Dear…
Mr. & Mrs. House; that’s my parents and they love coffee and not much else. They have 7 kids and I am the 7th. Max, that’s me. Coffee that is their life actually was their life.
Mr. & Mrs. House up at 6:30am, by 6:35 they are sitting at a small kitchen table built for two. Yellow formica table top with four rusted steel legs two chairs that are permanently wrapped in a thick plastic with faded pink flowers imprinted on the cushions.
My Mom makes the coffee like a sacred ritual. She opens the big blue can, takes a deep breath of the grounds and then four large scoops into a stainless steel coffee pot that was given to them as a wedding gift. They sit at that table and wait the 4 minutes and 32 seconds for life to begin, again. After the 1st cup is drank my father pours the 2nd cup for the both of them and then looks at his wife and says, “Don’t say I never do anything for you.” He says this everyday and not much else to her. My Mom just smiles and reads yesterday’s newspaper.
This is what I wake up to; the smell of coffee, and two fat parents in a small kitchen who could care less about me. To be fair, at least they treat me like all their others kids. The siblings seven: the two oldest in jail for drugs, next set got the hell out of here over ten years ago. I don’t see either of them very often but they do send me books and music at Christmas and on my birthday. That leaves the two siblings that I should be close with, my brother & sister. I am not for no particular reason. We do not fight or have different views; we are simply distant from one another. It’s like when you see a cousin every other year at a family event. Sure there is a family resemblance and polite conversation, nonetheless he is a stranger to you. That’s us as siblings; strangers who are polite.
As for me being born as lucky number 7, well that is not clear to me yet. To say that my arrival into this world was a surprise would be an understatement. If the New York Giants did not win the Super Bowl in 1987 there is a good chance that I would not of been born. But here I am at this computer telling you my stories and hoping somebody out there is reading them. They say that you choose your parents before you’re born in the great Hall of Bluff in Heaven. I have no idea what I was thinking up there in the after life or the before life or whatever you want to call it. All I know is that I must have been up for a challenge choosing Mr. & Mrs. House.
Nine months and 12 days after the Giants won the Super Bowl my parents finally got around to giving me a name. There was no debate or thought as to what to name me; they just didn’t get around to it.
On day 12 of life they decided on a name for me. At 6:39am one minute before the coffee would be ready. Mrs. House holds ups her beloved blue can of coffee and looks at Mr. House and says “How about Maxwell?” So, Mr. & Mrs. House named their 7th child after their true love. That must mean something, right?
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
It has been 4 years since the abandoning. I live alone on a small plot of live land on a dead planet. As far as I know I am the only one left. When I say dead planet, I mean dead. If you walk off my land the world is gone. No people, no buildings, no trees, no plants, no air, no sky, no water, no memories; only death. It is like one of those photos of the Moon or Mars, a crater of dead rock suspended in space with no purpose. Accept for my small plot of land.
Is this purgatory or paradise, paradise lost or paradise found? I have not discovered that answer yet. Why was I spared from the abandoning? I do not know. I am the last of humankind, all extinct but me enveloped in silence, the last to speak or to use language.
Why publish these letters if nobody is left to read them?
The abandoning left me with this land, one working computer and an internet connection. A single solar panel on the house powers the computer and there must be a satellite left up in space that I can get an internet connect from. This is all just a guess. I have no explanation for this and have stopped trying to find one a long time a go.
The internet is filled up with the wisdom of my ancestors; I will have no descendants to tell my stories to. The Abandoning left me this vessel for communication. It must mean something, and this is why I write these letters.
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
Up at 6:30am, I must be a creator of breading, I say to myself out loud. No coffee but black tea and raw almonds provided by the land. This will do. Twelve raw almonds I must eat every morning before I start my day. I have no inkling why it has to be twelve, but twelve it must be. OCD in purgatory or paradise.
Day 1,468 I sit in the kitchen as my parents did. Starting out the same bay window, with the same smoke yellowed curtains with a blue dove pattern. From this window I can see the only other sign of life left on the planet and it’s actually a sign. A real sign; a billboard. A billboard that sits on the very edge of my land and a death planet, separated by advertising.
This billboard is not the typical roadside billboard that you’re used to seeing, it’s enormous. Think of the Las Vegas strip on steroids. This black and white structure stands 50ft high by 100 feet long and it reads…
Ye are all GODS
and it’s about time
you start getting good at it
and it’s about time
you start getting good at it
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
Yes, it was maddening. The world is gone. I awoke to nothing. No violence, no war, no rapture, no explanation, nothing. Writing this I am not sure if I am sane or insane. This is no dream. The land and the billboard told me so. Not in a voice or a feeling but their existence gives me reason to believe.
My land is perfect. It is everything I need to sustain my life; hell it has everything I need to grow old and fat. Freshwater stream with fish, an orchard of fruit trees, rows and rows of vegetable gardens, birds in the sky, squirrels and chipmunks on the ground. I live on the perfect farm; a land of perennial bounty with none of the work.
Traveling this land I now know so well I feel guilty if a have to kill any animal for food since now these animals with the land are my community…my people. My only predator is time.
I have to go now. The sun is setting and I’m losing power.
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
I play guitar, a 67 Martian acoustic. This instrument holds memories of the life I was living before the abandoning. I played too well not to be a professional musician but not well enough to be noticed in my profession. Now I sit at the edge of my land under the shade of the billboard and play for the audience that I wish was listening.
Reminiscent sounds of clapping in the distance...could it be?
Two walking shadows at the foot of the billboard move towards me. I cannot understand nor believe it. I run towards the billboard.
“Hello Maxwell.” Says the man.
“Why...how...who are?” I ask dumbfounded
“You say that every time we meet Maxwell.” He says with a strange, knowing look on his face. "This is my wife Eve and I am Adam."
