Capes and Cartridges

By Jill Zero

     He stood outside of the brown tri-level, motionless except for the slight tremble in his hand as he read the letter he’d been putting off reading for what felt like an eternity. His eyes grazed the page in silence and processed the words in a cavern he didn’t know existed within his brain. He reluctantly wrapped his mind around the well-chosen words as if they’d vanish from the page once he’d understood them. Funny, he thought, how much power words had after etched into physical form, and even when their authors had disappeared or had long been rotting in the ground. It was funny how specific passages leapt out faster than the others, too.

     You’re selfish.

     Deep down, he knew he should have read it sooner. The potential message had careened back and forth in his unstable subconscious for months, taunting him and haunting him and dripping with the thing he resented most – loneliness. But loneliness threatened to permeate his shell prior to receiving the letter in the first place. He wasn’t used to that. Some days it became so heavy that he swore it almost spawned within him, and he let it eat him alive. Then he finally gave in and dug out the letter from its hiding place.

     Letting go had never come easily to Frederick. And the letter was a one-way ticket to letting go.

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