You love that color. Truly. \n\nYour small room is dimly lit, early on a Friday morning. You like to wake up a bit before the sun rises, everything looks <<cyclinglink "crisp" "elegant" "dusty" "important" "holy">> and <<cyclinglink "shivery" "flighty" "achy" "gold" "cold">> in the early dawn.\n\nThis week is treating you well; you've been painting chalk murals that look like chalkboards and writing punny equations out on the wall of the pet store. You start gathering your chalk and rags when you catch something <<cyclinglink "blue" "lavender" "azure" "goldenrod" "cerulean" "eggplant" "bisque" "slate gray" "vermillion" "venetian red" "mango tango" "fern-green" "cornflower blue" "cyber grape" "fuschia" "blush" "mauve" "cerise" "copper" "tangerine" >>--an envelope?-- [[peeking from under your door|Go on...]]

Dear Folks: \n\nThat includes grandma and grandpa and Aunt Grace. Thanks very much for the 40 lire! It was appreciated very much. Gee, Family, but there certainly has been a lot of burbles about my getting shot up! The Oak Leaves and the opposition (two hometown newspapers) came today and I have begun to think, Family, that maybe you didn't appreciate me when I used to reside in the bosom. It's the next best thing to getting killed and reading your own obituary.\n\nYou know they say there isn't anything funny about this war. And there isn't, ESPECIALLY not on the part of <<print $yourname>>. I wouldn't say it was hell, because that's been a bit overworked since Gen. Sherman's time, but there have been about 8 times when I would have welcomed Hell. Just on a chance that it couldn't come up to the phase of war I was experiencing. F'r example. In the trenches during an attack when a shell makes a direct hit in a group where you're standing. Shells aren't bad except direct hits. You must take chances on the fragments of the bursts. But when there is a direct hit your pals get spattered all over you. Spattered is literal. During the six days I was up in the <<print $yourname>> trenches, only 50 yds from the Austrians, I got the rep. of having a charmed life. The rep of having one doesn't mean much but having one does! I hope I have one. That knocking sound is my knuckles striking the wooden bed tray.\n\n[[next]]

However, you mention the letter to your parents when they call you on Sunday. \n\n"Hey, Dad, I got this letter the other day, and I thought it might've been sent to the wrong address. Do you know of anyone named Sal?"\n\n"Sal!" Your pop sounds alarmed. "Hmm... ask your mother"\n\nThe next day, you see that he has forwarded an old [[email]] to you, written three years earlier.

You decide to pull out the big wooden scrapbook that you keep under your <<cyclinglink "bed" "hammock" "toaster" "pillow">>Tucked into one of the pages, you find a small, yellowed [[envelope]]

Tuesday I think\n\nDEAREST <<print $yourname>>,\nI have no idea if you will be able to decipher this as the noise in the dorm is absolutely incredible tonight and I can hardly hear myself think. So if I spell anything wrong kindly have the kindness to overlook it. Incidentally I've taken your advice and resorted to the dictionary a lot lately, so if it cramps my style your to blame. Anyway I just got your beautiful letter and I love you to pieces, distraction, etc., and can hardly wait for the weekend. It's too bad about not being able to get me in Croft House, but I don't actually care where I stay as long as It's warm and no bugs and I see you occasionally, i.e. every single minute. I've been going i.e. crazy lately. I absolutely adore your letter, especially the part about Eliot. I think I'm beginning to look down on all poets except Sappho. I've been reading her like mad and no vulgar remarks, please. I may even do my term thing on her if I decide to go out for honors and if I can get the moron they assigned me as an advisor to let me. "Delicate Adonis is dying, Cytherea, what shall we do? Beat your breasts, maidens, and rend your tunics." Isn't that marvellous? She keeps doing that, too. Do you love me? You didn't say once in your horrible letter I hate you when your being hopelessly super-male and retiscent (sp. ?). Not really hate you but am constitutionally against strong, silent men. Not that you aren't strong but you know what I mean. It's getting so noisy in here I can hardly hear myself think. Anyway I love you and want to get this off special delivery so you can get it in plenty of time if I can find a stamp in this madhouse. I love you I love you I love you. Do you actually know I've only danced with you twice in eleven months? Not counting that time at the Vanguard when you were so tight. I'll probably be hopelessly selfconscious. Incidentally I'll kill you if there's a receiving line at this thing. Till Saturday, my flower!!\nAll my love,\n\n<<print $yourname>>\n\nxxxxxxxx\nxxxxxxxx\nP.S. Daddy got his X-rays back from the hospital and we're all so relieved. Its a growth but it isn't malignent. I spoke to Mother on the phone last night. Incidentally she sent her regards to you, so you can relax about that Friday night. I don't even think they heard us come in.\nP.P.S. I sound so unintelligent and dimwitted when I write to you. Why? I give you my permission to analyze it. Let's just try to have a marvellous time this weekend. I mean not try to analyze everything to death for once, if possible, especially me. I love you.\nFRANCES (her mark)\n

