Letters to a Friend
A collaborative work of epistolary fiction told through seven letters exchanged between two distant voices. Moving between a remote desert and a quiet garden, the correspondence explores language, memory, longing, isolation, and the fluid nature of time.
Written in collaboration with Judith Børtveit.
Letters to a Friend
1.
A.
I know that you (A) more likely than not will never read this. Still, it feels like a natural thing to write to you. Because the word only exists between us. And I own only half of them. The other half, I might never gain access to, unless you decide to share them with me. And if I know you correctly, you probably won't. This is the grand fault of the words. They are fragmented and divided. They suddenly lack vowels and consonants. Most of all, they lack substance and general structure. They lack punctuation and commas that you own and I only borrow.
Another significant failure with the words is the fact that they are unspoken. Even if I might take them in my hand and write them down, I could never rephrase them in their original shape or form. This is because I never truly experienced them. I have never heard them. Barely spoken them aloud to myself. So the words should be understood like this, with all their errors and deficiencies. More importantly, they should never be interpreted directly or with a sense of confidence that would make you blind to what they truly are. If you (A) ever read this against my will or with permission I’m not yet willing to give, I want you to know this. That not only do you own the words, you are also the only person who can read them correctly.
You looked at me. It feels reasonable to start at the beginning, and it is something like this. You looked at me. In that moment, I knew only the bare fact that you presented me with. What sort of underlying thoughts triggered this kind of act, I do not know. And I often wonder why you went from glancing, almost uninterestedly overseeing, to directly looking at me. It could have been anything. A piece of cotton on my shoulder. The scab on my right cheek. And I'm not saying that's how we ended up here. Again, I have to clarify that there are a lot of things I can't put into words, simply because I don't know where it all started. What I guess I'm trying to write is that what happened before this moment (the one where you looked at me) is in a sense irrelevant.
This kind of communication continued throughout the summer. And I appreciate how kindly you smiled at me at the time. For any other communication did not take place until long after and then, still not with words. I do realize that the word belongs to my language, not yours. I speak with sounds, tone, stanza. You, only with palate, tongue and teeth. It is okay. I understood it later, what you were trying to say at the time.
In the place where I now find myself, a fairly peaceful one, I am aware that it's been quiet between us for a while. I sit comfortably in quiet now, not sure what you're looking at anymore. There’s a seagull outside my window. Do you know about the Indian neuroscientist who researched herring gull chicks? He concluded that exaggeration is the basis of perception of beauty in the human brain. I'm guessing you're not an academic still. To attend the university itself was never a goal. To you, you could just as well have gone anywhere else. The words, which in turn fill the heads, books, and libraries of the university, you never truly related to. Maybe it just never came naturally. Anyway, the seagull left. I thought you'd like to know that.
P.
2.
Dear P.
It's hard to write, especially now that I'm writing to you. My pen feels strangely heavy, like each stroke of it pulls everything around with thousands of invisible strings. Objects rush toward me with each new word that I write on this paper. Things disappear at the start of words and reappear at their end. They become deformed and twisted. Slowly merging together till everything becomes unrecognizable. With all these words that lie in front of your eyes, I feel like a total stranger. An outsider walking into my thoughts and feelings. A tourist who only watches and is gone tomorrow with no remains. I can't find the flow of the words. There is a long pause between every two letters, with me devastated, trying to decipher the connection between previous sentences and guessing the next. An ongoing struggle for me, tearing myself apart and sewing the pieces back together with these wicked lines of this paper. It's the eternal war between me and language, and we both know who's going to lose in the end. Don't we, P? But I still want to do it, only for you to see me lying defeated in the middle of the arena. A mere sacrifice for the amusement of the king and the cheering crowd, of course.
