Unopened letter

( III ).

Jul 12, 2024

When I opened the letter, I had to use my fingernails to lift the stickers from the paper, which ripped. My grandmother wouldn’t have liked that. She would always wince or audibly object to the ripping of any kind of wrapping paper or envelope. Once opened, I couldn’t get inside the voice of the letter even though it was mine. It was from someone I didn’t know anymore, someone who couldn’t have anticipated that the letter would be opened by the sender. Her voice is hopeful and sure, naturally ignorant at what the next four years would hold. There are details I didn’t remember about the letter, colors and stickers…translations. Hana1 means flower. Daisuki2 means I love you. An accompanying envelope had flower petals enclosed. Ume,3 (plum blossoms). I opened the envelope to see them huddled in a corner, paper-thin, slightly browned, and waiting. These petals came from a tree I used to walk by every day. It was rooted next to a sidewalk, on the south eastern side of a very small park. I read somewhere that you’re supposed to plant Ume trees in the east to protect a garden from evil. In this park there are orange trees (mikan)4 on the north side, roses (bara)5 in the west, depending on where you stand, depending on where the lines of east and west begin or end. From this park you can see Shinjuku6 buildings that stand tall, neighborhood rooftops, a yellow and red swing set, and quite often, the moon.

The letter was never sent because of the sudden mailing regulations and restrictions implemented at that time. I had written it for my grandmother in the early spring of 2020. She died before the year could end. The letter sat inside an unmailed box of gifts beneath my bed for the next four years despite restrictions lifting thereafter. Today, a byte, the size of an Image, said: grief is just love with nowhere to go. An online Glimpse Byte of the Tongue. Every path that gets cut off needs rerouting. Love like Map. Dead-end Round-About tree. All these unread letters in my throat, to open with my fingers, slightly tearing by mistake, a petal.