It’s freezing in here!  I swear the only heat in the place is from the friction between my fingertips and keyboard.  I’ve typed furiously all day, but it’s a big place.  No one can type that fast.  I’ve decided that my only refuge is the comfortable chair, wrapped in a blanket, watching a movie.

I’ve rented just about every movie the local shops have to offer, so the pickings seem to be getting thinner and thinner.  Last year, at the height of my low time (that’s a good one), I would sometimes watch three or four movies a day.  It seems impossible, but I assure you, it can be done.  I became a movieaholic, pouring them into my brain as fast as my eyes could watch them.  A chain watcher - I’d pop open the next case before the movie I was watching even had a chance to finish.  DVD’s are great - no rewinding.  It speeds up the whole process and makes the movieaholic’s life so much easier.

I had a good reason for becoming a movieaholic, but I won’t get into that right now.  Let’s just say that tonight’s pick, Down With Love, couldn’t be a more excellent clue.  What an evening.  Wrapped in a blanket freezing to death while watching that squinched-faced Renee Zellweger fall in love with the dashing Ewan McGregor.  The box promises that the sparks will fly me to the moon and back.  Great.  Just what I need.  The even more intense cold of outer space.  I better get two blankets.

Living with machines is much easier then living with people.  I’ve done it both ways.  I know.  I suppose it isn’t really any big secret, just something that nobody really cares to think about or admit.  I mean, can you imagine the tension here last night if I’d actually invited a living, breathing human over to share a meal, which ends up being what a DVD is to a DVD player.  Something to snack on.  So, for imagination’s sake, let’s just say that I’ve invited over a machine I met, who we’ll call D - short, of course, for DVD Player.

First, the night’s cinematic torture session would have been like sitting down to a meal that looks good but tastes wrong from the very first bite.  D and I would have sat across the table from each other, smiling politely each time our eyes met, pretending to enjoy the meal when in fact we both knew it was the most vile thing ever to cross our lips.  We would both chew as slowly as humanly possible (or in my date’s case - machinely possible), hoping somehow that our tastebuds would be tricked into thinking that our mouth’s were empty and their work done.

Politeness is the real enemy, you see.  It’s the thing that keeps us smiling and chewing, and gives us all that look of being graciously entertained.  I would have no way of knowing (having not dated in many, many years), that politeness, a real compass when it comes to navigating the human world, is of little use when dining with a machine.  And D, the poor thing, having just arrived in this country and new to dating herself, would have no way of knowing that politeness can be a tool that humans switch on and off on a whim.

It’s politeness that keeps us in our seats for half the movie, squirming all the time.  And politeness again when I pretend to look away as D turns and spits the half-chewed disk into her napkin.  It’s an awkward moment.  I wonder if I should reach out for her hand, but think, What about the napkin?  What if I grab that instead? My politeness has me cornered. 

“How’s your meal?” It’s the only thing I can think to say.  “Everything okay?”
“Oh perfect.  Everything is just perfect,” she’d say, hiding the napkin in her lap.
“Oh good.  Then how about a little desert?”
“No, no, no, no.  I think you’ve done quite enough tonight already.”
“It’s O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” I say in my best teasing voice.
“Oh really?  Well okay.  How can I resist that?”

I get up to get the desert and catch a glimpse of her emptying her napkin into the case.  Suddenly, everything is just fine.  I’ll worry about what to tell Blockbuster later.

You see, with machines, unlike with people, the night can always be saved.

Tonight I came across a box of old papers and letters.  Much of the box consists of old stories that would make excellent examples in the O.E.D. for the word feeble.  But I hang onto them.  I’m sure I have my reasons, but for the life of me can’t think of a single one.

But buried amongst the old stories were also some old letters, and it’s these that I found myself looking through.  Old letters nearly always tell the better story.  An old letter is a connection, because you know as you slide it from its smudged and worn envelope that it has been held and touched and cared for by both writer and reader.  Holding it in your hand is like looking into a mirror that reflects back both past and present, all at once.  In my letter, I am comforted by the image of a much younger me, sitting at a desk, writing about his struggle with an ending relationship.  But the comfort is short-lived when I wonder if the younger me may in fact be writing the letter not only to a friend, but to himself - to the older, present-day me.  Can the words of nearly twenty years ago still hold meaning for my life?  Have I grown so little it takes only one short letter per lifetime to sum me up?

The letter, dated September 4, 1986, was written for a friend.  Friends, it seems, are often put into impossible places when our own relationships fail.  The letter has some references to past letters that I will not even attempt to explain.

While many believe in the existence of ghosts, many more believe in the penning of an epistle to a distant friend.  A few, on the other hand, believe in both the ghost and the epistle.  And with a very few, it is the epistle itself that becomes the ghost.