Here it's easier. I have rarely even talked in the past few months, only a few words with my guide whenever she came to check on me. Which is happening less and less as I'm getting settled here. The villagers couldn't speak a single word of English and never even tried to learn anything, nor bothered to teach me their own language. It took months for me to know why. Here language is useless. Now that I know all of them and they know me without using a single word, I understand. I know it's supposed to be impossible, but it is what it is here. It happens whether you believe it or not. Every day I pass through the village on my way to the desert. That's when I usually see them. They always stop what they're doing and watch me pass. I know them from that brief moment when their eyes see mine through the cloud of dust that rises from the tires speeding on the dirt road. I know it sounds crazy, but things happen by a different logic. This logic that exists here changes every moment to suit that exact point in time. Here logic comes after happenings, not as a rigid rule for things to happen. This morning, a single moment of me looking into an old woman's eyes stretched into a lifetime. I lived her life at that moment. I cried on her mother's chest when she was born. I felt the pain of the times she fell while she was running with her friends. I got stressed when she sneaked into the desert with her lover. I felt something inside my chest when her lover touched her face for the first time. I was excited when everybody was dancing around us on her wedding night. Now I know what it is like to be a mother after the day her daughter was born. I know how frightening it is to see your loved one burning with a fever. I know the emptiness from all the nights she stayed awake in the village graveyard. I know how tasteless a cup of tea can be if you only pour one every morning. I felt all these things in just a moment. I know that you wouldn't understand it, and I'm probably making you more worried than before. But I want you to believe me, believe that here time doesn't exist just as a linear physical factor. It's a living being. It can feel, see, decide, and even touch. I couldn't understand it before, but sitting behind my camera every day, for hours filming the same frame, waiting for something to appear, changes everything. After all those hours in complete silence, I can hear how the desert is screaming now. I can see how moments can stretch and how they can be fluid. Now it's easy to float in it, without being scared of drowning. I wish you could understand it. It's a lot to ask, but I want you to at least believe me. Please.
I still couldn't find the bird. It's almost a year, I think. I have 3523 hours of footage but couldn't manage to capture it even for a moment. I know that I'm supposed to be back by now, but it's too late for me to give up. You're the only one who can understand why I have to do this. You know how sorry I am. I can't wait to be back, but I don't have any other choice. Here doesn't have all the sparkles and joy of life you're having now. But you're always welcome to come here to help me search for the bird. Sadly, it wouldn't make the search easier, but it's always better to be lost with a companion. I sent what I captured till now, and sorry for the colors of the picture. My printer hasn't been working properly since I got here. The bird is living somewhere in those narrow canyons you can see in the photo. My guide said it rarely comes out and flies in the open sky for a short time, and no one knows the reason for it. Maybe it's waiting for something to happen in those canyons too.
A.
3.
Dearest A.
Your letter took me by surprise. How very tangible, these echoes.
It seems to me that we both exist in liminal space. A liminality which talks not only about the metamorphosis in which we are currently changing and becoming. It is the division between what is and our potential that makes it all, in a sense, unreal.
Your description reminds me of this. Images of dirt, dust, bleached hair strands and weedy gardens. All is dust, says the desert. It's a Phic Knight quote.
Air flowing through spaces no longer filled with what was once a life. Which is now merely an expression of restless minds and restless hands.
I have always respected those trying not only to create beauty but to live off it.
Because liminality is both. It is life and being kept alive. Vulnerable, like a fetus slowly learning to breathe on its own. Creating sound and movement. Rippling from pipes and pools, cracking of concrete and whispers of still empty rooms. The bird does not admire the beauty of the cage it is trapped in. All the bird cares for is to fly.
And so, we find ourselves sitting with the uncertainty of what is to come. And you are right. Time is fluid, but so are we. Our existence in the liminal is undeniable, it always has been. But the substance of what we are transitioning into is quite in the hands of men and women. Walking in and out of each other's lives. Eating, swimming, building fire.
I hope you find comfort in this.
P.
4.
Dear P.
