Ivan Vladislavic´

from A Science of
Fragments

An Unposted Letter

on the day of her death he sat down to write and took her death, or rather his grief, as theme. He found disturbing the haste with which he needed to convert grief into fiction. Yet he admitted that his grief, her death, became more believable with every word he set down. He read the words over as if he had chanced upon them in the flyleaf of a borrowed book. He was moved to tears by his own face, in a mirror.

On the day of her funeral he rewrote the piece three times and typed it up. It hardly filled a page. Rereading it, moved once again to tears, he found an error, and had to type it over. It had to be perfect.

He unpinned two paper figures, a dancer and a sleeper, from his notice-board and folded them in his page. Now that it was folded into quarters the page became a letter. He sealed it in an envelope and put it in his pocket.

It was late. He dressed hurriedly, and while he was dressing he realized that he intended to post his letter in her grave. It amazed him that this had been his intention all along.

The need to post the letter stayed with him, a voice speaking softly in his pocket, as he walked with the other mourners to the open grave.

In the end, he did not post the letter. A spadeful of sand came to seem the adequate gesture, a sheet of white paper an affront. But another consideration urged restraint: he had become too attached to his own words to part with them.