Ys—
I am sitting under an oak tree at least I think it’s an oak I don’t actually know for sure the leaves have lobes right and there are acorns I mean there are acorns so that is probably dispositive or whatever, it’s an oak, but the point is it’s an oak I’m sitting under as I write this, after I read what you wrote, I read that sitting on the bed in one of the rooms of my mother’s motel which is where Sweetloaf found me, how he does not know or will not say. It’s just the first place I looked he said when I asked him and he shrugged. First fucking place, actually. You know Sweetloaf.
My mother’s motel. She doesn’t own it. She manages it. I think she used to own it or part of it. I’m not really sure of the details but there was a deal a few years ago to sell whatever it was she had to cover some debt so now she just works here taking care of what she used to own and I think she’s even more in debt than she was.
My mother is difficult.
But there is a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in and breakfast in the morning and dinner before I sleep so it’s okay. I’m okay.
I can’t come back.
Please don’t ask me to come back.
It’s heavier for one thing. Heavier and darker and colder when I touch it or cooler at least to the touch I find myself I’ll press my palm against it in the shower even when it ought to be as hot or at least as warm as everything else with all the water but it’s cold, or cool, cooler, cool enough I find myself holding my hand over it my palm against it like I’m warming it taking care of it which is I mean it’s crazy
Right?
Which is a side effect maybe of how it’s maybe started doing things, the temperature I mean and not my reaction to it because it has begun to do things some really quite frightening I have to tell you. The colors of the motel keep changing. I mean the colors of the buildings but also the colors of the stupid uniform shirts the management company wants the custodial staff to wear not that it’s much of a crew but oh God it just occurred to me I have to check I didn’t think to check the colors of the sign change too but maybe also the name
I can’t remember the name of the damn motel
I mean it’s Sea Breeze or Summer Breeze or Sea Wind or Sea Air or Christ I don’t know. Something to do with air. I mean I’ve lived here for how many years and my mother and I couldn’t tell you what the fucking name of this fucking place is was is and if THIS THING is going to change it up I wouldn’t even be able to
Sea Breeze it’s SEA BREEZE I remember I wrote out the wifi password. I’ve had to write out the password which is of course based on the name of the motel to make it easier to remember
$3@BREEZE
remember to use at least one numeral and a special character
Only of course it’s possible this THING changed it so it’s always been called the Sea Breeze and that’s what I remember writing out even though maybe what I wrote out before was something completely different except it wasn’t it will always have been whatever it says it is
But then why do I notice when the colors change.
No one else does. Sweetloaf did. That’s weird. I don’t think anyone else does.
I’m sitting here writing this under an oak tree up on a low rise looking out over where it was I went to all three grades of middle school and then the high school which is like just a couple blocks away a whole damn lifetime it feels like squeezed into a half-dozen years and less than a square mile I’m pretty sure a world a whole damn world that’s all sealed up now falling away and going going gone the people that I knew the kids their names
Kirsten her name is Kirsten
Like my hand could forget how to write a name I wrote so many times on so many folded notes
Only maybe of course my hand just remembers what it’s been told to remember. What it remembers is now what had happened no matter how different it is than what happened before.
It’s been doing things yes changing things making things yes but also I think unmaking things like it did before like it did yes to you
I did something stupid last night but part I think of what I did that was stupid I think there were three of them. When I go to write it down my hand would say there were three of them three that I went home with well at first when I got there the two of them but then a third there was a third that came in but when I think about it when I try to remember it was Scott and it was Hobie and but then it stops there were three of them there were three but when I go to write it down there’s only the two that’s all there were. Not even an echo of a name. Not even a glimpse of a face or his hair or how tall he was or the faintest ghost of how he might have carried himself or an expression that could fit a face that’s completely utterly gone.
But he was he. Of course he was. If he was. Swallowed away without even leaving the hole he made in the world when he wasn’t here anymore.
When it came for you. You were gone. Everyone had forgotten you everyone never knew you were gone from the world but I did not I knew it drove me out of my mind but I did not forget and I went and brought you back. We brought each other back.
But if THIS THING now can shut me out of what it does. If it can take things so entirely that even I can’t remember that I don’t know it doesn’t matter whether I notice the colors changing and remember how it was before all the many times before it doesn’t matter if it gets a chance to take you again. If it can take you and all your beautiful glorious infuriating stupid impossible magic out of my life and the world like you never were and leave me with nothing at all then I’m sorry but I have to be selfish. I will not risk that. I can’t come back. Please don’t ask me to come back.
But write. Write to me again. But don’t use Sweetloaf I don’t want to risk Sweetloaf even though it was good to see him again though it surprised the hell out of me and also I think maybe he was followed? Use the post office. Get a post office box and then write to me at the Sea Breeze Motel
736 North Coast Highway
Newport, 97365
Tell me what your post office box is and I will write you there. Write to me and tell me what you’re doing to save the bridge. Tell me how Marfisa is doing and how things are going with her. Tell me how Luys is doing my God the King of Portland how did he even tell me that. Tell Bruno I miss his sad sorry self and then tell me what he says. Tell me about the castle in the sky tell me what you did there all day while I went out to do what it was I did. Tell me you love me
as much as because I do love you
God help me I do
I miss you
