Every day it arrives with the regular mail. It’s addressed for “my dear”, but I don't remember. A tear drops, and I can't recall. My heart wrenches in my chest for a moment, then I'm left with an aching emptiness.
I stare confused at the neat letters of the strangely familiar writing and I know I should recognize the signature. The empty room echoes my hoofsteps to the desk, where I lay the letter next to its siblings. As the paper slips from my grasp something grabs my chest from the inside and squeezes until I'm dizzy with guilt. I know he deserves to be remembered, but I'm just not the right pony for it. He demands my attention, but in my mind, I feel myself drifting away as he tries to lead me to where the missing memories are, a place where I have a spot but it's only an empty void, ready to devour my sanity dare I try to cross the threshold.
A silent apology is all I can utter as I and wipe the tears from my eyes. The moment I see the words adoring the paper that's pleasant to my touch, I can tell it’s from that one person. The same sorrow courts me again and with an effort, I tear my eyes away from the kind words that brings so much from someone whom I've never sent anything back, yet keeps sending them. Whoever he is or was, he does so for a mare he cares deeply about, who in turn can only suffer from it. I know his efforts are in vain for I know who that mare is, but she's not the pony he once knew and loved. In these letters of his he always mentions things, facts, places and events that tightens my throat with emotional attachments that aren’t backed up with the necessary memories. I don’t know the reason for any of it. No matter how I'm willing myself it’s beyond me, beyond my grasp and understanding.
There was one time, when a picture came in the envelope. There were a stallion and a mare standing before a building, close to each other. I couldn’t make out her face properly but she looked like the pony in the mirror, only not so thin. The filly in the white coat who comes by sometimes paled when I showed her the photo. She took it to the other room and this is now the first time I think about it, since that day. In my mind, where he is supposed to be I see nothing I can describe, not even after I saw the picture, not even myself, but it still makes an impact on me. Mentally I extend my forelegs towards the lack of memories and only find the same, devastating emptiness and the desperation for something to grab on.
He was there, inside my special private zone, and I didn't want him away like others. I know he was, or had been sometime, long ago, welcome in my life. He is still is, in a sense, but at the same time he isn't, because I wouldn't be able to tell who he is. If he came to me in the street, I'd step out of his way without a second thought. Not that I go outside much anymore.
I used to stare at the traffic going by while standing on a bridge overlooking the city’s busy main street, mesmerized by the constantly changing variety of the flow, watching ponies go on with their lives, forgetting me the second they pass the bridge. Just as I forget them the same way. There is no purpose in my actions any more, and repetition has no value other than practicality. The days rush by me with me barely glancing at them. I'm just an empty body, seemingly indistinguishable from everypony else, but while they each have something or someone go home to, I have nothing of the sort. My pain and guilt doesn’t welcome me in my solitude.
Faces show up from time to time in the house I live in, blurred together in my memories which I know I can't trust anymore. I know the building to be my own, but I know I can't call it my home since that word implies familiarity and comfort, words I can't apply to my life. The ponies tell me nice things and I respond with courtesies, as I should, their words never truly reaching me and they all pass by me like pedestrians. They always change, they always come, they always go, all without making an impression that'd last. I expect them to slip my mind and they do so with predictable regularity.
I want him to stop, whoever he is, from reminding me of my failures every single day. I want my mind to decide whether it's wanting to make me realize something I'm not seeing, or forget him altogether. I want myself to be able to live. I'm willing to sacrifice what's left of him and the feeling he's inducing in me to stop the desperation I have to endure every time I'm reminded.
I have no way of telling if he's alive or not, or if he's real at all. The consistency of his letters, his choice of words, the use of kind things in the places my name would go, they all tell a story of someone who was close to me once. I can put things together, even if can't remember them correctly. The only things I can't fathom are his reason to put me through this misery and my motive to not to end it all.
Going on, pushing forward to the next day and forgetting the previous. The purpose beneath reduced to one thing. I only want to have a chance to understand what reason lies behind this phenomenon. Who is this stallion? Why are his missing memories in my head? Why can't I forget him like the others? Why won't he let me end it all? Why is he tormenting me with remembrance? Why do I keep repeating the ritual of opening his letters?
As the days come to an end, so do my memories. I can no longer recall the details of what happened during the day as I sit by the window, waiting for the first star to appear. Next to the mug which the filly in the white coat is so kind to bring for me even before I ask her, books form a small tower, novels I mean to read some day. They are worn and have notes on the margins at places, marking sentences with my own writing. I can't recall ever reading these books let alone taking notes, but those words of mine always appear next to sad sentences. They resonate with me, inducing a strange feeling inside of me every time, as if I'm reading the lines for the very first time. It must be my fault. I am vaguely aware of the pass of time rushing by as I stand with hooves full of love letters.
Every day I wake to a new sun shining through my curtains. I know the filly will come into the room, surprising part of me, even before she makes a sound. She brings breakfast and a white envelope I put aside for later. She's kind and doesn't offer a clue whether she knows how I feel. I suspect if she did, she would also be cared for by another pony like her.
After my morning routine my eyes wander to the desk with the letter on it. I hear it calling to me, as they have been doing for the past several years. I forget what I was currently doing and reach for it, already knowing what hides inside the envelope that's pleasant to my touch. I feel the lump forming in my stomach as I unfold it.
It's addressed for "my dear", and I know it's me. A tear drops, and I know what he wants. My heart wrenches in my chest, for I know he's trying to bring me back to life, but I shut myself up and let the emptiness claim my insides. The letter falls to the ground and I wipe a false tear away. He tries once again to reach me but I forget his gesture, and the moment dies without a trace.
I'm beyond saving. Living day to day, I merely wait for the end when I can finally join him in a passing moment, in an ephemeral memory.