In your room, you have the little bit you need: <<cyclinglink "a toaster oven" "a portrait you painted when you were young (your mother's body with a daisy for a head)" "comic books" "a mattress" "a wooden chair" "a writing desk">>, <<cyclinglink "your 50 state mug collection" "a dictionary of untranslatable words" "a telescopic crayon tower" "an area rug" "a plush panther" "a pencil sharpener">>, and <<cyclinglink "a hammock" "the sountrack to Labyrinth" "a big blank sketchbook" "all of Ta-Nehisi Coates' tweets, printed and bound" >>. \n\nYour [[mailbox]] is downstairs, and you know the combination like the back of your hand. \n

\nIn a <<cyclinglink $setting "small blue room" "dark closet under the stairs" "short-ceilinged loft" "dusty, dusty attic" "spooky pre-war apartment">> in a big brick building, lined and lined with windows that faced the dusty street, lived <<textinput $yourname [[Your Name|Next]]>>. \n\n\n\n\n\n

Your parents have started growing tomatoes and are awfully proud of the investment they've made into their future, dabbling in Ratatouille and soupmaking.\n\nYou're <<cyclinglink "afraid" "nervous" "curious" "hungry" "impatient" "enamored">> before you breach the subject, though when your mother's excitement lulls, like a tomato finally setting out of its pubescent greenness, you ask\n\n"Ma, who's Ernie?"\n\nThe line is silent for a while, maybe <<cyclinglink "2" "3" "4" "5" "6" "7" "8" "9" "12" "15" "17" "19" "20">> seconds, though each seems to pass like an hour. \n\n"I'm not sure I can tell you. Don't ask those questions again."\n\nShe whispers an "I love you" and [[hangs up|Look through your old family albums]].

You're getting mail. It isn't just that you're getting *more* mail, because you hardly get mail in the first place, like you mentioned, you only have bills and periodicals and the occasional <<cyclinglink "chunky peanut butter" "knitting needle of the month club" "superpuzzle" "guitar book" "pair of new shoelaces" "gameKid game">> Rainazon delivery come to your door. \n\nIs it [[getting weirder|different]], or are these letters starting to <a href="http://www.aaa.si.edu/exhibitions/illustrated-letters">sound familiar</a>?

Every Tuesday, you get a copy of <<cyclinglink $publication "The New Literary Magazine" "MegaBot America" "Weird Nature Magazine" "Gecko Fashion" "Travel the World Wine-ing and Complaining" "Spooky History">>. Every Thursday, you get coupons from the megamart. \n\nEvery first Friday of the month you get a note from your landlord. \n\nToday, there's something\n\n[[different]]\n\n[[unexpected]]\n\n[[out of the ordinary]]\n

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Ah, Casey! What a great friend. You've known each other since you were in school, though haven't caught up in eons.\n\n[[Red|Your Name]]\n\n[[Blue]]\n

The next morning, you get another envelope, this time, looking sad. \n\nIt has rained, and the ink is bleeding a bit. \n\nYou're prepared for <<cyclinglink "melodrama" "mush" "schmaltz" "climax" "the waterworks">>\n\n<<print $yourname>> dearest, \n\nI am very happy and an enormous number of cobwebs seem to have been blown away in Paris. I was so miserable that last day, I came nearer doubting than ever before the essentially impregnable character of our affection for each other. And now I feel at peace with the whole world. You may think it is tempting the gods to say so, but I take all this as high guarantee of what I’ve always temperamentally doubted — the permanence of passion — and the mere turn of your head, a chance inflection of your voice have just as much power to make the day over now as they did four years ago. And so just as you give me zest for growing older rather than dread, so also you give me a faith I never thought to win in the lastingness of passion. \n\nI love you, \n[[Sal.]]