I haven't read your letter yet, but I have the urge to write this for you before opening what you sent. I just got it this morning while I was eating my breakfast in the village's only cafe. I'm out of hard drives for filming. I spent the whole last week here, waiting for your letter or new hard drives. I guess I'm addicted to waiting now. I was playing with my fried egg with the tip of a rustic fork that they have here. I popped the yolk. Bright yellow liquid was softening on the whites. A drop went further and explored the plate, covering all the previous scratches. I was trying to help the yolk explore more of the plate by gently pushing it with the fork when I heard Habib’s car in front of the cafe. A sudden strange feeling lurked inside me, my heart started pumping rapidly, my eyes rattling faster than usual, and there was a rush in all my movements. All these motions of me leaving my table, paying for my plate, and rushing to the glass door happened in an instant, so fast that it felt like they didn't exist. When I pushed the door open, the hot wind slapped me back to my senses on its way inside. Habib’s bag was hanging from his shoulder; it seemed lighter than on other days. He shook my hand and went for his bag without any words. The bag was empty except for the letter inside it. He took it out carefully with a subtle movement of his fingers, like he was handling a precious, fragile object. As soon as he put the letter in my hand, everything became calm again, existing at its normal pace. The desert was the desert once again, calm, slow, and proud. I went straight to my car. While searching my pockets for keys, I heard another footstep getting close to me. I turned and saw the teenage girl who works in the cafe coming closer with something in her hand. She put it in my empty palm, closed my fingers, and held it tight for a few seconds before turning back. It was my leftover eggs that she had made into a sandwich, wrapped tightly in a newspaper. I got into my car, started it, and “Slow” by Leonard Cohen started playing.
I listened to the song on repeat all the way back home with my eyes on your letter on the other seat, with a sandwich on top, keeping it from flying in the wind.
I've read your letter now. A few times, to be honest, more than a few. I lost count. Went through it letter by letter, to the point it transformed into an infinite cycle. Where there is no start or end, where words lose their meaning from repetition. That's where things start to make sense.
I spent my day in bed, looking at the sky through the corner of the window on top of me. Once in a while, a breeze slightly moves the curtain, revealing just a bit more. A bit of the same, deep blue as it always has been. I can't stop thinking about metamorphosis. I imagined a larva living only for the sake of knitting its cocoon. A coffin for dying and a seed to sprout. An unconditional trust in reincarnation with no doubt about the future.
Can you knit yours, P?
I think I can, but I would never have the courage to come out of it. It sounds safe in there. Complete darkness, absolute tranquility. A liminal stage, where I'm neither a larva nor a butterfly. A limbo where I can experience what is impossible to experience. Where I exist in a form of not existing. It's a perfect place of being nothing and everything at the same time. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Existing neither as a saint nor a sinner.
Do you know how that apple tastes, by the way?
I wish to know it someday, but you know how easily I can be scared.
It's dark now, I'm tired and starving, but the leftover sandwich from my breakfast is probably spoiled now, lying in the car all day.
A.
5.
A.
As much as I have read Cohen's lyrics during my teenage years, I've never heard that song.
But I guess, as in the song, they are fading away from me now. The affiliates.
How strange it is to be loved by someone, only for a little while. Or to seek desire, only to realize it fades with every interaction.
And that strange, tingling feeling which only appears in moments of inattentiveness.
What are we really when we have no one?
Empty spaces. Draped in silk, like you said. Or simply lonely.
I'm sorry to bother you with these sorrowful thoughts. But where do you go when you're lost of meaning?
I've started building chapels in my garden. Would you imagine me putting one rock on top of another? Digging and carrying earth. I've been growing stronger for a couple of weeks now. They're four in total. Perhaps not chapels, but a small constitution of meaning.
The first I built for spilled water when the rain falls, water pours in small, trickling streams along its sides and inside the channels of the bumpy clay walls. It's truly something to watch and to listen to.
The second I built for scorched earth. Naturally, in stone and clay. The bricks are raggedy and heavy in my hands. I've gotten furrows and burst vessels all over my hands from carrying them.
The third chapel is for lost opportunities, my worst sin is regret. I'm in need of a place to lay it.
The fourth one is not a chapel, but a sanctuary for wounded lovers. It's not yet finished. I collect driftwood from the harbor and carry it to my garden. There, I choose the pieces which have stuck to each other through the waves. Clung to each other with nails.
I appear to circle around my toolshed, the garden, the kitchen, and the bed. Rarely do I go out to shop or to see a friend.
I hope you are well.
