In Defense of Flowers

To our alien overlords:

Flowers celebrate death in this culture. The death of a human is a fairly traumatic event for us, because we are all oh-so-special, and our lives are worth far more than the sex organs of a few dozen plants. When we die, we take’em all down with us. Of course, there are other types of death for which flowers are sacrificed; when a performer ceases to animate a character from a play, when the will to fight an argument has died, the passing of another year’s romance. There's no end to their utility, really. 

Flowers were bred for this very purpose. They have no other reason for appearing so brightly colored, so ostentatious, or so delicious. Their genetic displays have been carefully crafted over many human generations, it is through no fault of their own that they appear to be what in your culture is a common snack. While none on earth would dare question your rulership, we do mourn the loss of our flowers, but cannot even properly observe this cultural quirk of ours due to the very problem we mourn. We beg of you, please spare the flowers.

Humbly yours,

the entire human population

Wasted Space

Dear Woman sitting in front of me on the bus;

Shut up. Get off your goddamn phone, nobody cares about your Chihuahua's tracheotomy. That whimpering noise it makes when you get home? That's because it sees your mink coat, which is hideous, by the way, and thinks that you're going to skin it too. It fears your fat ass because it's too stupid to realize how fucking worthless you are. It doesn't love you, not even in a Stockholm Syndrome kind of way. It can't love you, nobody could ever love you.

No, oh hell no. She hung up on you, don't call your mother to bitch about it. Oh, that was your sister? Yes, your sister probably is a bitch. I'd be a bitch too if I'd had to put up with your whiny ass my whole life. Listening to you for three minutes has probably turned me into a bitch already. Over my ipod, too, by the way, that's how loud you are. The volume is all the way up and I can still barely hear it over your inconsequential yammering.

You're lost? Look at the fucking bus schedule. It's right in front of you. Just get up off your fat ass and go look at it. You don't know where Washington Street is? We passed it. Yes, it's behind us. No, the bus isn't going to turn around for you, dumbass, why the hell would it do that? Don't you understand the basic functioning of a fucking bus? Barring construction or emergency deviations, it drives on a predetermined route for a predetermined amount of time. If you need to go the other way, you get off the bus, walk across the street, and wait for the bus going the opposite direction. Not too fucking difficult to do when I put it that way, is it?

Don't turn around, don't ask me when the bus is going to stop. Oh shit, hello Mrs. Sanders, so nice to see you! Yes, it's a lovely day out, a fantastic time to go for a walk. Life is wonderful, I couldn't be happier, thank you for asking! How are you doing? I hear Giggles just got back from the vet, how is he doing? Oh, I'm so glad to hear it. He's always been such a sweet dog, my ankles just haven't been the same since I met him. Oh, I'd love to accompany you to your choir rehearsal dinner, but I'm actually late for class right now. Yes, my education is very important, I'm so thankful for my parents drilling that ethos into me at such an early age. Yes, I certainly do owe them a lot, they are wonderful people. No, I actually love my mother's cooking.

Excuse me? Did you really just say that? Your shepherd's pie is terrible, there's no way it can compare to my mother's lemon meringue pie, you must be off your damn rocker, woman. Jesus Hussein Christ, get off the fucking bus already. I've had just enough of your bullshit.

Love,

Your favorite niece

Metro I Love You Back

Dear Metro,

This morning I realized that what we have is clearly love.  I have never felt this passionate about another person let a lone a heartless contractor seizing federal tax dollars as well as charging extortionately high commuter fairs.  

Metro it is days like today when I realize just how much I love you.  You were the lovely tempest crashing into my normally placid and serene morning daze; destroying the houses of my thoughts flooding my sulci.  

You were so upset today, Metro, you cast me outside.  You threw us all out into the rain.  With your typical appreciation for symbolism, you of course stopped at the cemetery and kindly announced that we should all alight.  We stood on the sidewalk watching your lights fade into the dark tunnel up ahead as ice began to rain from the sky.  Seconds turned into minutes. 

Metro, how we pined for you.  Some of us blamed you and let anger blindside us, but the reasonable few, like myself, realize we are the only ones to blame.  Metro you are so kind and so benevolent and how we take you for granted. 

Sure you frequently leave us stranded on the weekend but you are never allowed a day off... well unless it snows over an inch.  Sure your escalators never seem to all work at the same time, but I am sure there is a reason for this. 

