Dearest Gish --
I am sorry I am not able to say a proper goodbye, in person. But I am off on a great adventure! and as often happens, I need to depart with some haste. When you were very young, I sang you lullabies about a magical faraway place by the sea where everything is real. You asked if I had ever been there, and I said no, but I knew someone who had. Well, he and his land are in danger now, and even though I know I might not be able to do much to help, I need to go anyway and try....
Be brave while I'm away -- Texorami is facing hard times, and getting through them will be a grand adventure for you, too. I will miss you terribly while I am away....
Please help Soren look after Thelonious. If your father says it's OK, you can even let him live at your house for a while -- I mean the cat, of course, not Soren. And if Soren reads this note before he gives it to you, you can tell him that he is a big fat poopyhead (but that I will miss him too).
Love,
Folly
Mum --
Just wanted to let you know I'll be out of town for a while, traveling with a friend. Don't know how long I'll be gone. I'll write when I get a chance -- but we're supposedly "going primitive" (yes, once again I've let someone else make the arrangements -- it always works out, though) so I may be out of touch for a bit.
Just thought you should know so you wouldn't worry too much. Take care of yourself.
F
Dearest S --
I write these words in the desperate hope that committing them to paper will keep them from flowing freely where they aren't wanted. Paige has just gotten herself into deep shit for that very offense. I can't condemn her -- I can't even scold her -- because I can't say for certain that I would've behaved -- will behave -- any differently....
Losing you was like losing my right arm -- I haven't been complete, or fully functional, since you left. At first it hurt so bad that I thought I would die. And then it hurt worse, so bad that I thought I *wouldn't* die, that I would live forever as this empty, broken shell of my former self, bitter and aching and desperately *without*. What the fuck did I do wrong, to make you leave when everything seemed so right?
I've played over our last day together in my head so many times that I have every word, every gesture, every breath, etched into my skull. I remember the smell of your hair, the taste of your fingers. I remember what you had for breakfast. I remember the look in your eyes -- love, I thought, though we never used that word -- as you abandoned the dirty dishes and carried me into the living room. I remember the swirl of your cigarette smoke dancing around the ceiling fan after you made love to me, as you held me in your arms and I trembled the way I always did with you. I remember getting the phone call, and I remember telling you not to come with me even though you seemed to want to, because I knew you had better things to do than spend a weekend with my parents. I remember how you kissed me, and how I didn't want to leave, and how you promised you'd take me flying when I got back. And then you picked up Thelonious and made him wave goodbye to me, and then I was gone -- and when I came home three days later, *you* were gone.
Soren -- God, poor Soren. I made him tell me everything, over and over and over again, every word, every gesture, every look, every nuance of your final conversation. He seemed so sure you'd come home soon -- Soren, who doesn't trust *anybody* -- that he convinced me, too. Just some family business, he'd said -- you'd said -- and once it's taken care of.... But a month rolled by, and you didn't come back. Two months -- and my father died. Cancer. We found out the day you left. That's why Mum had called -- she wanted me there when they got the test results. Three months, six months, a year... nothing. Not a sign, not a trace. Eighteen months -- and I got stabbed. You always told me I was safe with you -- why didn't you ever warn me that without you, the demons would start attacking? Or maybe you thought, as I hoped, that I never would be without you.... At two years, we lost Ianna, too. Little Gish came to stay with me for a while and filled up a tiny part of the empty space inside me. After three years, I decided you really must hate me. At five years, I knew you must be dead. I cut off my hair and wore black for a month, mourning you, trying to let go. I couldn't. Then one day Martin showed up....
I know now where you've been since you left. But knowing with your head and understanding with your heart are very different things. Of course I don't blame you for the punishments, the imprisonments, the duties that kept you here while I longed, I pined, I *screamed* for you back in Texorami. But... whatever possessed you to leave without a goodbye, without a note, without *anything*? Did you think it would be such a quick trip that I wouldn't miss you? Then why did you give Soren your drums? I always thought I could read you so well, but this makes me call our whole existence into question. You knew -- you *had* to know -- that you weren't coming back, at least not anytime soon. Why didn't you warn me? Maybe I'd be OK if I could just accept that I was nothing more than a fling to you, a passing fancy, a momentary diversion, but.... Damn it, Syd, I can't bring myself to believe it. Maybe it's just my arrogance, my selfish delusions, but in my rare glimmers of optimism on this topic, I remember the way you looked at me, the way you held me, and I can almost convince myself that you intended to come back for me, to bring me here to be with you....
They all say you've been different -- happier -- since you got back from Texorami. They think they know the reason, too. But is that really the whole story? I know -- I *know* -- you were happy before you left Texorami. Happy -- with me. Some days I let myself believe that your current happiness started there.
Do you know I'm alive? Do you know I'm here? Do you ever think of me at all? Do you really love me, or was it all a dream? Or do you just not give a shit at all?
Soon you'll return -- you will, you *have* to -- and your eyes will be full of laughter at the hope, at the promise, of reconciliation, but it won't be for me, and I'll die all over again. The only thing that has ever truly felt like mine -- like an actual part of me -- belongs to someone else now, someone far more deserving, someone good and pure, not the rebellious fuck-up I always was -- we really were meant for each other, weren't we? -- and I will want, I will *need*, but I won't be able to do a damn thing because I could never hurt her, and even more than that, I could never hurt *you*, and I know she makes you happy.
For your sake, and hers, I will suffer in silence -- the greatest torture of all for one whose only strength is her voice.
But on this page I will say the words I never said out loud, for fear of jinxing my -- our -- perfect life:
I love you.
All my heart, and all my soul, until the end of time
Folly
(still your Kitten)
Soren, my friend, my love --
If I write these words with my blood and my tears, will you feel them?
If I sing these words until my heart breaks, will you hear them?
If I think these words with every cell of my brain and every ounce of my being, will you know them?
If I stretch out my hands as I walk through the shadows to find you, will you hold them?
I am alive, my love -- are you?
And are you thinking of me, too?
Yours,
Folly
last updated 19 Mar 2002