In your mailbox is a cluster of dust bunnies and cobwebs (which is odd, because you just dusted your box last week) and a postcard. The postcard is old, with a photograph of a moonwalker on the front. \n\nYou flip it over. It's dated 1909 and comes from a friend named Casey, who is on the Rue Cler (Ecole Militaire metro), Paris, France, Europe, The World, The Universe.\n\nNothing is written on the postcard except:\n\nThere is a beautiful sunset in Paris today. I've tried to grab the sun and roll it across the Atlantic-- catch it when it reaches the American coast. \n\n-Your Friend\n\n[[Casey|The Secret Goldfish]]

Dear <<print $yourname >>,\n\nI tucked your letter, envelope and all, into the pages of Lorca’s Poet in New York. It now bookmarks a poem entitled, "After a Walk." I saw that fitting. I miss our walks, it occurs to me that we never walked in Central Park together (or am I forgetting a time?).\n\tBy now you know my road trip was relatively successful. While I did not find the secret to happiness, I did meet some interesting people, see some cool stuff, and experience brief moments of startling introspection. Here are two poems I wrote while leaving Seattle: (I give you permission to recite these if you deem them worthy)\n\n\tI-5 South leaving Seattle\n\tEn route to McChord\n\tAir Force Base.\n\tDylan drives,\n\tI watch the road.\n\tBaseball cap low\n\tIt’s a cloudy afternoon, God.\n\n\t*\t\t*\t\t*\n\n\tRichard Brautigan, Richard Brautigan.\n\tToday I think of you,\n\tRichard Brautigan.\n\tAre you here, \n\tIn the Washington clouds?\t\t\t \n\tTell me,\t\t\t\t\t \n\tWhere did you go?\t\t\t\t \n\tToo soon, too soon.\t\t\t\t \n\tRichard Brautigan, Richard Brautigan.\n\tHome?\n\tHome.\t\t\t\n\n< I really like this poem for some reason. It feels like I’m giving Brautigan a big hug when I read it. I’m usually not this happy with dinky poems like this.\n\t\t^ fun word… “dinky”\n\n<<print $yourname>>, I think you should know you bring me great joy. I am very grateful to have you in my life. I am happy to hear you are exploring pathways to happiness and that you are making better friends. Please tell me how your exploration goes in the Big City. I don’t care if your hands are cold. I wish I was holding them anyways.\n\t[[Love]],\n\tSal\n\nP.S. I think I remember walking through Central Park with you.\n\n\n

\n<<print $yourname>> dearest,\n\nI am very happy and an enormous number of cobwebs seem to have been blown away in Central Park. I was so miserable that last day, I came nearer doubting than ever before the essentially impregnable character of our affection for each other. And now I feel at peace with the whole world. You may think it is tempting the gods to say so, but I take all this as high guarantee of what I’ve always temperamentally doubted — the permanence of passion — and the mere turn of your head, a chance inflection of your voice have just as much power to make the day over now as they did four years ago. And so just as you give me zest for growing older rather than dread, so also you give me a faith I never thought to win in the lastingness of passion.\n\nI love you, \nSal

"... wait a second" you say, looking up from the gory war letter.\n\nThe leaf of paper in your hand falls to the ground as you look around. You're in an apartment that your Aunt Grace used to own, though she and her parents have been dead for years. There isn't really any war going on, though you've been playing a lot of card games with your neighbor upstairs and doing pretty well.\n\nWhy is your name scrawled all over the page? Did you hurt someone?\n\n<<print $yourname>>, you caused so much pain to Ernie! Or did you?! Who is Ernie?? What will you do???\n\nYou can't call the police, not yet\n[[Call your mother]]\n[[Look through your old family albums]]

