Real letters from real freaks

Dear Summer,

I miss you. To say that I am miserable would be to gravely misspeak. Life is hell; and my soul has been utterly ravaged since I last felt your close embrace.

Those many months ago flood my memory even now: our jolly picnic lunches in the sunny grass, walking in the warm breeze in the evenings, reclining in the shade on a hot day watching the landscape shimmer in the rising heat.

But without you, that flood of memories is a frozen lake, and I am suspended like a drowned manikin in the glacier of my psyche.

Walking home today I took off my mittens to correct my untied laces. The gelid wind permeated my fingers in a way I can't describe. It was like the very blood in my veins was transfused with ice water. My hands were enfeebled; could they speak they would cry your name; instead they retreated hastily into my mittens, coiled in fists, where they silently and bitterly cursed the onset of foul Winter.

I have electric blanket to warm my bed before I sleep. I sometimes lie on top of it and imagine that I am supine, on a beach of white sand, my body beaded with sweat and absorbing the energy of a cloudless azure sky. But it is a futile effort. With a mere turn of my head, the cool of my pillow betrays the truth of Winter, ever around me.

She is nothing like you. She is cold, and hostile, and mean. She is not one to chuckle at jokes or sigh contentedly: she is capable only of fierce glares and venomous scowls. Her breath is biting and frore, her cheeks dried and sallow, her thin lips blistered and raw. She is not merely ugly my darling, she bears the visage of death itself.

How I miss your spirit and vim. I miss the touch of your smooth and soft skin, the glisten of your warm eyes, and the thump of your beating heart against my ear.

And your hands, your wonderful, delicate, life-giving hands. When Winter touches me, she squeezes painfully with her icy fingers. I miss your touch, your motivating pull; you make me feel capable of doing anything.

I miss you, Summer. Like a dying plant needs water, I need your love again. I will never understand why you left, but I know you had to. Though it goes without saying, I am completely faithful to you. You may truly never know how grateful I am for you.

To you I am bound not merely by fondness, or nostalgia, or but by the purest love of which I am capable. Please come back to me, Summer. I am awaiting you always.

Yours forever,


Harvey Kornbluth