Eitherway, Metro, I know your life is hard.   All day you toil about the same tracks.  Dragging the silent and disgruntled federal employees alongside the overzealous tourists longing only to clamber off of you and go about their lives.  Never realizing what you do for them.  Never thanking you, but simply spilling the drinks you ask them not to have, or scratching their initials into your hard plastic seats.   Metro we wrong you daily.  You slave for us daily, and we barely take time to listen when you try and tell us how your day was.  This relationship is not give and take but simply take.

Metro today while I was standing and the disgusting rain was turning my light blue shirt to a muddy brown, I realized what an omniscient and omnipresent force you are. 

When I am tired, drunk, scared, lost... it's you, or a cab, who takes me home. You accept me no matter what state I am in.  You allow me to crawl into your chest and nestle sweetly between your ribs, while you glide me on my way.  Yet the few times you decide to take care of yourself first, and as a result we the riders are mildly inconvenienced, we rail at your walls.  We scream for your heads to be placed on pikes and paraded through town.

Metro thank you!  I will not chastise you for your imperfections.  To do that would only shed light on some of my own indiscretions.   I love you, and when the others hand you the cross and tell you to march up the hill, I will be there to bare your burden.  I will lift the oaken planks from your broad shoulder and allow you to march with your head held high.  After all you have not failed.  You have just not met standards and so you over charge; like a wise man once said "There is no sin in relieving a fool of his money." 

So, Metro, it is here I will end my letter.  Any ill will has been absorbed into the air along with water which once inhabited my clothing.  I hope your day improves and tonight when we meet again you will be right as rain.

Love,

Truly yours

To My City

Dear Stadt,

Hi,

How are you doing?  You okay?  You seem so distant... are you distracted? 

You know when I first met you I had high hopes we could be friends.  You were so pretty and confident.  Always shining no matter the storm.  Slowly though I came to realize this was just the surface. 

You my friend are narcissistic, and completely delusional.  That's understandable though.  Your whole life everyone has thrown money at you and told you just how amazing and important you are.   It's no wonder the people that call you friend feel the same way about themselves.  After all you will shelter, clothe and feed them better than could have ever hoped for.  You are a dream and a nightmare.  Mostly though you are self indulgent and forgetful.  You see many people give you everything you ask for, and you continue to grow and to prosper, but you have forgotten those who put you where you are.  Hell you have even forgotten parts of yourself. 

To focused on your face and presentation you seem to be missing the cancers growing around your waist.  They are secret and you keep them hidden but they still swell.  Slowly creating their own vascular structure and leaching the nutrients which currently keep you alive.  Yes you can maintain this relationship for a while, but my friend it is not symbiotic.  They are not returning you any favors.   They will drain you and you will inevitably die. 

Someone needs to tell you this.  I want you to help yourself.  I am done trying to help you my friend.  I have bled on your cereal for too long.  I can bleed no more without whithering away.  For that I am sorry. 

So my dear, I must soon pay you a final farewell, and leave you to your cancers.  Do with them what you please.  I wish you the best.  I really do. 

Sincerely,

The Friend You Never Noticed

Unadulterated Release

Dear Husband,

I heard you with her when I got home last night. I walked upstairs and paused on my way to the bathroom because I thought I heard one of the kids mumbling in her sleep. No, the noise wasn't coming from the kids' room. It was coming from your office. It wasn't a very childish sounding noise either, nor was it your usual late night office work noise. I heard no rustling of papers, no profanity muttered under your breath. I did hear the wheels under your desk chair squeaking as they usually do. The syncopation was different, to be sure, but the squeaking was there. Then I heard a gasp. A soft gasp in a throaty feminine voice that couldn't have belonged to you even when you still did voice acting. No, that tender gasp was all hers.

What were you doing, to get her to make noises like that? Was that what I sounded like, back when our love was still new? I don't remember ever feeling quite that free, or sounding quite that earthy. You were grounded in her; your roots had never grown quite that strong with me.

So I listened, rooted to that spot, and began to feel something unfurl. A freedom began to bloom, one that I'd never shared with you. I'd never experienced that blossom in the comfort of my own home, I'd only caught glimpses of it underneath the sticky leaves of the city, when wandering home at night. I'd hear a noise from a window float down the street, a giggle and a skirt flashing down an alleyway, a stray glance searing my insides. It was never a safe feeling, not something a modest lady like myself could ever indulge.