It's too hard to write on two sides of the paper so I'll skip. Well I can now hold up my hand and say I've been shelled by high explosive, shrapnel and gas. Shot at by trench mortars, snipers and machine guns, <<print $yourname>>, and as an added attraction an aeroplane machine gunning the lines. I've never had a hand grenade thrown at me, but a rifle grenade struck rather close. Maybe I'll get a hand grenade later. Now out of all that mess to only be struck by a trench mortar and a machine gun bullet while advancing toward the rear, as the Irish say, was fairly lucky. What, Family?\n\nThey couldn't figure out how I had walked 150 yards with a load with both knees shot through and my right shoe punctured two big places. Also over 200 flesh wounds. ''Oh,'' says I, ''My Captain, it is of nothing. In America they all do it! It is thought well not to allow the enemy to perceive that they have captured our goats!''\n\nThe goat speech required some masterful lingual ability (and maybe I had meant to say '<<print $yourname>>' and some sonic similarity took over) but I got it across and then went to sleep for a couple of minutes. After I came to they carried me on a stretcher three kilometers to a dressing station. The stretcher bearers had to go over lots because the road was having the ''entrails'' shelled out of it. Whenever a big one would come, Whee-whoosh-Boom - they'd lay me down and get flat. My wounds were now hurting like 227 little devils were driving nails into the raw.\n\nAfter a ride of a couple of kilometers in an Italian ambulance, they unloaded me at the dressing station where I had a lot of pals among the medical officers. They gave me a shot of morphine and an anti-tetanus injection and shaved my legs and took out about Twenty 8 shell fragments. They did a fine job of bandaging and all shook hands with me and would have kissed me but I then evacuated to the base Hospital here.\n\nI sent you that cable so you wouldn't worry. I've been in the Hospital a month and 12 days and hope to be out in another month. The Italian Surgeon did a peach of a job on my right knee joint and right foot.\n\nThis is the longest letter I've ever written to anybody and it says the least. Give my love to everybody that asked about me and as Ma Pettingill says, ''Leave us keep the home fires burning!'' Good night and love to all. \n\n[[Ernie]]

Exasperated, you fall asleep. \n\nYou haven't been sleeping well, so this could be a great thing. You've woken up in the past month on more than one occasion doing something strange: <<cyclinglink "folding socks" "sorting books" "folding origami cranes">> or catching yourself making too much noise <<cyclinglink "singing" "reciting some strange-sounding poetry" "dancing" "cooing" "ooh-ing and ahh-ing" "calling for help">>, and you're getting [[worried]]. You keep having dreams that you can't remember, though bits and pieces of <<cyclinglink "ocean waves" "marble elbows" "city skyscrapers" "mansard roofs" "fishtails" "rollercoaster hills">> are recurring. \n

New Paltz is close enough, and you want to get to the bottom of this. \n\n[[Take a train]]\n[[Go to work]]

the letters:\na compilation-of-literary-and-personal-epistolary-correspondence mystery

All of a sudden, the fragments from your dreams are starting to recollect. The <<cyclinglink "ocean waves" "marble elbows" "city skyscrapers" "mansard roofs" "fishtails" "rollercoaster hills">> are washing over in your mind and you remember a place. \n\nYou remember a face. You turn the postcard over and there's a latitude and longitude, a train line, and a note: MEET ME HERE, TOMORROW AT MIDNIGHT.\n\nAnd you remember to [[get on the train]]

New York\nNovember 10, 1958+60\n\nDear <<print $yourname>>:\n\nWe had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.\n\nFirst — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.\n\nSecond — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.\n\nYou say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love.\n\nBut I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.\n\nGlory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.\n\nThe object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.\n\nIf you love Sal — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.\n\nPeople have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.\n\nIt sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.\n\nLastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.\n\nWe will be glad to meet Sal, and Sal will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.\n\nAnd don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.\n\n[[Love,|return address]]\n\nFa\n\n

