“Exploring life through fiction, together.”

[I’m taking December off, so this will be the last issue of the year. I’ll see you on the other side, 6th January 2023. However, I’m still about by email if you’d like to get in touch. ]

I’ve been thinking about letters recently. Partly because I’ve enjoyed Phoebe by Paula Gooder and A Man at Arms by Steven Pressfield. Also, because I’ve sent some major messages via written mediums and this has left me wondering about their pros and cons.

I know they’re supposed to be a step down the communication pyramid. In person should always be top, maybe Zoom next? Then calls, then letters, and finally text messages, crushed under the weight of our other missives.

Fiction Bite - Dear Sarah

It’s been so long since I’ve written a letter the pen feels foreign to my hand as it drags over the fibres. Has paper always been this rough?

I’m avoiding. Sorry. I should have written before. I wanted to. Even sat at my desk many times, but pen wouldn’t touch paper.

I read all your letters. They’re pinned next to the photos of the kids. 

Do you miss them?

Katie’s doing well at school. But she’s finding making friends hard. Jenny lives for netball and wears her hair in the braid you did when we first met. I can barely remember the boy I used to be, but the image of you bounding across the quad never fades.

I’m still avoiding.

What I mean to say, what I’ve been trying to say since a breath after you left, was that we should have gone with you. I was scared. I used the children as an excuse. It was unfair. You have always been braver than me.

I am sorry. I hope that when you come back we can try again?

Are you coming back?

Love

James

Quote of the Week

“A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.” ― Emily Dickinson

Book of the month

The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J. Nouwen

Final Words

Letters give me time to think, to calm down, to change my mind, to ruminate. They let me bring my slower, more thought out self to the conversation.

In person I am rash, quick to pick a winning point over one I believe in. I can be loud and belligerent. Letters help me mitigate these.

They also feel safer. I throw my opinion out, knowing I don’t have to see the recipient's face as they read it. Nor will I have to endure their shouting, or their crying when I strike deeply.

Both Phoebe and A Man at Arms revolve around the Apostle Paul’s letters. Just words on a scroll. Words that shake people, beliefs, societies, and even empires. In part, it worked because they could be transcribed and shared. Now we’re in the age of video, do we even need letters anymore?

How do you prefer to communicate, both in the small and the big of life? Letters? In person? Well chosen gifs? Would you be willing to hit reply? It’d make my day to hear from you.

With Love,

Josiah

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