Dear Thom,
It is with a troublesome heart and a heavy soul that I must write to you. I confess that I have been feeling lost and unsure of what to do.
You were the only person I could think of who may have an answer for this baffling ordeal. Unless you, too, believe my pen to be wrought with lies… If so, it appears that I may be my own deception. But if– if you feel a stirring in your head, a call of sudden understanding, I beg that you write back as soon as time allows.
A dear friend of mine had been saying strange things.
Last month she invited me over for tea, which, in and of itself, is not at all unusual, as you know. Everything seemed to be normal as she brought out slices of freshly baked pie, and we conversed about all the things you would expect. The week’s town news, her sweet guinea pig’s health, the neighbor down the street who would not quiet down at night.
But she lapsed into a silence soon after, leaving me to wonder if she had something she needed to say.
And then, as if overcome with something that she could not speak of, she placed her hand over mine and tearfully looked into my eyes.
“If only everything bad and sorrowful in life could disappear, perhaps we could finally settle without feeling as though our souls were being ripped out.” Those were the words she said.
I had carefully agreed, responding that misfortunes were indeed a cause of anxiousness and the feeling of being unable to sit still. “Yet,” I added, “I believe that our emotions are precisely there to deal with the weights of those very misfortunes. It is a blessing that we are able to express the negative things we feel, do you not agree?”
She had always been an open ear in conversation. Always smiling and listening to what you had to say. But if there was a time where things deviated from the norm on that day, it would have been the moment I finished speaking. The usually gentle-mannered Tanya snatched her hand away as though I were a fire, a scowl descending upon her features as though hungry to swallow her eyes whole.
“Not a blessing.” She replied. “A curse. I have found a way to eradicate the entire situation.”
“The situation being?”
Her expression returned to the light, and I could have sworn that the tears in her eyes dried in that instant.
“I have found a way to remove the troublesome feelings I feel. The redness that comes to the cheeks when one is angry, the shadows that cross one’s brows when they are disappointed… Tears that come when misfortune strikes. To demolish it all, as they were all hindrances.”
She took no notice of my nervous inquiry as to what she meant by an “eradication”.
The following weeks my friend became… distant. Strange. Off.
She began to sweat profusely, and the skin upon her face appeared unusually bloated. The girl I knew all but disappeared into what seemed like a husk of a person that was. Her beloved guinea pig passed, and despite the overwhelming attachment she had shown to the little critter, news of his death sounded something like a poorly told joke to her ears. Her eyes stayed dry, her lips thinly pursed. And I wondered where Tanya had gone, for this unfeeling creature before me was certainly not she.
Her flesh continued to bloat, and when I last visited her… No, more accurately, when I last saw her, she was bed-ridden, her blankets soaked and her face unrecognizable. I brushed the hair out of her face, trying not to tremble for fear that she would detect my anxiousness. My worries went unnoticed, however, as she stared at me with unseeing eyes that grew drier than the berries she used to lay out in the sun to shrivel.
What did she do to herself? I could not bear to ask. Perhaps I should have. I shuddered, and shudder still, to imagine what she possibly could have meant by “eradicating”… emotions. What would have happened to me if I had found out? Was it my responsibility to find out?
It is too late, Thom. It is far too late.
I arrived at her house the next day to the smell of salt and seawater. It was as though someone had doused her doors and walls with showers of the ocean. Liquid seeped from under the doors… The windows… Yet everything around the house was dry, if you believe my words and do not think I am mad already.
Calling out her name, I attempted to knock. The wood was warm to the touch, soft and soaked, and the brass handle but touched my fingers when the door burst open. Water dead as the rainy clouds flooded where I stood, rushing from the interiors of the house, in a rush to escape whatever tragedy had occurred inside.
The water pooled past my feet, drenching my skirts, spraying into my face. And as delirious as it sounds, it felt familiar. It felt… It felt free. Not the water, not… Not the water, at least not the water itself. The sensations, the feeling of what the water was made me at peace with a horrible kind of realization. Wading into the house, I searched all the rooms. There was no one. Nothing was disturbed, no sign of a grapple. Peaceful. Soaked. An ocean in the house.
I had known there would be no one to be found. Tanya was gone. She was free in a terrible kind of way, but free nonetheless.
Do you understand? Do you see what I am saying? The water was my friend, Thom. I cannot explain it, but I just know. She was there that day. All that was left of her sunk into the grass, the floorboards, the wallpaper.
“Eradication” had not worked for her after all. But how free she must have felt in her end.
Thom, do you believe me? Do you believe what I say? They’ve deemed Tanya missing, they are searching for her. But I know that is not true. Her tears are the ocean, and they will never find her body.
What do I do now?
What am I supposed to do?
Help me, Thom. Please.
I feel as though I am drowning, too.
Yours,
Paler