound.
I haven't let anyone else read your letters and it will stay that way if you want it too, I just thought maybe it would be good for you to have someone to talk to.
You can write to me exactly what you would have if I weren't here.

So anyways, as I drove home from work today, I got the weirdest phonecall. I picked up, said hello and the only thing I could hear was cats meowing. As I waited in silence for a bit, some guy suddenly says:

"My darlings asking you to adopt her baby!"

And then hangs up.
I'm left puzzled and feeling just a little bit crazy. I mean you don't get offers to adopt a baby cat every day.

A smile formed on my lips at the randomness of the phonecall.

Its getting late Genesis, so that's going to have to be all the lame jokes I have time for today.
Until next time,

From somebody who listens.

P.S. Your handwriting is beautiful.

I lowered the letter down to my lap and took my first real glance around the room, noting other lazy readers lounging on chairs and beanbags with a book in front of their noses or sitting in front of a public computer, typing away.
I wondered if any of these people ever got letters from strangers like I did, and what they would do about it if they did. What would they say? What should I say?

This mystery human complimented me. No one else ever did and it felt strange, unreal,
and I felt unable to accept them. First my name, now my handwriting?
And they still hadn't told me who they were, although I had asked in my letter. Why didn't they tell me? Did they forget to include it?
Or was I meant to be kept in the dark? If so I felt uncomfortable with it, since they knew everything about me. All I wanted to know is their name. At least for now.

For now? Does that mean you'll be writing another letter back?

I thought about it for a moment.

Well, I kinda have to now since I wrote back the first time... Right?

I sighed, absentmindedly folding up the piece of paper and sliding it back into the envelope.
This was such a mess. Why had I ever thought writing letters to our old house was a good idea? It was obvious now that eventually somebody would find them. Maybe it was even the mailman, getting tired of delivering letters to a clearly abandoned house. Maybe he decided to read them since they were surely piling up.

I found myself standing, moving towards the nearest bookshelf, scanning covers and seeing if anything caught my eye.
My fingers slid along the spines of books and in my head I checked off every story I had already read.