This letter, when it is complete, will join all of my letters from the past, haunting the chambers of my mind with the thoughts and words that seem to live forever within me.  The thoughts and words which appear so harmless and meaningless when they first touch the paper.  Even now, the words of six months past begin their restless wandering, ”and we are reminded that reality strikes at the heart of even the most foolish upon occasion.”

Oh, the reality of being yourself the most foolish.  It is this reality that is now the bludgeon that flails my heart.  I spoke of wonderful times tugging at my heart, as well as a man, Don Quixote, capable of living these wonderful times.  Now I find myself caught between worlds, and I yearn for the days of yore.  But I no longer find the courage to become a Don Quixote, and the swift and mighty sword lies silent before me.  Do I place my hands upon it, using it to severe all that is around me, or in another manner - to fix this weak and wandering heart?  Or has time moved on and tricked me?  Is the sword just another word, a ghost, that lies before me to tempt and taunt?

I remember the day that this same ”Don Quixote cursed the day that he could not help a friend.”

I anxiously await your reply,

Keith

Whatever my friend’s reply was, I don’t know.  That letter doesn’t seem to have made it into the box.  I do know that in October of 1992, I found myself writing him yet again.  Life was not through bumping me around, it appeared.  In that letter, it is the last paragraph that is the best.

I’m basically the same man.  Keith - the man of promises unkept, words unwritten, lives unlived.  Pisces through and through.  Breath and dreams.  The moon seems to guide my heart.  I listen and try to follow, but the path is slippery, the stars moving beneath my feet at every step.

Why share this?  I’m not sure.  Maybe because the path has always been slippery.  Maybe because it is very nearly time to write my friend another letter.

Imaginary Keith slept late this morning, so I just sat on the edge of the bed and watched him dream.  Dreams about college and running long distances.  One dream about getting in an elevator with five women, where he found himself stealing glances so he could rank the women in different categories.  Biggest hair, most mysterious, innocence, tallest to shortest, most comfortably dressed, most insecure, biggest breasts, nicest eyes.  Imaginary Keith felt awkward, stealing glances and playing this game, but it was a long ride up, and no one was talking.  The door opened, his floor, and he stepped off and that dream was done.

In one dream he ended up dating the daughter of a customer.  The customer is real, but the daughter is not.  Funny, that Imaginary Keith should dream about an imaginary daughter.  And then, just before he woke up, I could see that he was dreaming about the imaginary daughter again, only this time he was supposed to be working when she walks out onto the back porch with a camera and her mother.  They want to take his picture, out under the trees.  He agrees, and heads towards the trees, but stops as he suddenly sees a giant, black gorilla jump the back fence and run a few steps towards him.  He freezes in fear, but the gorilla just stops and waves.  The ice is broken.  The gorilla continues walking around the yard like he’s done it many times before, and Imaginary Keith notices that each time the daughter and her mother turn towards the gorilla, he stops and poses for a picture.

Imaginary Keith never gets his picture taken, but he does wake up, rather suddenly.

“How come we never talk about politics?” Imaginary Keith asks.
“Good morning.”
“It seems like we would talk about politics once in awhile.  Everyone else does.”
“Exactly.  Don’t you think everyone else does enough talking for the both of us.”
“Well . . maybe I have something to say.”
“Fine.  Feel free to say whatever’s on your mind.”

Imaginary Keith has so many blankets on the bed I can barely make out his shape.  That many blankets must be heavy.

“I had a dream that a gorilla waved to me,” he said.
“I know.  I was watching.”
“Oh.  I remember that I wished you were there with your flashlight.”
“He seemed friendly enough.  He did wave.”
“Yea, I guess.  But you never know about gorillas.”
“I guess you’re right.  Did you still want to talk politics?  Maybe discuss the candidates?”
“Oh, I don’t know.  I had a dream about the candidates.”
“You did?”
“Yes.  I was on my way somewhere and they all got onto an elevator with me.  I remember I was sneaking looks at them, sizing them up.” Imaginary Keith never remembers his dreams as well as I do.  He gets them all jumbled and tangled together.
“You were?”
“Yea.  But then it got all mixed up.  One minute they were presidential hopefuls in nice suits, and the next minute I was thinking about their hair and their eyes, and who was most innocent, and stuff like that.  That was kind of creepy, so I got out of there fast, after that.”
“I see.”
“Dreams are weird.”
“I’ve heard that.  But let me ask you one political question, before we get sidetracked.”
“Okay.  I’m ready.”
“Of all the candidates, which one did you think had the biggest breasts?”

Imaginary Keith’s kicks are useless.  The blankets are just too thick.

“Now get out of bed.  I’m just about to set the date on the time machine.”