Dear Amelia...

Dear Amelia...

Dear Amelia,

Do you think it’s funny that I’m writing you a letter? I don’t think it’s funny at all. I have something to say to you, and I don’t know how else to say it. You know I don’t usually approve of letters. I especially hate emails. They are so unnatural. You have too much time to think things through when you’re writing a letter. Your arguments are too strict, not like a conversation. In a conversation you can never say quite what you want to say. When you walk away from a conversation, you think, I should have said this, I should have said that. Sometimes when you know you’re going to have a conversation, you think out what you are going to say. But you never actually say it. And if you do, it sounds fake and practiced, because it is. Conversations are the most natural, because there is no fakeness in them. Even when you are lying, it is real lying because it is spontaneous. But when you write a letter, your lying is thought-out. That is why I hate letters, because they are fake. But this is the only way I know to make you understand what I need to tell you.

I saw you for the first time as you were walking out of the Rialto. You were licking a strawberry ice-cream cone, and laughing over your shoulder to the tall, brown-haired man behind you. I hated you the moment I saw you, because you were fake. I hate all fakeness. I could tell you were fake by the way you laughed, by the way you smiled, everything. Even the light shade of lipstick, the somehow too-tasteful make-up job, the neat skirt, the loose jacket, everything was fake. And I hated you because you were beautiful, and I am not. See, I am trying to be honest. I am not trying to lie. If I lie, it’s because I’m writing a letter and I have too much time to think. It’s hard not to lie when you’re thinking.

I was reminded of you today. I saw a couple kissing down by the river. I didn’t want to butt in, but I couldn’t help it. Usually I wouldn’t have. I must have already been thinking about you. I grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her away.

“You think he loves you?” I said. “Don’t believe him. All he wants is your body.”

He was very mad and I think she was too, but neither of them knew what to do, and I wanted to say more. I don’t know why I did it. I knew she wouldn’t understand.

“All he wants is to rape you,” I said. “He might even put a ring on it, but all he really wants is to rape you.”

I felt embarrassed, so I left. Never try to help people. They don’t want your help. And you don’t really want to help them, do you? You just want to hear the sound of your own voice. Just like the lover doesn’t want love, he wants sex, and not just sex, he wants rape. He wants to conquer. I don’t like lying, that’s why I’m so blunt.

I am not lying when I say you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Most lovers are lying when they say that to their women, but I am not. Almost every man who has ever lived has had to settle, either because he understands that beauty is not everything, or because he cannot afford a beauty because he is not rich enough or because he is not beautiful himself. Women only care about those two things: beauty (which includes strength) and money.

I hated you when I saw you that first time, but I soon learned to love you, because I realized that I was wrong about women. I used to hate women, because I thought they were more unnatural. I thought they were more fake, because they lie more than men. But by studying the so-called “fairer sex” more closely, I realized that they are actually less fake on average, because they are crueler and less intelligent. Intelligence is the curse of humankind. It is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Some people think that intelligence is what makes us higher than the animals. I think it makes us lower.

You disagree. I know you do. But if you insist on being intelligent, then let’s be intelligent. Is it better to lie or not? It is better not to lie. But if you have intelligence, then you are a liar. The brute beast cannot lie. Therefore, the brute beast is better than the intelligent one. Therefore, the uncivilized animal is higher than the one called “man.” But I don’t like these kinds of arguments.

The human creature is made up of two parts: intelligence and emotion. But even our emotions are lies. The man on the river said, “I love you.” He did not mean it. He meant, “I want to rape you.” Only bestial passions are not lies. The desire to rape, the desire to kill, the desire to live. The desire to live includes the desire for pleasure. Everything else is a lie.

I do not think women are very hard to understand. All they want is to get raped.

I do not think parents love their children. I think maybe they want to. Children are a result of rape, ringed or otherwise, and so the parents think that they owe something to their children. So they say they love them. I remember once when I was thirteen, I was very depressed about something. It doesn’t matter what. I thought I was hiding it, but my father saw that I was sad. We were in the car driving home in the dark, and he said to me, “You know, you are the best son I could ever ask for. I love you.” That made me feel better at the time. Now, of course, I realize it was a lie.

I followed you once into church. So you believe in God. I do not. God is the personification of human emotion. He fills the void that intelligence makes in the human brain. Where does it all come from? How will it all end? Where am I going when I die? Humans want to answer all these questions. Animals do not. I think we should be like the animals. I don’t think those questions should be asked.