You wake up early. You make the same breakfast: <<cyclinglink "a whole grapefruit, peeled, of course" "a cup of coffee, black, and buttered toast" "cinnamon cereal" "a fried egg, which you didn't lay or hatch">>-- and eat it on the flat roof of the big brick building. \n\nYou go for a long walk to the Pet Store, where you work, selling tropical fish and big tanks. You work with <<cyclinglink "Grouchy Betina" "Pretty Joe" "Sassy Melvin" "Aimless Johnson">> and it is <<cyclinglink "Monday" "Tuesday" "Wednesday" "Thursday" "Friday">>, your least favorite day of the week. \n\n<<cyclinglink "Grouchy Betina" "Pretty Joe" "Sassy Melvin" "Aimless Johnson">> is giving you a funny look.\n\n"What's up?" you ask "Did I forget to clean the <<cyclinglink "sea castles" "diver family" "stingray's nose" "water tank" "bathroom sink">>? Should I stock more <<cyclinglink "rainbow rocks" "fishie-feed" "I Love My Fish magnets">>?"\n\n<<cyclinglink "Grouchy Betina" "Pretty Joe" "Sassy Melvin" "Aimless Johnson">> just glares back, and says, "Y'know, it's a beautiful day. I expected you to be halfway to Newfoundland right now. You love fish so much you might as well swim." <<cyclinglink "Grouchy Betina" "Pretty Joe" "Sassy Melvin" "Aimless Johnson">> turns back around. This is too <<cyclinglink "intense" "spooky" "specific" "hilarious" "bone-chilling">> a coincidence not to take it as a sign.\n\nTaking the advice of your friend, you buy a [[boat ticket]] and ask for the rest of the day off.\n\n

There's an odd statue in the distance\n\n<a href="http://snotman.neocities.org/MAP%20FINAL%20PLACE%20ERNIE.html">What's ashore?</a>

The next day, you get another: \n\n\t\tin wobbly cursive, there's a speech bubble \n\twritten above a wobbly smiling face on a yellow sheet of paper.\n\nHello <<print $yourname>>\n\tthank you very much\n\nbiographical information\n\tmy life couldn't fill a penny post card\ni was born in pittsburgh in <<cyclinglink "1928" "1929" "1996" "2028" "december" "theory" "doors">> (like everybody else--\n\tin a steel mill)\n\ni graduated from carnegie tech\nnow i'm in NY city moving from one \nroach infested apartment to another\n\n\t[[Andy]]

Dear <<print $yourname>>,\n \n Mama thinks you are still in England, but I think you are in <<cyclinglink "France" "Bulgaria" "Italy" "Sweden" "Russia" "Greece" "Morocco" "Iran">>. Are you in <<cyclinglink "France" "Finland" "Romania" "Japan" "Mongolia" "Norway">>? Daddy tells mama that he thinks you are in <<cyclinglink "England" "Ireland" "Austria" "Portugal" "Palestine" "Latvia" "Belgium" "Spain" "Estonia" "Orlando">> still, but I think he thinks you are in <<cyclinglink "France" "Cyprus" "The Netherlands" "Moldova" "Mongolia" "Rhodesia">> also. Are you in <<cyclinglink "France" "Malta" "Malaya" "Lebanon" "Egypt">>?\n \n The Bensons cane down to the shore early this summer and Jackie is over at the house all the time. Mama brought your books with us because she thinks you will be home this summer. Jackie asked if she could borrow the one about the Russian lady and one of the ones you used to keep on your desk. I gave them to her because she said she would not bend the pages or anything. Mama told her she smokes too much, and she is going to quit. She got poisoned from sunburn before we came down. She likes you a lot. She may go in the Wacks.\n \n I saw Frances on my bike before we left home. I yelled at her, but she did not hear me. She is very stuck up and Jackie is not. Jackie's hair is prettier also.\n \n There are more girls than boys on the beach this year. You never see any boys. The girls play cards a lot and put a lot of sun tan oil on each other's back and lay in the sun, but go in the water more than they used to. Virginia Hope and Barbara Geezer had a fight about something and don't sit next to each other on the beach anymore. Lester Brogan was killed in the army where the Japs are. Mrs. Brogan does not come to the beach anymore except on Sundays with Mr. Brogan. Mr. Brogan just sits on the beach with Mrs. Brogan, and he does not go in the water, and you know what a good swimmer he is. I remember when you and Lester took me out to the float once. I go out to the float myself now. Diana Schults married a soldier that was at Sea Girt and she went back to California with him for a week, but he is gone now and she is back. Diana lays on the beach by herself.\n \n Before we left home, Mr. Ollinger died. Brother Teemers went into the store to get Mr. Ollinger to fix his bike and Mr. Ollinger was dead behind the counter. Brother Teemers ran crying all the way to the courthouse and Mr. Teemers was busy talking to the jury and everything. Brother Teemers ran right in anyway and yelled "Daddy! Daddy! Mr. Ollinger is dead!"\n \n I cleaned out your car for you before we left for the shore. There was a lot of maps behind the front seat from your trip to Canada. I put them in your desk. There was also a girls comb. I think it was Frances'. I put it in your desk also. Are you in <<cyclinglink "France" "Italy" "Belarus">>?\n \n Love,\n MATILDA\n \n P.S.: Can I go to <<cyclinglink "Canada" "San Marino" "Singapore" "Croatia" "New Paltz">> with you next time you go? I won't talk much and I'll light your cigarettes for you without really smoking them.\n \n Sincerely yours,\n [[MATILDA]]\n \n I miss you. Please come home soon.\n \n Love and kisses,\n [[MATILDA]]

