My Dearest Ezra

My Dearest Ezra

By: Nathanael Highben

To my dearest Ezra,

This might very well be the last opportunity I have to write to you. Reading that to myself, it almost sounds sad. But we know that somber sentence holds a happier tune for you and me, right? The days are growing ever darker, and since the accident it has been hard to find a helping hand. People are not as caring as they once were, in this world without color. I keep moving from place to place, just like you said, but it is getting more difficult. It seems every other second my thoughts find a way to drift to you. Each day I get closer to where you are, it is as if I can feel you. This heart-shaped locket you gave me bounces faintly on my chest each time I take a step. Your little magic amulet.

You know I have always believed in the magical, but it was hard to accept when you told me about the necklace. I knew your grandpa had given you it when you were a child, and I knew you said you believed it was magic. I also knew I had heard the stories dozens of times about that necklace…but watching your eyes sparkle as you told me again ang again made each repetition worth it. You always wore a beautiful smile when you talked about your necklace, or your grandpa.

Sometimes it is easier to write the truth of things down, rather than to let them escape our lips. Your grandpa was always strange to me, Ezra. If I am being honest, I thought he was quite eccentric. The stories of Esidara he told were always wild and wonderous. That golden music-box he kept next to the window, and how it had been a gateway to another world world - impossible! But he had a way with words that dropped you into his stories. No matter what they were about. He could charm a whole crowd into believing their fingers were really their toes, and they would thank him for it.

I am sorry for the way things turned out in the end my dear. I should really have believed, like you had. I thought his stories were just like tales of Santa Claus and the boogey man. I must have told myself a hundred times that his tales were invented. And yet, I always played along, because it had been harmless to pretend otherwise. Harmless. I suppose technically what had happened was harmless, don’t you agree? No one died immediately when all the color bled out of life. Tell me Ezra, is a man who unknowingly sets off a bomb at fault? Or does the guilt lie with the party who kept the bomb all these years?

I remember the way it looked that day, the music-box. Four eagle’s heads screamed out from the decorated corners. The way the sunlight glinted off its metallic surface. I remember always thinking that was the strangest music-box I had ever seen. It was a Tuesday, wasn’t it? We had driven up to have lunch with your father. The weather was unbelievable. The sky was a sea of blues and pinks. It really was like a sea too, you said, dotted with little islands of white, puffy clouds. We drove your car, because having the windows up on a lovely day was like a sin to you. In my head I remember just knowing it was one of those days, one of the good ones. The kind of day where everything just falls into place the way you want it.

That is what I thought. However, as I stared at the music-box that day, I remember the feeling of dread rushing over me like a crushing wave. It felt wrong; getting closer to it, reaching out and touching it, opening it…it all felt wrong.

So then why did I keep opening it? I ask myself that everyday Ezra, I swear I do. It is one of the many questions that plagues my mind. I spend so much time alone that now I have a list of those questions. The ones I cannot answer, the ones that hurt to think about.

They usually visit me at night, as I try to sleep. Lately though, they have been coming more often, both when I am idle and busy. Why did I open it when I knew you and your grandpa were not looking? If I really knew those stories were just stories, why hide opening it? What if I had just listened to your grandfather, would we never have been torn apart? These thoughts feel sharp when they enter my mind, and heavy. They never quite leave, either. Not fully.

It helps to write them down. If I capture them enough times on paper, maybe they won’t come back into my head. Although ultimately it matters not, my love. For I know they will leave when I finally see you again. Help me understand a world without color can still be a happy place. Tell me this world is not all my fault. And if it is, let us pretend it isn’t.

I am only able to myself going because you did give me something special, that year ago. It turns out every fantastic story your grandfather told from his blue armchair was probably true. Your heart-shaped necklace certainly is magical. When you gave it to me on that dreary day, you told me that I better not lose it until we see each other again. I had laughed at that; you knew you were always the one to lose things. That locket, with the tiny picture of you holding your two cats, it has kept me alive. Each night as I lie down, I take that photo out, and just stare at it. Some nights it never makes its way home into the necklace until morning.

Tomorrow this sorry saga will end as I finally reach you. We can laugh, cry, and scream together. I have so much to tell you, Ezra! I’ll end this letter telling you all about the day I had yesterday – and what I found. It was a harder day than most for me. It seemed hotter, emptier, and grayer than usual. I took one of the main roads through what used to be Cleveland I think, since it was not terribly busy. I noticed a van had pulled off the highway, ahead of me. As I staggered toward it, sometime felt off. You know before the accident, cars breaking down on the road was a normal site. It was just a natural thing that had to happen to somebody, somewhere.

This one was different though, Ezra. This car was not an empty one waiting to be towed to a repair shop, this was a grave. As I walked to the driver’s window, I saw a silhouette inside. I could not see much besides the dark lumpy shape of a person, because the windows were black with tint.

Curiosity got the best of me eventually though, and I tried the door. The driver’s side was unlocked, and as I pulled it open the first thing to strike me was the smell. It hit me like a wall of ghastly death, and I gagged violently. It was when I recovered that I first saw the girl, Ezra. She was sitting in the passenger’s seat, and I saw that the gun had fallen on the floor between her legs. I must have looked at her for hours, taking the details in. Feeling empty inside.

She was the first person I had seen in weeks, and she was rotting in her minivan on the side of an abandoned highway. Seeing her slumped over in a pool of blood was not as shocking as it once might have been, though. Not much is when there is no color to it. Blood looks like oil in a world with no reds. Bone and flesh turn out to be just stone and paper with no color to help identify them. But the smell…oh Ezra. I hope that when we meet tomorrow, I will never have to smell anything like that again, and you won’t either. I left that scene in the dark and continued to walk to you until my body told me to stop.

Tonight, I will be going to sleep with the flame of hope burning bright inside me. In the morning, while the fog still clings to the ground, I will rise. I doubt I will even stop to worry about things like hunger or thirst, because of my excitement. And when that huge, colorless sun starts to dip back toward the earth, I will be with you. Our pains and mistakes cannot go where we will meet. There will only be the memories we want, only the good kind of feelings.

Tomorrow, I hope to find out I was wrong about one more thing. I hope I really can bring things inside with me, so after we have reconnected, you can finally read all the things I’ve wanted to say to you. I have written to you every day since we last spoke. This letter I will put on the top of the stack, which I’ve dated and put in order so you can read through them easier.

I took the gun from that van, Ezra. It’ll help get me to you. So do one thing for me, and as you are read this last line, look at me and smile. After the year I have had baby, I could sure use it.

I love you always,

Simon