To Whom It May Concern... | The Endless Forest

((With this letter I include a match. Strike it if you will, and do with it what you choose. Give light to the words and read on, and if at the end you feel any dissatisfaction I hope that the least I can provide is the delight in incineration...))

No one turns an eye to the wandering fool.
Civility, grudgingly unbound, is met with impatient glances and hurried departures of the rudest sort, even when performed against one so deserving of it- but it cannot be met with bitterness.
All bridges have been burned, yet the flaming match was unknowingly dropped. The consequence of playing so ignorantly with the fire of love in the hearts of past familiars. Mistakes are made, accidents befall us all -the best, and the worst of us, the worst of which I am more familiar to be sure.
And in the cruelest turn of events a butterfly’s admiration, even of the weakest, flimsiest sort, is lost forever as it flitters away on charred and disfigured wings. No doubt the poor creature would soon meet his end, but there are other such lovely figures to admire, after all. What is the loss to the world? He is forgotten.

The losses have been great. Scarcely a day passes that unimaginable sorrow does not grip in so tight a hold that a bitter son does not consider a grieved mother’s…unimaginably reprehensible demise with, I dare say, admiration and newfound understanding. Perhaps all that keeps him from an early bed with earth-dwelling creatures is the spite designed into determination that has always driven him so strongly onward. An admirable quality, perhaps…once. But what is his return now? A come back so heartily unwelcome? Surely not so admirable at all in the eyes of so many wronged. The dead should stay dead, and the charred- whose usefulness to the earth from which it came had all burnt up- can give nothing more and should not attempt to.

Was such a son reasonable beyond mortality and had a consciousness more fit for the divine perhaps he would see and live the world in such a manner as this, and not be prone to his weaknesses in spirit and wanting to continue on with such a hapless, hopeless journey. Alas, he’s as mortal as they come, and as prone to fault, mistake, ridicule and coldness of heart as is any unlucky bastard can be. Perhaps- the most hesitantly, most humbly spoken ‘perhaps’ ever uttered I dare say- his only redeeming quality may be to persist still despite the greatest and most unwelcome of odds.

The reason of such a writing is unknown to me, yet my hand willed to touch pen to paper and I had not the heart to refuse it. The opportunity to re-address myself to this place was bound to occur eventually, after all…I know with the greatest certainly that I wish nothing of forgiveness, and nothing of the attentions from those who have so clearly and respectably refused any further cordiality on my behalf. Truly, I wish you all the greatest happiness. Perhaps I simply strive to make my thoughts clear, my intention known, though I fear I've done poorly for my thoughts are indeed scattered. Some things never change.

With this confusion I leave you, whoever you may be, with my most heartfelt and sorry of farewells, or the gladdest, most humble of hellos.

~ Darcy