Letter From A Soldier

I normally do not set up pen pals, but I recieved a letter today from a soldier in Afghanistan who is looking for someone to correspond with.

He likes play dough, jazz music, being in the woods, and Snack Packs (vanilla especially.)

I can only select one person to forward his letter to. If you are interested, please send me an email:

I've already found someone. Thanks to everyone who volunteered. :) You guys are great!

6/26/11

Dearest Stranger,

Night is a marvelous time in the countryside. Night is splendid everywhere, but it is naked when there aren't thousands of lights everywhere. On a truly full night the limits of vision are expunged from your imagination. You see the world not at all, but the things you want to see, everywhere. The world becomes a game, an uncharted map, familiar yet unknowable.

There are many types of darkness. There is a silky liquid darkness that trickles into your pores and eyes like nothing else; seething into you like a living thing. There is a soft, warm blanket of darkness, that feels more like wool than air, that hugs you with humid persistence unless you force it to change with obnoxiously loud air conditioning. There is a blissfully icy cold drenching darkness; it fills the gaps in things, like ink, and leaves the skin feeling oh-so-alive. There is a barren, stagnant darkness, a sad darkness confined to closed spaces and dreariness; it is something often found in attics and tunnels, businesslike, it's most assuredly dead next to its brethren. There is a darkness that comes from inside you, and meets the darkness outside, they sometimes dance, sometimes repulse like wary cats, and sometimes they never manage to touch at all. There is a darkness that feels like music, that hums with a vibration just shy of real hearing. There is a darkness that feels nervous, not quite willing to touch you, but wanting to very much.

All of these fill the night. Darkness gives night another dimension sometimes missing from the day. There isn't a fear to be had from darkness, rather it is a lonely person, and it wants to be your friend. So, as you read this, in a dark room, at night, reach out. Turn off your monitor. Make believe for a moment, and find yourself less than alone.

6/19/11

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