C, MEET D J.A. Tyler & Chelsea McKelvey

C = Chelsea McKelvey

C writes from another time, with a passion for etiquette in letter-writing. C attended Lincoln's Inn, and later went on to have a successful career in the court of Charles I. He enjoys a good cup of tea, a sharp quill, and very black ink.

D = J. A. Tyler

J. A. Tyler played the role of Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel, American writer and illustrator known for his cartoonist antics, rhythmic rhyme-schemes, simplistic word choice, and support of young readers.

Dear D,

As friendship is a most courteous religion, one which we most often now might find dead and uncared for in the street, I’ll be so bold as to write pertaining to the light. Derrida perceives that the worst reader is the one who has decided upon deciding, and I quite agree that it’s much better to swim asleep in order to be shocked into the bright. But this is not what I came for, this is not what I wrote for. We are nothing without these letters, even if they seem a dried browned paper and stocky, cheap fonts. Before them, we were not.

Now we have the luxury to grow sleepy and thick in the gold of letter-writing. Friendship is signed away with ink, sealed slick with wax. I shall keep my philosophy tight - you already know of it and approve of it most generously indeed. Now to the matter.

I’ve not written so frequently as of late because there has been nothing of the writing for. Indeed, there has been such a wide valley of nothingness that upon the receipt of your letter I was suddenly sick with the feeling of it being such an amount of time (unmeasured). But I make no excuses because there can be none for the making. You’ll think me gone lazy or mad, and it must be so, having not given you any suitable response for so long. I offer an apology, and I breach the valley of my own nothingness, bestowing upon you my olive branch, my crowning red victory, of friendship. For that is what we are writing for, is it not?

You’ll be glad to know there is a deep nothing to be said, for this only proves further my commitment and chastity. I might write and say that it was a cold day, the ground is frozen solid and the crops will surely not last another winter if they have somehow endured. Or I could speak of how sad it made me when I found that mad man sitting in a hole dug with his fingernails now gone. Indeed, his brain was most crazy-fried. I could write of the weepy past, of the dreary days. I could argue with you that Creepy was good, and he meant only the right things in the wrong way. Perhaps that would entertain you, instruct you? But no, no - this fruit is too tart and yet you enjoy it. The sugar would only make bad of it. Round and round. Round and round. I care too much for such hazy nonsense.

Others think me sad or pitiful for it, and might pronounce me a bad correspondent, but what I am writing now is the most important thing I might ever write you. They’ll say I am a sad old maid, with nothing left to say. But my dear, this nothingness is exactly what keeps us writing, as it always has. If there was something, I know for certain we might be doomed.

Always,
C

C,

Did you miss my previous letter? I fear fear fear that it was lost in some mansit transit. There was silly there, for certain, though I am knee-jerk away from doctor, and don't mind waxing the glop of philosophy. If there
is nothing and the nothing keeps us writing then I'd like to know why we keep writing? I'm not sure about that that question mark. It seems I might be repeating myself.

Today I worked on the lawn, it is dying.

Is this the kind of nothing you are addressing?

The trees are curved, and they don't yet know what to be. I draw them into my infinite spaces. I make them to decide.

I wear orthopedic socks. Is this the kind of conversation you were hoping?

Perhaps is a word that grows as a monster, out of my closet, and there is a slick little little tiny tiny opening inside of my heart. A rend. Rent?

Tear.

This is not crying. I am not crying.

If anything, I remain,
D.

Dear D,

I will begin my response with an apology, for I fear I have offended you in waiting so long to correspond. We were nothing for some time, and it was my own fault. We are not the fruit which the tree bears, but the tree, and these letters our fruit. I must admit you do offend in asking why we keep writing. For, if we were together, if I could touch your hand and know the texture of it, then these letters would surely be nothing themselves. Our creation could exist in that touch, in the echo of your voice. You are correct about the question mark - you did not mean it. You meant a statement. Surely, surely you wish to keep this thing we have made. Surely you will not stamp out the light.

I want to read all your nothings.

The carpet is brown, it is dirty. Today we went for a walk, and the sun came out.

Sometimes I watch people on the train and I know for a fact that no one will ever think them as beautiful as I think they are in that moment, reading their newspapers, checking their cellphones, scratching away from reality. I can see who they are in those moments, and sometimes it is pretty and sometimes it is horrid. But it is always beautiful, even if in a shocking way.

I would not know your tears, for these letters can give us no stains.

Will you write again? Will you fuel this monster that we are?

Please remain,
C

C,

I will stamp nothing out of us or me or us. I will stamp nothing out of us. I understand about the fruit, the lovely loverly lovely fruit. And I know about the tree and the train and the fuel for our monster, though I honest to honest possum to possum believe belieeeve that there is a place for both monsters and their monster monsters in this world.

Today we were walking, surely, but I was in a different place altogether. For if we were walking, walking as you say walking, walking as walking does, then why would we he she it need to write the letters that we are
writing to one another?

I feel like I have arrived home to find our cherry orchard sold away, or to be a boat on a river, or something when I feel beel reel squeal at how often the sun keeps keeps coming up.

Yes: I will keep writing, but what do we really have? This is not to say NO, STOP, DON'T. This is to say why do we go go go go go go.

Sometimes, it is all I can do to write down one letter, or this one letter.

As fruit on a tree, hat on a head, a clock moving,
D

Dear D,

Today there is the same amount of time, but I am selfish and give less of it to you. The clock is ticking down the corridor, and time keeps seeping into skin - some call them wrinkles.

Either way, maybe we will walk together one day. Do you know what I mean by this? It is a well-kept secret, although it is most often talked about openly and incorrectly.

I hope to see you on the beach one day - there will be a storm ahead and the sand will be cold, cold underneath our feet. Who's wearing shoes? I dreamed of it and there weren't any. You didn't have a face, which makes me fear you don't yet know the secret.

I'll stop talking in riddles, I'll stop being so selfish the next TIME I write.

Someone else's,
C

D,

I've always wanted to be a knight. So all this flim-flam talk of weaponry and shields, I love the riddle buried in its hilt. Touché and touch, the clink clank of our metal chests against one another.

I am full of mucous today - a cough and a chough at the window, some kind of Shakespeare balding near a palm or what are those trees? I don’t and have never known. You know I live where a beach is nearby? And that my heart has its own shore where there is an empty boat and a sense of longing / belonging? Turn and drop to the sand sand. The pebbles beneath our squash-squish, the flattery of our toes on this smearthy earth.

I know what you mean about secrets and the lack lack of face-faces. You are right, and I probably don't know. But my hands are the most amazing features some days and so I have the ultimate utmost of confidences in them.

I'm not sure if it is a smile you house or a knock-knock joke.

Let's talk no more of crab-walking or hand-holding. Let's go fly kites today, I hear the wind is uplifting,
C

Dear D,

I haven't written you because I forgot your name.

You are not seeing it at all...there is a blindness.

Sincerely hoping for your sight,
C

P.S. Who is Shakespeare?

C,

My name is unecessary. Who is the who is who is. That is not not not a question. Bestion hestion kestion. See how those rhyme-y-rhyme? That is a question. It has a mark. See the mark? I know you see the mark.

And:

I'm really not sorry for my blindness. It has made me. Perhap perhappies it is you who is or could be or should be or isn't seeing anything. Or maybe you see it all but where O where I live is a place you aren't privy to. A privy is also, O yes, the toiletttttttte.

Sincerely hoping for your sight. Yes.

And, who is Shakespeare indeed.

D.