The Love Letter

By Richard Rudd

I was hot. I have nordic blood hurling through my veins. I simply cannot resist the clear green pool that lies in the woods at the head of Ashland’s Lithia park. 

It’s the colours that lure me; the emerald and the gold, and the lonely silver, above in the dusky leaves. I cannot help myself. The icy cold does not matter in the least. I simply cannot contain myself around the glittering richness of those colours. It’s not enough to marvel; I have to swim in them. I have to plunge into their liquid depths. 

And so I find myself there, alone, almost every evening of these peaceful days… 

Today was a day of Dreams. I woke up dreaming, I spoke of nothing but dreams all day long. We lay in the park this morning, three of us, and beneath the mossy shade of the flowing ashes and oaks, we dreamed our dreams. Tonight, as I hurtled through the deep blue night on my bicycle, with the owl-filled wind warm across my face, and the stars shimmering like perfect ideas against the indigo skullcap of the sky, my own Dream hung itself across my shoulders, like a shawl. 

And the pool, the pool of Lithia, it spoke to me of dreams. Its ice-cut glint that shocked my breath and sharpened my feelings with its blade of the distant, melting snows, flung my dreams at me in one gasping breath, as I stepped from the green waters into the golden sun. 

And so it was, as I wove my path on the way back home, that I stumbled across a piece of dropped, yellow paper. On picking it up, I discovered it to be a letter of some sort, written in a scrawl. There was no one in sight, so without really thinking I stuffed it into my pocket. I moved to the edge of the wonderful, whirling creek and crouched there beneath the trees, as though I were hiding. I had an eerie feeling that I was being watched, and perhaps more strangely, that I was being tested. 

It was a love-letter. 

I felt rather shy, and yet I had an inexplicable feeling that it was clearly meant for me, at least in some mysterious way. 

The letter was, to me, a perfected work of art. Although it was barely legible in places, that made it only seem all the more perfect. What crowned the entire experience for me was that her name was the most illegible of all!
I felt as if I had in my hands some ancient, priceless treasure. She had written down her dream. It was such an exquisite and innocent dream. She spoke of buying a boat and sailing off around the world, together with him. To be alone beneath the stars. To find desert islands with pristine beaches, palm trees and the deep, blue sea. It was an Absolute cliche of all our dreams, it was a Pure Myth; innocent, timeless, and eternal… 

I was swept off my feet. There was one golden sentence that shone out as if it were the grail of her Dreams: 

“…..we would be sooo free….” 

Tears welled in my eyes, drawn both by her wonderful sincerity and the grace that had descended and allowed me to receive such a letter. I wondered what to do with such a find. Should I keep it, as a magical treasure to inspire my friends? I could never do that. It was somehow for me, and me alone. 

And yet to let it go, that frightened me. The creek was beckoning me with its hungry golden tongue. I waited. Finally, I felt a decision creep over me. I folded it and held it up against the sky, as though as an offering to the gods, and in that brief moment something wonderful happened; 

I knew what it was for….. 

and with reverence I whispered the words that flew to my lips. The golden, yearning roar of the flashing waters closed around the love-letter, and in a flash it was gone, dissolved like the very words I had offered in gratitude and release; lost in the jetting foam of the irretrievable Past. 

In those words lies a prayer of Hope, carried down the river by a sweeping bird;
for the simple dream of an innocent girl embodies the entirety of the dream of a drowning world…. 

I cannot tell you the words, for they are not for you to hear. You must find your own words, as every person must. You must dive into the emerald waters of your own Silent pool, and there you must find the golden love-letter that awaits you, dropped across the path to your heart. And there you must compose your letter and fall in love with your Dream and hardest of all, you must forever let it go….. 

“And I shall have the winds whisper your name, and the birds will carry your sighs, and the rocks and the reeds and the stars will bow down, and resound to the lyre of your eyes…” 

For further stories and inspiration from Richard Rudd, please visit www.genekeys.com