\n11 - 37 - 18.\n\nEvery morning you wake up early. You make the same breakfast: <<cyclinglink "a cup of coffee with cream and sugar, toast, a banana, and jam" "oatmeal" "a fried egg, which you didn't lay or hatch">>-- and eat it on the flat roof of the big brick building. \n\nAfter this, you go for a long walk to the Pet Store, where you work, selling tropical fish and big tanks. You work with <<cyclinglink "Grouchy Betina" "Pretty Joe" "Sassy Melvin" "Aimless Johnson">> on <<cyclinglink "Mondays" "Tuesdays" "Wednesdays" "Thursdays" "Fridays">> and that's your favorite day of the week. \n\nYou spend most of the afternoon chatting with customers about last night's episode of <<cyclinglink "Vague Hospital" "Buffalo Wing" "The Satire Sit Down" "Cartoon-o-Rama" "The News">> and thinking, silently, about the mailbox you can check when you get [[home|Your Name]].\n\n

Apparently you're on the run! \n\nMatilda must be covering for you.\n\nYou're traipsing between borders on the East side of the Atlantic Ocean, or at least that's your cover. You think you may have been to [[New Paltz]], or some upstate city a train ride from Canada.

A week passes. You go to work, you watch <<cyclinglink "Star Wars" "The Empire Strikes Back" "Episode VI" "Episode I" "A lot of YouTube ads" "Episode II: Attack of the Clones" "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" "Dancing With the Stars... but just because of Bindi Irwin">>, you eat oatmeal and tacos and laugh a little bit. \n\nOn a Sunday morning, you realize you haven't checked your mail in a couple of days. You had been expecting a winter <<cyclinglink "Victor's Kinda-Honest Confession" "Land's Beginning" "Toys, Games, and Distractions">> catalogue, though what you had found was a letter, stamped RETURN TO SENDER. You peel open the envelope and find:\n\nDear Sal,\n\tI’m listening to a Johnny Cash record and its best track just came on (“Port of Lonely Hearts”)(in my opinion). I think I’ve found the Lorca poem you mentioned, with the words of Luis Cernuda & mariposas & los animalitos de cabeza rota. I still like “Muerte” a lot, although I haven’t read the whole collection. I flipped through and it stood out to me maybe it’s first impression bias, but it’s simple, honest, and licked by a little absurdity. I like what this introduction said about it too. I don’t love the way the translator said it, though, so I’m altering: “His solitude is now more meditative than emotional, his speech is more clear and fuller of meaning. He still sees and triumphs death-emptiness- although no more as a tragic masquerade but rather as a universal, moving, depersonalized force.”\n\tThank you for the reminder of your letter. It was tucked into my new makeshift <<cyclinglink "windowsill" "nightstand" "dental-floss suspension" "pyramidal" "aquarium" "pile-on-the-floor" "plywood">> bookshelf. I got another letter that day that made me want to put anything with a postage stamp in some crack in the floorboards (none of those here) and forget for a while. It was from someone who I felt like never spoke with me <<cyclinglink "on the same plane" "in the same language" "from the same boat" "in the same color" "with the same flavor" "as a true-blue-yoo-hoo" "without silence">>. Sorry for all the metaphors; I think sometimes people click and other times they float apart is all I’m saying, but I’m not sure if that’s how people are, or if that’s what we work for, not what we look to find... What do you think?\nThis\n letter became very blocky-looking. I’m interested in your road trip’s “startling introspections.” Well they probably sunk a bit further down/past in time, I spent so long waiting to send this; I'm just glad to hear it. I hope you’re enjoying those still moments. I hope Richard Brautigan settles at the pit of your stomach and chuckles, lounging on its lining at more dinky poems.\n\tAnd yes, we did go to Central Park, I think once. That day by maybe the <<cyclinglink "Dakota" "Boathouse" "Fountain" "Ramble" "Carousel" "Metropolitan Museum" "one Pretzel Stand">>? It was crowded. Filled with tourists.\n\tI’m really pretty grateful for you, Sal. I sometimes miss you and you sometimes bring me the ultimate comfort. \n\n\tI’m trying to fool myself into going along without gloves.\n\tDon’t let strangers poke your glasses.\n\n\tLove,\n\t<<print $yourname>>\n\n\nHuh?\nThis is a [[whirlwind]] of confusion, you didn't send that!

