Offal...
Nat,
The sky here is a pale blue interrupted by constant flashes of yellow and red, this night is all hellfire. The jet planes are screaming overhead and the bombs are raining down on Richmond proper. I don’t think any man, scholar, soldier, or plain observer besides could imagine times like ours now. Where once we pit brother against brother, father against son over ideology, we have done so again and for what? This is all insanity, vain vanity, argument for its own sake and so many will suffer and die now for nothing.
I never should have stopped fighting for your love. I never should have let myself forget what truly matters while flailing around for what I thought I wanted and what I assumed we needed to live well. Our marriage always felt like a race, but toward what?
My lived my life like a marathon runner, always striving for first place, and for what?
We had everything two people could ever truly need and so much more and we both seemed to be left wanting. We made ourselves and each other comfortable in every way and at every step along that long road we only ever seemed to grow ever farther apart.
I will likely never see you again, my wife, my best friend, my life long companion. You will certainly never read these words. All the more important that I write them now. I am so very sorry for how things went between us, how things ended for us. Our last words shouldn’t have been wasted on argument. Our last words should have been joined in celebration. We once loved each other, fiercely, proudly, honestly, even apart we were both something to be feared. I will die now wondering how much stronger we could have been together and how much more of my life I would have enjoyed if I could have looked past the silly and meaningless demands made of me as well as the demands I made of myself.
Forever yours,
Wally.
Garrett carefully pulled at the top of the ancient paper and felt it nearly disintegrate. A man was sitting up here, over a century ago, watching his city and his entire way of life unraveling and he took the time to write the letter. A letter he fully understood would never be seen, not by his estranged wife, or most likely by anyone at all.
Wally wasn’t just watching his city or his country die, he was watching nearly all life on the planet being extinguished. He had probably been watching it all slowly come apart for years before those final missile strikes blasted apart most of the eastern seaboard and sunk the rest besides as ever higher seawalls were destroyed or overcome by the rising oceans.