Naked Letter

by Lucus Anthony Ren

  Written Expression

  It had been removed from its envelope. Smudges. The usual makes. Control lasts as long as power. Theirs existed in knowing or someone else they knew, of something. The seed is planted at the optimum time. The farm knows the harvest schedule. A child cries when the toy is lost. I am paid half of what I’m worth. I am not stupid. The have of the ‘if’ and ‘what’ of the all. How we give blood for that law. ‘What had I’ve gone....?’ ‘Assuming that...’ The rule of shoe falls near. They have a thickness that claps. The authorities sound shapes the iron doors holding us. Their shoe soles made not from rubber, have steel plates attached. Grotesque tap dancing shark fins, cutting through hallways of men.

  It's worst if your dragged too them. Leaving your sanctuary, you know, won’t be the same should you return. Might be you’re looking through one eye instead of two. Have a partial foot. Half-a-hand. One functional kidney, the other sold. Domination.

  Men here cry in spasms. Emotions excepted in small corners. Commotion ensues, disinterested sensibility gains root. We lose earthly elements, die lonely deaths shouting, 'It's not my fault. I was tricked!’ Among these cells, the only ambush is your stupidity. Here is real. Before here, fabrication and genocide of 'the truth' is the 'p' in piss. 'Things are just so damn boring'. 'I want to be important too'. 'The neighbors are lame. Let's eat 'em'. I believed I had all the answers, and a fallen angel. I had every right in screwing associates, reviling the ex's incompetent friends when visiting us, drinking till passing out. I had the colon cure after all, yet am the secret sabre rattler found over every hill. In groups I flourished. Alone, I wept and made sad, creepy noises. The ex-drove me to drink at times with her, 'Hey, go tell them they didn't pump enough shit out of the septic tank. I can't see the bottom!', 'They short-changed you five cents. Go over there now and get it back. Can't you be a man? Christ, I married my father!’ I travelled extensively, away from her, her beating the dead horse attitude, into the arms of silence. Never bored with the angelic life I have, and I knew the neighbors were not lame, regardless her constant ranting’s.

  The handwritten letter on a single sheet denoted its feminine author:

  I was sixteen when we first meet. You knew me as twenty-one. By now you will have forgotten us. It was warm that afternoon when you came looking for the room. I placed the advertisement hoping it would produce extra income. My mother passed away the year before. Leaving me. Lost. Indeed, the house, and I wanted it used for better purposes then the ones I grew up with, so I contacted the newspaper. You telephoned three days later. When you arrived you seemed, distracted. You lost in your own way. Are you still with that confusion? Our bewildered eyes looked the same, but you were quieter then. Still, you exercised such power over my shyness. You were surrounded by mystery. Authority. Fortune. And all those books you carried. I wondered what the man could be like with a backpack full. So learned. Yet, in all this, you were an ethereal child. I have loved you ever since and only wanted to go to you...

  I have forgotten more then I will ever know. In reading the letter four more times, I still could not recall who she was. And when? It is a mistake. Gruesome humour. The authority’s mental torture. A methodical reminder; better born dead then a life of uselessness. Placing the rolled letter inside my hallowed bed post wondering should the rain stop it would dry out some. I didn’t feel the point thinking any more of the letter, anything but, would entertain. I walked the halls, talked with others, wanting now only a great distance from the letter. I could feel the texture of the paper. Hear the crinkling sound made when holding it. My hands smelled of it. The words spiked, twisting into my brain. It’s possessive. The paper had been poisoned. I am sure of it. Touching its vileness I contracted a toxin. It's eating my mind. I can’t breathe!! Jesus I can’t breathe!! Help me. I’m dying. I shitted myself. The grungy reek burns my eyes...It’s running down my legs... Stop it, you're exaggerating. Take a breath. Jesus get a grip!! But these are something I've got to do. That compulsive feeling, belief, attitude that I'm important, but with lots of faults and weaknesses, which is easy to believe is being honest and realistic. My personality view. They were acquired after birth. Perception delivered. Leaning against damp walls, breathing slowed not wanting to faint, reaching down finding no foul mess between the legs, the thought came; the first thing I realized here, is I don't exist. What fragment of the mind orders this gaming? And why? What lessons to learn? While an accident, some walk away intact, others crushed. Random. Chosen.

  That night I dreamt. It was raining. With considerable wind. I sat at a table looking out the window at a garage roof next door. Its gutter filled with grass in one place causing the water to flow over. It fell on a person holding an umbrella, dressed completely in yellow. I could not see the face for the rain was near horizontal from the growing wind. I was drinking tea. Movement on the left caught my attention. I turned. The person with the umbrella stood next to me. I heard its rasping breath. Ice formed on the tea cup. Droplets from the umbrella fell but did not strike the floor, pooling a foot above it. The persons shape was fine, thin. It did not move. The breathing slowed. Then stopped. I looked out the window and saw a woman standing before it, peering at the yellow shape next to me. Entirely wet she raised, pointed her open hand palm upwards toward the shape and spoke. I could not hear what she said; only watch her mouth open and close. She then blew into her hand as a lover blows a kiss, and the yellow form melted into the water that remained above the floor. The women outside lowered her head and walked away. Turning back I looked at the yellow water. It had frozen. I heard a crack coming from the ice. Then a loud snap. In the centre a small hole appeared. It grew several inches. And stopped. Scratching sounds came from the window. Looking I saw a person resembling a drawing of Covetousness I had seen years ago, tracing its finger on the glass. Whether male or female, I was not certain, only, it was half of both. I felt an itching on my inner-thigh. Whatever came out of the yellow hole was now twisting up my pants, almost reaching my genitals. I could feel consciousness returning. The dream was ending. Before however, I saw spikes thrusting along the growth through my pants, into my leg. The screaming woke everyone in the cell. Mr Fat wet himself.

