A Lovely Chain

A Lovely Chain



It was a strange thing that he was seeing on his desk right now; archaic, outdated, and plainly out of place among the Dell laptop, the Bose speakers, the Wacom drawing tablet and the Apple iPod. It was like a wave frozen in motion, a triangular fourier signal, a tapeworm the size of A4 paper with writing scrawled on its back. The skin that it just shed was in his hands, and on it was branded his home address, complete with a little colourful square stuck in one corner.

The letter lay on his desk, waiting to be read. He didn’t do it immediately, and instead took his time imagining what was in it. After all, the message arrived in a letter. A letter sent through the post office. Whoever wrote it was not in a rush, and neither was he.

Was it a summons from a secret organization, telling him that they have discovered that he had a hidden superpower and was recruiting him into their ranks? Was it a ransom note, sent by the kidnappers that had secretly captured his hitherto unknown sibling? Was it just a letter from a luddite to another luddite that had been delivered to him by mistake? Was it an anthrax bomb? It couldn’t be; If it was, he would be dead the moment he opened it. Or perhaps not. He had no idea how fast anthrax kills a human being.

Deciding that the letter was most probably holding more mundane things, he picked it up and read it, preparing to be underwhelmed.

To my dearest,

You won’t remember me, but I still remember you, all of you, down to the colour of your eyes and the sound of your laughter.

Please don’t feel guilty. Through all the time I spent watching you, you never looked back at me, and we never really knew each other. It’s not your fault. I was the one who wasn’t brave enough to approach you.

Probably by now you’re wondering what this is all about.

Well, the truth is that I just want you to know that somebody loves you. Maybe you already know, maybe you haven’t. Maybe you’re loved by a lot of people, maybe not. It doesn’t matter.

This letter is proof that I love you. Please keep it and remember it.

Sincerely,


_______________

Underhwelming, that was not.

To his surprise, he took it quite well. He calmly folded the letter and neatly put it back inside the envelope, sat down on the chair, and thought.

The first thing that came to mind was: what the hell.

Okay, so maybe he didn’t take it quite so well.

Second: who sent it?

He felt a rush inside him, a disorienting flood of emotions. Tinges of joy, amazement, relief, and countless others mixed in his mind, like different colors of paint falling into a glass of water. He quickly shut them down so he could think.

First off, the premise that someone had fallen for him without him ever noticing was unfathomable. On a scale of absurdness, it was up there with the a sudden revolt by tomatoes against humanity.

On the other hand, the possibility of this being a prank was quite high, most likely perpetrated by his dear friends, whose idea of ‘funny’ range from relatively harmless toilet jokes to detention-earning escapades.

Thus, with a heavy heart, he concluded that it was nothing more than a trick to make him look stupid. Even if it wasn’t so—even if a girl really did fall in love with him without him noticing—what could he do about it?

Sighing, he eyed the letter. There was no name, and he didn’t even know whether the sender is female in the first place. He couldn’t identify the handwriting, and aside from the fact that it was lying on his desk, there was nothing to indicate that the letter was for him.

Indeed, it could have been for a certain someone next door who could certainly need the emotional boost. The sender wouldn’t mind if he passed this treasure to one who really needs it, won’t s/he?

After all, it was just a letter.

***

It was a peculiar thing that she was seeing on her desk right now; archaic, outdated, and yet right in place between the chemistry notes, stacks of writing paper and the stationary that was strewn across the table. It was like a graph of homeostasis, a graphical representation of a chemical compound, a tapeworm the size of A4 paper with writing scrawled on its back.

The letter lay on her desk, waiting to be read.