Trains
By Jewel Serpent
- 588 reads
Monday 4th April 2006
Hi Dave
I'm sorry I haven't been able to write recently. Too busy with work and stuff. My boss is a pain up the arse but we get on. It's one of those crazy things that just happens. I guess. Like me and you (how did that happen??) but everything balances, right? Karma should be in equilibrium with external influences, personal choices. All that shit. I'm wasting your time, aren't I?
I suppose you're glad when I don't write.
Kate xx
Thursday 7th April 2006
Hello Katherine
I was pleasantly surprised to note the recommencement of your correspondence. I missed it like I missed (miss!) you. I cut my knee open the other day while I was cleaning out the attic to look for that album from our trip to Fiji (the one I stoutly refused to go to before you seduced me with the tickets between your legs) and had to get an elongated suture. It felt like the end of an era.
How is my dear Ausgustus? It was such a pleasure to hear about your marriage in June. I wanted to be there but had other commitments. I don't presume it was anything like ours? I've heard from acquaintances down in the village that his parents own the apothecary and are reasonably well-off. I'm happy for you.
I'm trying to find someone like you said I should but everyone seems to go on the dimensions of genitalia these days. I attempted to locate persons in a similar predicament to mine but could find none. Please do recommend any other sites. If possible, I also request that you forward my 5x10 profile picture and biography as attached to the aforesaid sites as I am but a novice at matters relating to electronic communication.
Yours sincerely,
David
Saturday 9th April 2006
Hey Dave,
Firstly, WHY would you even try to look for that bloody album? The agency ripped us off, for fuck's sake. The two of us had red eyes in half the prints. Please stop looking.
Secondly, thanks. It was a good day. I'm sorry you couldn't be there, too (in passing, did your "commitments" have anything to do with your mom's cats? Or rodents?). Gus isn't all that rich. I guess it's all about perspective. Speaking of Gus, we made love last night. By God, I only just realized it could be like this (no offence, really). From twelve till three. We got stamina, Dave. Like hell we do.
Whaaaat? Nothing good on Sexy Singles? All g, all g. I'll fwd a few more when I have time. Dw.
Ta,
Kate
Saturday 23rd April 2006
Dear Katherine,
I apologize for the delay in my return correspondence. I was merely contemplating the manner in which to reply to your email, which was short in length but certainly not in meaning.
Congratulations on your first session of coitus with Augustus. I would ask "how it was", as one does, but I would not want to traverse over the line that so rightly separates our personal lives. I advise you to keep up the routine with an atomic passion, as the latest issue of Reader's Digest states that engaging in sexual intercourse three times a week is beneficial to mind and body alike.
Thank you for what seems like a sincere interest in my romantic life. I appreciate your troubles to find an agency suited to my condition, for want of a better word, but perhaps it would be better to let the matter rest for now.
Yours truly,
David
P.S. Tarsus is a field vole. Indeed, that is a small rodent resembling a mouse. Tarsus is, most unfortunately, not the cause for my enagagement on that particular day.
Saturday 5 May 2006
Dave-
Oh shit shit shit. You will never believe what happened. So we were kinda at this party (Lu's party, you know how Lu's parties are, you've been to one) and we were at it in her spare bedroom and we went free and now it's my time of the month and I'm not bleeding my insides out yet and oh fuck Dave I think he might have knocked me up. What if, Dave? Just what if? Just take off your intellectual pants for once and find that heart beneath your hairy chest. Does it still beat, Dave? And if it does, tell me what the right thing to do here is? Please?
Yours in shittiness,
Kate (Late Kate)
Sunday 6 May 2006
Dear Katherine
I am sorry to hear of this. It seems that you are upset at the prospect of gestation, which pains me no end. Does it not make your insides vibrate with an endless joy to think that you, Katherine, might have made a life?
Look, I apologize. I know that's not what you wanted to hear from me. I know you wanted me to tell you that maybe you haven't gotten pregnant and maybe it's just a false alarm and maybe you've only got Augustus' spermatozoon sititing around in your insides like condensation on a shower door and maybe it doesn't mean anything and maybe maybe maybe.
I'm not a gynaecologist, Katherine. I strongly suggest you make an appointment with one.
Yours in shared (worry? tentative excitement?)
David
P.S. It made me shake with misplaced humour that you suggested I take my pants off, although I suspect there was no pun intended. Such puns are a luxury, I fear, that you can no longer afford.
Sunday 4 June 2006
Dave-
Yes. Yes I was knocked up and yes it was an accident and no I am not excited.
I know I could just get rid of it. Gus says I should. It wouldn't take long. They'd knock me out and before I could know it life's one big problem would be swimming out in somebody else's sea.
Or would it?? Does it go somewhere else, do you think? Well, obviously not in form, but its soul and all that? Or maybe that part stays? I dunno, Dave. Scary to think I'd have it floating around in me even after I had it ripped out.
Please please reply I'm going crazy and I just got what people mean when they said it happens in your own head.
Yrs,
Kate
Sunday 6 June 2996
Dear Katherine,
Do fetuses have souls? I wouldn't happen to know the answer to that. Personally, I think we're all unanchored in our metaphysical state, floating out in an oblivion that isn't quite an oblivion, but rather something akin to a spiritual vacuum devoid of earthly fixtures. Why should the unborn be any different to that which exists?