And yet, here it resurfaced, more insistent than ever. I never had to run far to escape it, it always respected the boundaries of the home until tonight. I found myself encouraging it with a negligent caress through the polyester of my pantsuit. I felt it mirroring the cadence and rhythm of her gasping and your moaning, echoing the squeaking of your chair. I wanted to watch you through the crack in the door, but you had it shut so tightly. I didn't want to disturb you, I didn't want you to know I was there. The muffling made what I could hear all the more tantalizing.

I went to bed that night more satisfied than I'd been in years. But next time, please leave the door open.

Love,

Your Wife

Fuck It All

Dear Abby,

I'm a grown adult woman, and I've only now just discovered the joys of promiscuity. I've never had any illusions about pre-martial sex being a sin or anything, and I've never thought that the person I was with would be the only person I'd ever have sex with again, but it never occurred to me to have sexual relations with several men within the same time span. I'm not talking gang bangs or threesomes, just one person at a time. Just, explicit non-exclusivity. God, it's awesome.

I was so worried about being considered a whore, and then I thought, hey, who gives a fuck? I don't need to be advertising my sexual habits to everyone. As long as I'm careful, as long as I'm responsible about who I fuck and am honest with everyone about the situation, what's the harm? Is this really such a bad thing?

I mean, clearly there's no room for misinterpretation or mistakes if I'm honest. As long as I'm conscientious about it, there can be no miscommunication, right? It might seem like I'm simply exhibiting the hubris of youth, but I'm totally responsible. Really for realzies, I am.

And what's the worst that could happen, anyway? I've been tested, I know which diseases each person has and have been assured that it's all under control. We all use protection every time, because no one wants to risk that. I mean, the one guy has a wife, and the other guy has a couple new flings every few months or so. And I sure as hell don't want to get pregnant, I've got to finish school and am in no position to take care of a baby, financially speaking. And then I'd have to figure out who the father is, I don't think either of them would take too kindly to such a squealing messy intrusion into their carefully crafted lives. Man, it's a good thing we're all so responsible. I'd hate to have to deal with all that crap.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is whether I'm a whore or a feminist. 

Temporary Temporality

To my professor from the past;

Hello. You may be wondering what I’m doing here, or even who I am. I know I look familiar, I look a lot like your student, but older somehow. I’m not her mother. We share the same genetic code, the same memories, up to a point. You see, my memories include a good fifteen years that she hasn’t experienced yet. I’m from the future.

Scientists are working on developing time travel right now. They will be successful, and far sooner than anyone expects. And they will be far less responsible than they should. That quintessentially human hubris will bring about new discoveries. The nature of time, for example, is rather fixed, but only the general flow of it. The more minute details of its passage, like which individual human fulfills which task, are far more forgiving than humanity is comfortable with. It speaks to our insecurities, our own individual insignificance. We could be anyone. That thing we do, that idiosyncrasy our lover is so fond of? Doesn’t matter. None of it matters. What does matter is that time marches on; it doesn’t care which pebbles it scuffs off the road.

The upside of this is that it allows for a good deal of flexibility in how we, as individual humans, experience our newfound ability to interact with the passage of time. We can communicate with people we never thought we’d see again with very little fear of the consequences. That is why I’m here- I never wanted to see you again. I hated you. You symbolized everything that went wrong in my 23^rd year of life. I blamed you for my failures in this academic arena for a long time after I ran from it with my tail between my legs (that’s another thing about the future, we all grow tails).

But I did eventually move on. I continued to avoid your field, but I found myself learning all the lessons that you’d tried to teach me anyhow, in different realms of life. I found myself teaching them to other people, for an idea is more infectious than hatred. I was forced to admit to myself that maybe you actually had something worth saying, underneath all that hot air. The embers of my hatred subsided enough for me to approach the wreckage left behind and realize that maybe I wasn’t quite so damaged as I’d thought I was. I picked up the pieces, and rebuilt a self that was stronger and more resilient. You taught me that change must only be painful if I refuse to let go of the past, but I had to learn it the hard way. I want to thank you, but then I’d just be feeding your monstrous ego.

I don’t know what lessons you’ll learn, or how you’ll grow differently in your future (my past) as a result of this conversation. I’m simply exercising my privilege, as a citizen of the future, to mess with your mind.

-Your present student’s future self