The Letter

He stumbles into his hotel room. A warm, mysterious space, scenting like the air-freshener from the local grocery store. For the past few days, solitude had lost its meaning. He was lonely.

He unconsciously pours himself a drink from an almost empty bottle sitting on the desk. After taking his suit jacket off, he sits down and begins writing a letter to his wife. The parchment smells ethereal and earthy. As his pen rolls down smoothly on the grainy paper, he describes his strange condition, trying his best to dryly articulate feelings which surface and disappear regularly. At last, he gets mildly frustrated about how his thoughts appear on paper. They tend to lose depth, a part of their meaning, some of their grace. But he is suddenly comforted at the thought of how she will understand. As she has been, all these years. She always perceived things deeper than words.

He pauses writing, and slowly sips the amber-coloured liquor, which gives rise to a sharp burn. Not within his throat, but within his mind. His hands develop a slight tremble, and he cannot figure out why. He doesn’t seem to pay attention and continues writing.

As he slips out of the unconscious abyss and into physical existence after a while, he looks around himself. The lighting in the room is peculiar. Reality seems slightly altered. He briefly notices the mirror on the wall, the lamp post and his crumpled jacket on the bed. Silence drowns out all noise, and he can feel himself distorting space within the room. He unbuttons his shirt, and gets up to light a cigarette that he does not have. He has never smoked in his life. He experiences the mild ache again. Familiarity. He has been thinking too much. He misses his kids, who are tucked in bed right now, dreaming. He turns and slides the balcony door open, and the chill of the dusky air sends a chill down his spine. Familiarity.

He experiences the ache, yet again. City lights twinkle in front of his eyes, like fireflies. He counts his breath. Slowly. But soon, he loses count. He is feeling his breath now. He never realised he had closed his eyes in the process. As they open up again, a tear dribbles down his left eye, turning the city lights into a bizarre bokeh. Why was he feeling this way?

All his life, he chased for an answer. Longed for it. One would assume that he was simply exasperated by the pursuit of nothingness. But it was never nothing. It was perhaps just hidden in a labyrinth of ineffability, in a labyrinth that he would never know his way out of. He would never know.

He turns back to enter his room again, sliding the door shut. It gives birth to an uncanny echo. Familiarity. He can feel his heart beating. Wildly. And in a few moments, silence engulfs the space once more.

He sits back down, and continues writing the letter.