An abortion is always a viable course of action. I will not encourage or discourage you in the ponderings which are rightfully yours. It is a decision to be shared between you and your lawful husband, as this creation is the result of your heartily functioning (but somewhat irresponsible) gonads.
Let me know when you choose. Bear in mind that it is considered dangerous to attempt to teminate a pregnancy after seven weeks.
Yours in truth
David
Tuesday 1st August 2006
So I decided to keep it. Happened by accident, really. Well, I missed my appointment three times accidentally on purpose and then I told Gus we'd have to keep it unless we wanted trouble. I don't like it, I don't like it at all. In the beginning I used to throw up about fifteen times a week, and now my head just hurts like there's no tomorrow (there probably won't be, once it's born). I saw the gynaec like you said and she told me to take a bunch of different meds. Funny how one moment it's a decision between keeping it or not and the next it's one between which brand of prenatal pills to choose. Life sure is weird post knock-up.
See ya soon, I just really bloody need some chocolate atm.
Kate
Wednesday 9th August 2006
Hi Katherine,
I was delighted upon receiving your missive informing me of your decision to keep the baby. I am sure you and Augustus will make wonderful parents.
It looks to me as though you are suffering from a craving. According to my brief and in no way extensive researcgh, these are best dealt with by satiation in small amounts and with long intervals.
I wish you luck in your gestational period.
David
Thursday 28th December 2006
Dave-
There's been so much going on lately that I just haven't been able to write.
I was bleeding, Dave. A few days before Christmas. A couple spots in the morning. So we went in for a check-up, Gus and me. They said it was an ectopic pregnancy, which basically means the baby's not where it's supposed to be (but I bet you knew that). Nothing's particularly wrong at this stage, but we need to go in for a lot of extra sessions and they're making acupuncture compulsory and Gus is getting pissed off big time coz he has to fork out pretty huge. He spends a lot of time just lying in front of the TV these days. I have to do all the work and it makes me so tired.
Kate
Friday 29th December 2006
Dear Katherine,
I am so sorry to hear about the complications in your pregnancy. And yet life, as I am sure you understand by this fateful juncture, allied with the gentle waves of time, goes on.
I am equally sorry to hear about the unreasonable nature of Augustus. I had deemed him to be a man of fine character but my judgment is now questionable. I however advise you to transfer the mental energies you ones exercised on him to your unborn child, who no doubt needs you now more than ever.
I trust this finds you well.
David
Tuesday 13 January 2007
Gus left last night.
Oh God it hurts. Everywhere. Yes, I mean heartbreak or whatever, but it hurts down there and up here and everywhere. There are small things to look forward to, though. Like when she kicks. Yes, it's a she. I got Lu to drive me to the doc for my scan since Gus wasn't there to do it.
So yesterday he was out for a beer with Les and Bob from his work and wasn't home till close to 10 and I'd done all the cooking and the cleaning and my hormones were going crazy and there was this one moment where I stood in the kitchen looking at him and he stood in the hallway looking at me and he told me he'd already eaten and that was when I went crazy. And then there was shouting, quite a lot of it, and then he packed his bags and told me he was leaving.
I'm better of for it, Dave. I think I am.
Thursday 15 January 2007
Hi Katherine,
I am sorry also to hear of this new and unprecedented development. I am sure, however, that it is, as are all the other trains that life has us catch, not without a destination.
As for the pain- what do the doctors say? I am no expert in the field of the female reproductive system but I believe pains of the magnitude of which you speak are uncommon, though not unheard of.
And now a slight deviation to speak about my own journey on this particular express. I've met a woman, Katherine, a woman! Yes- an individual with two X chromosomes who has deigned to meet me in London. I travel out soon to meet her, and will be in the city for a week or so, all things going well. She seems a kindred spirit. Nothing on you, of course, but someone who will accept me, imperfections, damage, wordplay, demented genitalia and all.
Best,
David
Friday 23rd January 2007
It hurts, Dave. Fuck, it hurts....
DAVID BOWER IS CURRENTLY UNREACHABLE ON HIS OFFICE EMAIL, AS HE IS ON BLOCKED LEAVE. FOR URGENT MESSAGES, PLEASE CONTACT HIM ON HIS PERSONAL MOBILE PHONE.
Friday 17th March 2007
Dear Mr Bower,
I write this letter to you at the bequest of the late Ms Katherine Catterone, who passed away at the Phoenix Women's Hospital on the fourteenth of this month. It was her wish that this message be delivered to you by post, as she wanted you to have to choice of physical destruction of this letter. I enclose her personal message:
Dave- so here it is. Finally. They tell me I'm going to die.
You know what you said before? About unborn people having souls? What if you were born, and you lived, and then you died too early? Too early for you to have lived at all? What happens then, Dave? You're the one with the masters in abstract philosophy. Tell me. Because I need to know.
The truth is, life's one big fucking train, Dave. It was like you said. And I get it now. I get why you looked for that Fiji album even though it was fucked up. I get why you kept emailing me even though we were fucked up. I get why you never stopped looking for that girl, even though you were fucked up.
I'm sorry I did that.
I hope my train goes somewhere good. A nice route, a nice place. Lots of water and mist and forest. Just the way you liked it. Maybe someday, I'll see you there.
Kate
c/o Miss Levanna Finch, Nurse
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Comments
Wow, I really liked this. I
Wow, I really liked this. I love the epistolary nature of the structure and the two so clearly defined voices. One so casual the other so formal. This is a totally absorbing story and extremely well written.
Moya . .
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