28th September, 1980.
Dear Jack,
Haven’t heard from you in a long time. I’m tired of remaining mum when my calls go unanswered again and again. I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and write this. I know this letter is sudden, unexpected and possibly unwelcome, but going by your bordering-on-morbid enthralment with anything macabre, you might spare a sliver of your attention to read this.
You might have been too tangled in the snares of assignments and deadlines to contact me during the past seven months. Someone else apparently hasn’t. One Friday, at 10 pm, I found an envelope slipped under the night post’s usual debris of bills and junk mail. It was vanilla white and contained nothing inside. Fragments of newspaper phrases were clumsily pasted on the front flap, forming my home address. The sender evidently didn’t even have the balls to use a disguised handwriting.
The following Friday, this very scene was replayed. Only one change- so minute that it almost asked to be unnoticed. The pristine new envelope had a scarlet speck on the bottom left corner. I didn’t break my head over this, it seemed an innocuous drop of spilled ink.
The next Friday’s offering saw that the drop of red had swelled into an ugly splotch. Through the course of the succeeding weeks, this ballooned into a garish ruby streak. And on and on it became bigger. Last week, the red slashed across the entire length of the envelope. Initially, I thought it to be paint, ink, or (far-fetchedly) beetroot juice. The day after, on an impulse I took it to a forensic lab. They deduced it to be dried blood.
19th October, 1980.
Dear Jack,
The little matter of the envelope refuses to unfasten itself from my thoughts. It follows them everywhere, even when I watch TV. When this happened last night, my mind sped to the 9pm news of two weeks ago. It had been reported that an old woman had been found in a pool of red with her throat slit. The newsreader chirpingly remarked how nobody’d have thought a withered prune to have so much blood in her. I don’t care that this butchery took place 20,000 miles away, I just know there’s someone in my own area who’d take equally drastic measures to know how much blood would spill from my throat…..
30th October, 1980.
….. I remember the thought whirring in my head that  while I didn’t know a damn thing about the sender of the envelopes, the bastard seemed to know a little too much about me, that the mere glimpse of blood stains is sufficient to send me hurtling into madness. Don’t you remember the time when Mira’s daughter cut her knee, and red spurted out of the gash? Just one look at that sent me reeling and blabbering dementedly. (I first thought you seemed amused at these dregs of childishness in me, but I’m sure you weren’t, ’cause you do understand how anything to do with blood saws though my calm.) Darling, only you can appreciate how these envelopes blow my sanity to smithereens, nobody else would understand!
5th November, 1980
….. another one arrived with the usual post, slid under my door. This one was drenched in crimson, with only a crescent of the original white peeking through on the top right corner. This- now…. a warning, or something else….I didn’t know, still don’t. Someone’s doing a damn good job of wrenching my resolve away, ripping it to ribbons. I can hear the hags next door hissingthat I’m now a cowering mass of skin and blood (blood! Why did they say that?! I know they hate me, want me gone!),that I never come out or talk but crouch behind bolted doors. But what else can I do? Anyway like that helps, since when were doors barriers to post?
My reasoning is fractured these days. I noticed that all the envelopes had a jagged edge. I had some vague, jumbled feeling of having seen that somewhere before, but I guess this was just deja-vu. (For a moment I actually thought the envelopes share scraps of likenesses to the ones you and I bought last holidays! Of course they can’t…Oh god, I must be drowning in delusions now.) Anyway, so ironic that some pathetic object of doom can remind me of you, lace me with nostalgia for our summer together! Yeah, I know I’m raving here,don’t know what I’m saying.
9th November, 1980
….. the latest one was totally in red. What’s gonna come next, a severed hand? Or will my severed head be sent to someone else? Oh hell, this is getting ridiculous, I’ve started to see mutilated bodies, corpses riddled with bullets in every nook of my flat….once I started sniggering during a funeral, I don’t know why, the neighbours ostracise me, to them I’m bonkers at best, a necrophiliac at worst. I’m swinging between unstoppable giggling and crying, then cutting. Everything is as volatile and deadly as lava, especially my emotions, nobody now likes me, except you. All because of those bloody letters. Why don’t you ever reply to me even once?? God, I need something rejuvenating, only my reliable lemon tea can calm me! I crave it so much….
10th November 1980
….. last night’s mail came. Jigsaws of envelopes swam before me, but only in my imagination. My adversary’s hate seems to be diluted, there were zero greetings from those quarters. The only mail I got were the rent bills and a new teabag (with lemon tea in it!) I don’t recall ordering it but I don’t recall a lot of things by now. How stupid of me to fuss over where bags of tea come from, I’m sure I must have ordered it.
10th November 1980
….. I think that the envelopes were meant to strangle me with fear and by doing so whet the sender’s appetite to do- I dont know what. So far I havent got another one but this silence is more eerie than the clockwork regularity of the post. Even my so called ‘friends’ hate me and want to ruin me,the cleaner tipped me off that they all are setting the town ablaze with fucking rumours that you find me a clinging nuisance and want to dump me and so on, of course I didnt believe a single word and have cut all ties with them, the thought of you like that is absurd!
11th November 1980
….. this miserable business is gnawing every fringe of my life, screwing up even insignificant details. I think I’m tumbling into a psychotic state, I get mixed up even while making tea even though teabags should be making me job easier.
Like right now- I dont know why my lemon tea isnt emitting familiar lemony traces.I dont remember adding any new ingredients though, yet the scent has been replaced with one of almonds! I dont even know when or why I ordered this flavoured powder instead of lemon. That too almonds with so bitter an odour.
I dont think I can write much more now my head is spinning and I feel a little nauseous the smell is so pungent! i’m never gonna drink tea again
im waiting more than anything to see you im so alone but one thing that keeps me afloat is that i know  i will see you soon and we have a whole life of happiness ahead of us and because of you i ever wont face any pain again
love you so much
Em