  Steal Away Their Brains

  Having visited with a ‘friend’ who made his own potato whiskey before receiving the letter I was drunk when the other letter came. Same as the first. Single sheet. Similar markings. A couple of months from the first letter till now passed. I hadn't thought much about it, or the dream that followed. Then all three hit. My brain curled in a ball and fell out on to the greasy hallway I wondered the days. I thought it was the same letter and looked around for the theft who might be watching my reaction; he must have seen where I placed the first letter in my bed. I could not focus on the writing nor any face. I lay down, slept, and woke when my bed was knocked over from fighting.

  I rolled around trying to stay out of the way. I saw the letter under one of the inmates who was being knifed in the eye by two others. Dark blood poured out, running down his face to the floor and on the letter. I thought it would be interesting while traveling to attend a local barbecue, of pig. I thought it would be very interesting to see how the pig was prepared. Slaughtered. The cries this man produced certainly came close to that of the pig. Fearful, shrill shrieking. Both pig and man knew their time was at an end. Both fought. The pig died quicker. The man took long. It was intended.

  Blood to sharks, is the same as fights in prison. Things rapidly become slanted. Reason becomes that of revenge for something that happened so very slight in detail. Someone gave you shit in the halls? Well, you went to work on them. And if they were not in arms distance, then whatever was, sufficed. The means to vent. Anything to anyone. You became what you always hide. Beast. And you loved being free! In AA meetings I attended they often talk about the ‘bad side’ of alcohol. The animal of booze. I learned very quickly that if I don’t let the animal feed, I would be its next meal. Here, keep them in a cage and once they’re w
ith liberties, they’ll bath with what you ate last, wearing your stomach as a hat.

  In a fraction it went that way. Instinct said play dead, but the dead here have been used for games and practice. The guy with the knife in his eyes rolled off the letter and tried to knee the other holding him. It didn’t work so well. The one who stuck the knife in simply pushed it deeper. At that moment I grabbed the letter and crawled for the open cell door. Before I made it I was kicked in the chest, knocking the air out and throwing me onto my back. Cringing under the pain and loss of oxygen made me gasp, mouth working as the dead fish dies. I tucked my legs up tight. Someone fell over me, cracking his head on the floor, the blood splattering my face and open mouth. With that the air shot into me and I vomited. If I stayed in the confined cell I would be beaten to death. One hand holding my chest the other pulling at people who lay fighting, shitting, screaming also wanting to get out of there, I tried to crawl through. But we were being pushed back deeper into the cell as the halls filled with more inmates. More wars. Then the lights went out.

  Solitary is like a closest where you can’t stand or lay. Where you were let out, or not. Sometimes you stay there for days, weeks. Longer. I was there for what was said, eleven days. I didn't bother counting. You don't know day from night anyway, and the light shown through cracks in the door always stayed on. The authorities claimed it was I who started the riots nearly resulting in the entire prison population in that wing, of being burned alive. The prison had high ceilings. Attached to the ceiling are buckets of oil. If problems escalated the buckets were released falling onto the floor, and then ignited. An effective control method, seeing there was little to burn except people and fouled mattress.

  I passed the time thinking. When returned I realized, I had gone quite mad. That some of my leaves had gone bitter. That I was able to stuff the letter into the crack of my ass before meeting the 'closet'. That after reading the letter several times I understood its origin. That staying alone grasping its contents showed me there is fate, and I wish I fucked around more in college. That maybe by fucking around more I would have a better insight in me, this world, and the one I just entered. That maybe karma is a joke. That there is no test after death. That maybe I am bisexual. That if I met my ex I would tell her watch out for the dead. That they will come for her. That I spoiled my children. That even my dog is spoiled. That friendships are deadening because they were a lie. That I feel the urge to knife someone, when I have it in my hand. That here I can knife someone for enjoyment. That here is real. That the second letter said:

  You stole me. I know that is strange, but it's true. After I fell asleep, each night you would come in and steel a part of me. In the morning, I would wake with your scent on the pillow. Still lingering, faint, but there. Your side of the bed, still warm, carried the traces of our love making. You would always rise earlier then I. Sneak off for a walk, returning before I even realized it was still a dream. I dreamt of our passion. And I only have you left in this world. But you are sporting with things, and with men. What do you need in me? You don't know me, and I have never ceased loving you. Even when you left us. My limbs ached. A fever. I was caught by your infection, of my love which was once, yours. And the pain must be told. For because of this I am writing you, from this place which my heart has no concern. But of only for you… How passionately I remember every detail we had, as clear as it just passed. I realized very soon you are several people in one. That you look through a child’s eyes; and at the same time you carry the weight of others which has made you callous. People see only one side and not the other. I grasp this secret on first glance. Completing your spell of attraction. In this world you were the only thing of interest. My life designed for yours. And you removed and compromised it.