The air is so, so salty. You are starting to feel sick. \n\nThe sea <<cyclinglink "rocks" "rolls" "tumbles" "churns" "grooves""dances">> and you're dizzy dizzy dizzy. \n\nYour eyes shut. \n\nEverything is black.\n\nIt takes you a while to realize you've been asleep and the boat is long [[ashore]]

The train station is big, and the compartment of the aluminum tube you find yourself nestled in feels, ironically, even bigger. For most of the train ride, you <<cyclinglink "fall into a deep, deep sleep" "try to rewrite the rules to Sudoku and test out your predications" "cross-stitch the landscape out your window" "are in and out of hazy dreams">>. \n\nYou've lost yourself, it's night. The train pulls into its final stop, somewhere along the Hudson River and you get off. \n\n<a href="http://snotman.neocities.org/MAP%20FINAL%20PLACE%20ERNIE.html">there's something illuminated, it looks like a statue</a>

This is a beautiful letter... but who is Sal? And a walk through Central Park? When? \nAs you scan over page again and again, your <<cyclinglink "head" "heart" "knee" "hand">> starts to <<cyclinglink "swell" "wobble" "quiver" "melt">>\n\nDo you \n[[Attempt to write back]], or\n[[Go about your business]]?

You pick up a pen and nothing comes to mind. You don't even have a [[return address]].\n\n

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It turns out that you end up at Coney Island. It's only ten, and you're tired. While you wait for the remaining two hours, you fall asleep. \n\nYou're a sleepy person. \n\n<a href="http://snotman.neocities.org/untitled%20text%2037.html">You start to dream... </a>

It's another postcard, postmarked at the top. \n\n\tJUNE 6\n\tCALDER\n\tPAINTER HILL ROAD\n\tR.F.D. ROXBURY,\n\tCONN., U.S.A.\n\nDear <<print $yourname>>,\n\nFrom your list of colours you must be a parcheesi hound. But its purple, not blue.\n\nI too am very fond of the parcheesi\n\n[[huh]]

sam "snorman" norman\n\na twine game, for professor allison parrish's\nhypertext & digital fiction course\nfall 2015, fordham university\n\nwith contributions from:\n Margaret Mead\nAndy Warhol\nJohn Steinbeck\nNicholas Rago\nErnest Hemingway\nJ.D. Salinger\nCasey Bivens\nAlexander Calder

At work, you start paying more attention to customers. \n\nYou double-check credit cards in the name of a certain "Sal," and keep an eye out for <<cyclinglink "key chains" "name necklaces" "novelty liscence plates" "self-referential airbrushed t-shirts" "self-referential airbrushed hoodies" "self-referential air-brushed trucker hats">> that would lead you to some idea as to who Sal is. \n\nYou ask your neighbors if they know of a "Sal," look at old yearbooks and browse the internet.\n\nThen, you realize Sal wrote to you from a big city, and you live in a fishbowl town. You'll never find Sal. \n\n[[heartbreak]]