Every day, across the entire face of our planet, millions of letters are sent. Though their popularity has begun to dwindle the simple pen and paper approach to communication is still widely used, either by those unable to make use of other technologies or by those who find small pleasures in the physical touch of a signed page in their own script.
Most letters are adressed to a recipient, and if delivery is impossible they are returned to their senders quickly and without worry by the postal service, however there are minor oddities present: If, for example, somebody writes a letter addressed to the post office, with no postage paid and no return address, where is it to be taken? Has it not, in fact, reached its intended destination? In all post offices there is a small box, filled with oddities which for whatever reason were found too interesting to be thrown away. These letters are rarely opened, and often their senders come by to enquire about them and have them returned. More often, however, they sit in the dark for months which turn to years as paper turns to dust and stamps slowly fade. This letter, below, is one of these "found" letters: I have no fear as to angering it's author, as it was obviously written for the purpose of being read by anyone who had the time to read it.
To you, the reader
You do not know me, and I do not know you. Even if we do, by some strange twist of the fates share ties of life I can confidently say you have never known me, and I in turn have never known you. I write this letter because I am tired of living as a soul unspoken, and wish that sometime before I die at least one soul upon this earth, even a soul I have never known, will know me as I know myself. Whoever you are then, you curious reader, I thank you for taking the time to wonder, and beg you will read on as I tell you the tragedy of my hollow heart.
I am, to most appearances, a contented man. I am married, and have two children to my family name. I have worked hard my entire life to provide for myself and the people who share my life, and this work has born me generous fruits. I have a beautiful wife, and it would be difficult to find a prouder father than I in this world. I am, you would think, thouroughly normal. Ordinary, in perhaps the best possible sense. I tell you now, however, that that anyone who has ever thought this of me was wrong, because I know my own heart, and open it to you now: At my core, below my pride and apparent content, I am a hollow man. An empty man. I am, in fact, not a man at all: I am a shadow of life.
I am not mentally ill, my friend. I have emotions, and feel empathy, and as such I am not living in the cold shadow of psychopathy. No, my problem is far more basic than this: Below my emotions, beneath my feelings, I look and find myself absent. Below the daily thoughts I think is an absence where the bedrock of self should lie: The foundations of self and soul are missing, leaving an empty place at the heart of my heart. There is a hole, there, where I know I should be.
Perhaps my message appears depressing, or nihalistic. I do not believe that our world is so. I have met shining people, and even married one, people who so obviously are whole and complete, so gifted with self that they radiate outwards, and make the world shine with their presence. Our world is one full of beautiful things, and miraculous sights and sounds.
But I can't see them. I can't feel them. I only know their reflections, in the burn of standing close to the radiant sun of another shining soul. I wear my ragtag heart with a shallow kind of sadness, knowing the joys of others inside but never experencing them for myself: The curse of the man in the mirror who exists only as a flatter reflection of whoever gazes in, imperminent, fleeting.
My wife loves me, and my children love me. I hug them, and kiss them, and make love to my wife while she holds me and whispers to me how deep her feelings for me run. In the dm reflection of her love, I can whiper that I love her back, and believe it while her love shines with me. But the moment she turns away, the moment her eyes leave me and her mouth closes, the moment we no longer touch, I am hollow once more. I am not an actor, and I do feel love in the shadow of those who love me: I am something far less than a pretender, as I simply ceace to exist when I am alone. I am a reflection, a shadow: In the presence of another soul, a soul shines dimly back. In their absence, the hollow man stands alone.
I do not believe my condition is singular. Cold, empty reason tells me that there must be others like me, who face the day in the eyes of others, men who do not cry unless others give them tears, and only laugh in the dark shadow of another's joy. Perhaps you, my reader, share my condition. If we were to meet, perhaps we would recognize each other's conditions and perhaps share in the silence together. It is not important to me. Nothing is, unless another person tells me it must be so. In any case, if you do not share my particular curiosity of mind I do not expect you to understand me, or believe me anything more than a joke or a work of fiction penned for for my enjoyment. I only wish you were right. At the very least, I would ask you to do one thing for me, regardless of weither or not you truely believe I am real.
Look around you, wherever you are. Perhaps you are a postal attendant, standing in a crowded post office stamping parcels for milling customers. Perhaps you're sitting on a bus, or eating dinner, or sitting in bed on a Sunday evening. Regardless of where you are, look at another person. Ask them how they are, how they are feeling, if they are having a nice day. Look at them, really look at them as they answer. Look into their eyes, without breaking contact while they speak.
Now, convince yourself that they are whole. Tell yourself that their mind thinks, and their soul breathe with life into their days. Dismiss the voice in the back of your mind, the voice which wonders if you are alone, truley alone and surrounded by reflections of what you give to the world around you. The voice is surely meaningless. A whisper based on nothing. Hollow.
So good day my friend, my only friend. To you I have revealed nothing of myself, except the nothing which is my all. Consider it a gift from a man who has nothing to give. It is all I am, nothing more- I could not possibly give you less.
Kind regards,
O
I wonder, sometimes, if this letter is a joke. I know not the heart, but the words of men, and the secrets they reveal are as deep as the lines the ink cuts into the paper they write on. I wonder, though, that there was no name attached, only a circle drawn below the letter. To not sign the letterd be the mark of anonymity, to hide a name from the world. A circle, a surface without a core, is more than that. It is a calling card, a mark shaped by identity and purpose. I can say no more on this letter, except that I believe that more than most of the items in my collection it belongs in the public eye. What better place than the scrutiny of anonymity to reveal the face behind the mask is but a mirror? If the nameless are to be judged, it is destined to be among the faceless.
For what does a soul without a face see when they look into a mirror but nothing?
I will wonder no more. Words, not hearts, fill my collection. Truth or lie, words are a window onto the mind behind the mask. I judge minds, not hearts, and my hollow friend's mind has earned his place upon my shelf.
