Old Letters from the Pythagorean

(he remains as yet anonymous)

30.12.05

I began to miss you already before we said goodbye,and I could do nothing else on the plane but stareinto space thinking of you.

Talk about infinite night...I think I experiencedsomething like 19 hours of darkness, since I arrivedat the airport until I landed at JFK. The whole timethinking of you.

I am sorry I didn't reply earlier, I am staying withfriends in Brooklyn and my access was spotty. But I doenjoy receiving your letters, please do not be so cruel as to deny me the pleasure of receiving and reading them, over and over again. If, when I check myemail, I have not received a new letter from you, I simply go back to the last one and reread it. I am happy to hear your dinner was such a success. I, too, wish I could have attended for no other reasonthan to eagerly await its end when I could finally bealone with you.In a few hours I will have lunch with some formercoworkers from three years ago when I was a mathteacher at a high school in Queens. It will be good tosee them after so long.

03.01.06

Well you haven't written me back yet and now I am theone getting antsy. What's taking so long?! Have you been really busy? Or are you mad at me? Throw me a bone, I'm going nuts here! Anyway, today was rather uneventful. My brotherfinally left. My friend Maya came to visit. My parents are on my case to paint my car. It looks like somekind of blue and gray leopard with spots where thepaint has been peeling off for years. Please write me soon. Don't leave me hanging likethis. I need your senseless ramblings. They sustain me.

08.01.06

Well I hope this last email was not a sign of things to come. Reading it did not get me nearly as hot underthe collar as your previous narrations. Are you trying to make me jealous? Constantlymentioning your former lovers and current prospects?Well it is working...but really, how rude. You don'tsee me talking about every fling I have had past and present.

The wedding was delightful, and I looked quite dashingin my suede sports jacket, polyester tie, and Egyptian leather shoes, if I do say so myself. Too bad you weren't there to see it, and even worse that you don'tseem to want to rendez vous avec moi in Mexico City.Though I can't blame you really, what could be worse for an overeducated bourgois Jude than a tropical metropolis full of twenty million unrefined proletariat and one half-civilized peasant. Perhaps a jet-setter such as yourself would prefer to meet in Cancun instead?

Back to the UK, eh? Good old Oxford is it? You know Ihave never been to the Isles, though I have always wanted to visit. Perhaps your return will be a good excuse to finally board a plane in that direction, if you would be so kind as to extend an invitation of course.

Wish me luck as I exit this land of enlightenment. Anex-Yeshiva bachur must no doubt know a myriad prayersand blessings for the traveler, feel free to spare onefor me. I pray to Allah that another installment from you willbe in my inbox the next time I find internet.

___________________________________________________________________

I think this should be pretty much enough, most of the letters I sent are lost by now and so is the old thrill. The dialectics of love can only be dialectics of damage and I should not proceed quoting lest I win a law suit.