You say the animals are unsophisticated. You say man is higher because he is scientific and civilized. I say a scientific and civilized society would not invent a need for God.

I have a cat. Her name is Gabby. She is an orange cat, like the one in the comic books. Her eyes are green. Sometimes she brings me the mice she has caught. They are scientifically vivisected, decapitated, gutted, skinned, sliced limb from limb with perfect precision. What is more sophisticated than that?

I like cats. They are not fake at all. They do not pretend to love you. I do not like dogs. They are too human. Look into their eyes if you don’t believe me. They look as if they actually care. They have swallowed the lie of human love hook, line, and sinker. The dog believes in human love more than the human does. But look into the cat’s eye and you will see no fake love. The cat does not care about you, and she does not pretend to.

I do not believe in love. I believe in the desire for sex. But the idea that there is such a thing as everlasting love, such a thing as patience and forgiveness, is unbelievably stupid. No one actually believes that. I don’t think I need to prove that. The sheer number of divorces in our country should be enough of an argument.

But I do not understand you. When I looked at you, I did feel the desire for rape, but I felt something else. I cannot describe it. I wanted to hold you tight and never let you go. I wanted to eat ice-cream and waltz across the street with you. I wanted to hold your hand and kiss your cheek and whisper I love you in your ear. Was that only the desire to rape? I was scared, because I did not understand. I still do not understand.

There is no such thing as love, but the human brain can create an illusion of emotions that make you think that there is. I did not know this until I saw you. I became obsessed, even though I knew it was fake. It was fake, but it gave me a sort of pleasure.

I saw you kiss him under the doorway of your house, and that was when I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. You were fake, and I knew it.

I took a long walk by the river and thought about you. I thought about your thick brunette hair, your full, perfectly-formed legs, your dark blue eyes. It was all fake. But you looked at me, I know you wanted to talk to me, I could just feel your hand sweating in mine. I have never held a woman’s hand, and I wanted so bad to hold yours, but I knew it was fake, I knew it was all fake.

I do not want to lie.

You are so beautiful. How could someone so beautiful be fake? But you are fake, you are so, so fake! Your smile is fake, your laugh is fake, everything about you is just fake! I don’t want to lie. Not even to myself. If I wanted to lie to myself, I would say I loved you, but that wouldn’t be fair to me or to you. I especially don’t want to lie to you.

The leaves on the trees were yellow along the river. The wind rustled through the branches, and some leaves fell in the river.

That night it was dark in your house. I went slowly up the stairs. Of course, I knew where your bedroom was. How many nights had I looked up at your window and waited till the light went out? I remember seeing his silhouette in your room once.

One of your stairs creaked.

You were very pretty as you lay in bed. The sliver of moonlight fell through your window onto your face. Your breasts heaved slowly under the blankets. Your hair was all spread out on your pillow, dark against white, like the rays of a black sun. I walked away and back again. I wanted to look at you forever, even though I knew it was fake. I saw your hand lying there on the sheets. I wanted to hold it, but I knew if I touched it you would wake up. Your lips were red. The lips he had kissed.

I picked up the book on your bedstand. It was your diary. I opened it, because I wanted to see what you had written about me. It was impossible that you were not always thinking about me like I was about you. But I was not in the diary. So you could not even admit it to yourself?

I looked at your face one last time. You looked so white in the moonlight in contrast to your dark hair. Then I put your pillow over your face and held it there. Your eyes opened at the last moment, just before I covered them. They were blue. If they were green, like Gabby’s, maybe I wouldn’t have done it. But there are too many lies in blue eyes.

Do you think it’s funny that I’m writing you a letter, just because you’re dead? I don’t think it’s funny at all. Because you aren’t really dead. I can feel you peering over my shoulder, reading every word I write as I write it. Why can’t you understand what I’m trying to say? I am trying to explain to you why I had to do it.

It is very dark in here, but I do not want to turn on the light. I am afraid that if I do, you will go away. I know that the chill in my spine is just you running your fingers over my back. I am not scared of it. Why won’t you just look me in the eyes? Why don’t you let me hold your hand? I keep turning around to see you, but you aren’t there. I keep grabbing for your hand, but you pull it away.

I don’t know why I bothered to write this. Sometimes I just can’t help myself, like with the couple by the river. Because I don’t love you. I don’t believe in love.

Sincerely,