letters

Letter One

The sun dusted the horizon as Eli, with ragged breaths, headed home. The man's steps were slow and clumsy, his shoulders were hunched. He could barely think, his mind clouded not only from pain but from the coal dust.
But he knew the way home.
Eli slowly but surely stumbled along the path, still struggling to keep upright. By this point he had reached the outskirts of his town, and the familiar hum of voices trickled into his ears.

"Baker!" Came a rowdy voice from across the way.
But Eli couldn't look up to acknowledge whomever had spoken.
He had barely enough energy to even make it home.
The crunching of his footsteps upon the dusty pavement grew less and less uniform as he drew closer to home. The energy was simply gone.
Eli's home came into sight, and he almost collapsed then and there. But he had to get inside.
He trudged closer, arms outstretched for the door. At last he made it in. He could barely hear the children arguing upstairs over the dull ringing in his ears. He listened to his wife welcome him home but hardly managed to acknowledge her. His tired, calloused feet took him to the bed, and whatever remaining fight he had abandoned him. He crumpled, falling in the bed.
Wild, violent coughs began to escape his lips. He looked up once more, just in time to see the slender silhouette of his wife coming towards him, reaching for him, before shutting his eyes.
-
Marjorie shifted in her seat, putting her head in her hands, shutting her eyes. Her husband's soft, labored breathing drifted in from the bedroom. He had been suffering from a sickness as of late, and it rendered him so terribly weak. His days were hard. Every morning at the crack of dawn he would get up and disappear off to the mines. Only much later would he return home, growing more and more tired each day. Marjorie worried for him.
Their daughter, Ella, wandered into the room. Only a child of six, Ella was full of love and joy.
The other four children lay asleep in their beds.

"Is Papa okay?" Asked Ella, her youthful face wrought in worry. Marjorie stroked her soft golden locks.

"I'm sure he'll be fine, dear," she offered gently. Of course he would get over this sickness, whatever it was. But how was he to survive over time? The coal dust got into his lungs, and every day his immunity was weakened. And it wasn't just sickness. What if the mines collapsed? What if he were to be trapped forever, the oxygen and resources cut off?
Eli was living in a constant state of danger, and Marjorie could barely stand it.
-
Eli, claiming he felt better, awoke at the usual time the next morning and headed out as usual. Marjorie grasped his hand as a silent plea to stay, but he just kissed her gently and slipped away.
Regret tugged at his heart. He had seen the pain in Marjorie's lovely dark eyes, felt the urgent grip of her hand as she begged him to stay. He knew how hard this all was on her.     Marjorie and he started off in the North, working in agriculture as so many others had done. But with their third child on the way, both Eli and Marjorie realized that money would be a problem. So they decided to move West, where it seemed everything would be absolutely booming.
Everything was booming, for a while. The town was boisterous on the weekends, the land was plentiful. It seemed everything would be forever expanding.
But things slowly began to die.
Eli hadn't found half as much as he thought he would. Working so terribly hard every day had only granted him enough riches to pay for the land and his family. He was nowhere near a millionaire as he'd so hoped.
Eli took the train to the mines, silent with his hands in his pockets. The gentle huffing of the metal beast almost lulled him back to sleep, but by the time his eyes had shut the train came to a halt. On autopilot, Eli stood and headed for the deep, dark hole of the mines.
-
Everything seemed almost silent down in the mines. Eli had grown so accustomed to the banging and the shouting that it was as if it weren't really there at all. He, beginning to cough again, crouched down and buried his head in his hands. Someone crouched down next to him soon and put a hand on the small of his back.

"Are you okay?" Eli looked up to see his friend, Drew, watching him with a worried gaze. The man's eyes were bloodshot, and traces of alcohol danced upon his breath. The dark remnants of coal dusting his cheeks were streaked with tears. Eli raised a brow.

"Fine," said Eli, clearing his throat. "But are you?" Drew shrugged.

"Things could be better." He self-consciously wiped his eyes. "It's just my brother," Drew continued. "He's going up North, where all the machines are." Eli slowly stood to face him.

"Are you not coming with him?" Eli asked softly after a moment.

"I can't. I've already made a family here, y'know? It's too much money to move now. My brother's got it easy-- it's just him and his wife." Eli nodded quietly, studying the sorrow etched upon Drew's face.

"I'm sorry," he whispered at last. Drew just shrugged and went back to his post.
-
Eli used the train home as a time to think. What if he and his family were to move back North? Marjorie would be happier. And so would the kids, probably.
Of course there was no money now, but he could save. He would stop the drinks, the gambling. He could take his family to a better home, get a better job.
But was it too late? He didn't know.
The train stopped and Eli started the trek home, once again falling into the familiar, ragged step. He would talk to Marjorie about it. Maybe they could be happier.
But the reason why they had moved here in the first place was the money, and that hadn't turned out all that well. It seemed the "boom" of the West had been so terribly romanticized, for all Eli felt here was exhaustion and struggle and dread. The North, now also through rose colored lenses, could prove to be the same exact thing.
So what was he to do?