It had been not quite a year. More than 11 months, though. Just not quite a year. That was a problem. It showed a lack of resolve. It showed a weakness that neither he nor anyone could afford. Part of the problem was that the response, not quite a year before, had been so very unsatisfying. Most of it, as he well knew, was that he was writing. This was an outstretch of that. Unfortunately, side effects were never nice and neat things.
Aloisius,
the letter began,
We corresponded eleven months hence. I sent a letter. You responded to it. I never responded back. This, I imagine, did not surprise you. I asked questions. You provided answers of the most mundane sort. And perhaps a wonderful winter tradition was born. I send a letter every year. You respond back. I am heartened to hear you healthy and hale, most of all still alive. I provide scant information about my own situation which suits you well as you are far more inclined to talk about yourself anyway. You provide me with absolutely no reason to return back to Myrken Wood. I do not return. I exacerbate absolutely absolutely no perilous situations with my well-meaning cleverness. Peace reigns. Huzzah and hurray.
This is why you are the only one safe for me to write to, you see. Is it not normal for Glenn Burnie, mapmaker, inquisitor, mayor, to play politics down south? Is it not normal for one such as I to have traversed to a far larger, far grander chessboard, to attempt to make my name, my wealth, my career, my life? Oh, of course you had not followed quite the same path but not all of us can start on the stage, Aloisius. Be happy, then, that even in the face of quite confusing tragedy, the sort that you couldn't well untangle if given the chance at this very moment, your younger friend, now perhaps not quite as young as he once was, is off doing exactly what one would expect him to do. Isn't that what you would want most out of life at your age? Regularity. Predictability. Normalcy. Blessed normalcy.
I am comforted in knowing you are comforted, and doubly so in knowing that were I to send note that I am currently on fire, you would send a very firm note to some person in authority, would perhaps send some sweets just in case, and then would sit by your own fire, confident that you had done the appropriate maximum. To be able to send letters to you is, in fact, one of the few joyful options left to me when it comes to Myrken Wood. You are ever the embodiment of peace, Aloisius. If nothing else, be comforted that I am not currently on fire. At least, then, one of us will be.
Your friend,
Glenn Burnie