Stranger Things Happen | Page 7

remember my name,
I remember you said it as if you hated me. We hadn't made love for a
long time.
I estimate my height to be about five feet, eleven inches, and although I
am not unhandsome, I have an anxious, somewhat fixed expression.
This may be due to circumstances.
I was wondering if my name was by any chance Roger or Timothy or
Charles. When we went on vacation, I remember there was a similar
confusion about names, although not ours. We were trying to think of
one for her, I mean, for Beatrice. Petrucchia, Solange? We wrote them
all with long pieces of stick on the beach, to see how they looked. We
started with the plain names, like Jane and Susan and Laura. We tried
practical names like Polly and Meredith and Hope, and then we became
extravagant. We dragged our sticks through the sand and produced
entire families of scowling little girls named Gudrun, Jezebel,
Jerusalem, Zedeenya, Zerilla. How about Looly, I said. I knew a girl
named Looly Bellows once. Your hair was all snarled around your face,
stiff with salt. You had about a zillion freckles. You were laughing so
hard you had to prop yourself up with your stick. You said that sounded
like a made-up name.

Love, You know who.
The dead man is trying to act as if he is really here, in this place. He is
trying to act in a normal and appropriate fashion. As much as is
possible. He is trying to be a good tourist. He hasn't been able to fall
asleep in the bed, although he has turned the painting to the wall. He is
not sure that the bed is a bed. When his eyes are closed, it doesn't seem
to be a bed. He sleeps on the floor, which seems more floorlike than the
bed seems bedlike. He lies on the floor with nothing over him and
pretends that he isn't dead. He pretends that he is in bed with his wife
and dreaming. He makes up a nice dream about a party where he has
forgotten everyone's name. He touches himself. Then he gets up and
sees that the white stuff that has fallen out of the sky is dissolving on
the beach, little clumps of it heaped around the mailbox like foam.
Dear Elspeth? Deborah? Frederica? Things are getting worse. I know
that if I could just get your name straight, things would get better.
I told you that I'm on an island, but I'm not sure that I am. I'm having
doubts about my bed and the hotel. I'm not happy about the sea or the
sky, either. The things that have names that I'm sure of, I'm not sure
they're those things, if you understand what I'm saying, Mallory? I'm
not sure I'm still breathing, either. When I think about it, I do.
I only think about it because it's too quiet when I'm not. Did you know,
Alison? that up in those mountains, the Berkshires? the altitude gets too
high, and then real people, live people forget to breathe also? There's a
name for when they forget. I forget what the name is.
But if the bed isn't a bed, and the beach isn't a beach, then what are they?
When I look at the horizon, there almost seem to be corners. When I
lay down, the corners on the bed receded like the horizon.
Then there is the problem about the mail. Yesterday I simply slipped
the letter into a plain envelope, and slipped the envelope, unaddressed,
into the mailbox. This morning the letter was gone and when I stuck
my hand inside, and then my arm, the sides of the box were damp and
sticky. I inspected the back side and discovered an open panel. When

the tide rises, the mail goes out to sea. So I really have no idea if you,
Pamela? or, for that matter, if anyone is reading this letter.
I tried dragging the mailbox further up the beach. The waves hissed and
spit at me, a wave ran across my foot, cold and furry and black, and I
gave up. So I will simply have to trust to the local mail system.
Hoping you get this soon, You know who.
The dead man goes for a walk along the beach. The sea keeps its
distance, but the hotel stays close behind him. He notices that the tide
retreats when he walks towards it, which is good. He doesn't want to
get his shoes wet. If he walked out to sea, would it part for him like that
guy in the bible? Onan? He is wearing his second-best suit, the one he
wore for interviews and weddings. He figures it's either the suit that