vsechno nejlepsi

Dear K-

I’ve been hiding. I’ve been weaving in and out of the wood work, keeping to the shadows, remaining quiet and tucked away. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. It is not that I am invisible; it is more like something within me compelled people to look away. They know I’m there, lingering at the periphery, but they have no desire to turn and see me face on. I’m nobody- I’m just a blur in the crowd, the nameless entity in the optometry office writing down your health history. When they fall asleep at night, do they think of me? What about 30 minutes after they’ve left the office, are they still wondering who I am or what I’m doing with my life?

No. And that’s exactly what I want right now.

Obviously things have been a little uncertain in my life lately. Doctors call to tell me they don’t know what’s wrong, and they need to run more tests. I’m never really sure how to react, and so I merely adopt a friendly tone and assure them that I’m willing to submit to whatever they wish. But do I really have a choice? I see people every day who are slowly withering away from age, disease, misuse, disuse, and abuse. Why should I really be so different?

I am sorry I wouldn’t pick up the phone. I haven’t picked it up for a while, and mostly I just sit and watch it ring. It shimmies and slowly circles about in place upon the table, flashing bright white lights and singing aloud. A part of me really wants to pick it up. When I speak into the receiver, I inherently adopt that friendly, perky tone again, and for as long as I’m on the line I’m as healthy and chipper as one could be. But as soon as I hang up, the deception is gone and the smoke has cleared. I’m back to reality and my miserable self, and it only makes me feel more empty and pathetic than before.
I am the mess of colors which you describe. I’m a muddy and cramped palette, the thick oily pigments occasionally smearing into each other and becoming a sickly grey.
You are more like an arrangement of colors on a lite brite table. When your bulb is out, there’s nothing but a shadow, a blank black canvas of gloom and melancholy. But when you’re on, when you’re up and at ‘em, that’s when everyone admires you. You glitter in fantastic neon hues, your plastic pegs rearranged at whim to depict laughing clowns, stunning landscapes, bouquets of balloons, and whatever your heart desires. Even if it’s just a swirling river of colored lights, it brings a warm glow to the darkness surrounding us and brings comfort to sleeping children alone in their beds.
You smell like baking bread, almost done in the oven. It’s so light and airy, yet it snakes into your nostrils and fills yours lungs like a warm embrace from the inside. A scent so comforting and happy, like a winter day spent indoors in good company, with spiced cider in mugs to warm your hands and stomach. It also makes me think of home, and when I spent an entire summer destroying whole days making batch after batch of loaves, trying to find the perfect recipe for a French baguette. But I never got it quite right. So there’s always a tinge of sadness associated with the smell. A scent of disappointment and regret.

Still clinging to the dullness of dusk,
-K