P.
6.
Dear P, or whatever is more than that. Something more precious, like the trembling of my fingers whenever I touch your letters. Or the burst of heat in my chest rushing down my spine, leaving my whole body empty and numb whenever I rewatch our old videos. You are more than a dear to me. Something that no four-letter word could carry. I feel these sensations more and more with every day that passes. It's cruel and sad to say this, but I never felt this close to you before I left. Every night I’m falling in love with you again and again. Stronger and more hurtful each time. I never talked about the first night that I realized I loved you. I think that I never told you because it wasn't intentional. I had no other choice. It happened without my will or any heads-up.
What a horrible life I was living before that, carefree with nothing on my shoulders. I'm sure you remember how desperate I was. How all my past memories were washed away with alcohol at the price of my existence. Now I couldn't even call it existence, more like a failed struggle to vanish. How all the smells in life were lost in the smoke rising from all that burning tobacco.
That night we hugged for the first time. The only thing that I remember after is a strange smell that filled my nose with a faded sweetness in the back of my throat. A new smell after a long time, not bitter as smoke, nor melancholic like a few drops of alcohol left in a shot glass from last night. A smell soft like a white sheet that covers your shoulder on a cool summer night. An everlasting memory.
I felt like a pebble then, one that stayed still on the ground for years, and one day a little boy picked it up and threw it as hard as his small hand could. For me, it was just a loud sound of tearing the air, a splash of water, and slowly listening to the vague sound of the kid’s steps while he was running back to his mother, proud of his action. Then stillness again. It wasn't my choice, or yours. Not even the kid's or his mom's. It was something that was meant to happen, and that was the only thing that mattered after. I was the same cold and calm pebble but buried somewhere deep inside your world. I still am, P, regardless of how far we are and how separated we get in the future. I will be there, motionless and silent.
Sorry for telling you these things now. I know that it's too late now. We all have our regrets and can do nothing about them. I know it's just pointless to tell you these now, but what else can I do?
I'm happy for you, now that you start to build all those sorrowful thoughts of yours. It's the most beautiful image that I can imagine, your hands covered in soil and dirt, carrying a rock. I wish I was there to help you or at least sit somewhere near and watch you in search of your comfort. Sadly, I'm not. I wish you could build the sanctuary a bit bigger. A place for me to rest someday if you allow me to, which I doubt. I hope you find whatever you're looking for after all this, I'm sure that you will.
It rained here last week, for the first time since I got here. A crazy storm that only lasted for less than five minutes. I was watering my tomato sprouts in the garden in the afternoon when the sun was a bit less harsh. It started with a wind, stronger than you can imagine, followed by a cloud of dust approaching from the distance. I stayed out, looking at how all the sharp lines between light and shadow were getting faded to the point that I was in a thick haze. Another moment of not existing in my life, like how it always is here in the desert but with a different aesthetic this time. Then I felt a few drops on my skin between all those grains of sand brushing every inch of my body, and a shower washed away everything. A new birth for me and the desert, sadly back to the same as we were before.
I wish things had turned out differently for us, not a fist of dirt in your chapel.
A.
7.
My dear P.
I had a dream last night. I started writing as soon as I woke up. Not because you were a part of it, but only to share this feeling I have now. I was a child again. I don't know exactly how old I was, but young enough not to be bound by all the rules. I remember the old walnut tree at my grandparents' house. I used to hit walnuts with a long, heavy stick early each autumn and spend hours under the tree, searching between the drying grasses and untrimmed bushes to find the fallen walnuts. Some had fallen by the wind, some by the crows, and a few by my weak hits when I was standing on the tips of my toes trying to reach them with that stick. I used to sell those walnuts I found to my uncles. A great deal for me, a few walnuts for enough money to buy an ice cream which I wasn't allowed to eat in cold seasons. My mom always reminded me I would get sick if I ate ice cream in cold weather whenever I asked her to buy me some. I never got sick from eating all that ice cream while hiding in the small alley beside the supermarket in my old neighborhood. They even tasted better when my small hands were shivering in the cold. I still like it in the cold weather, which you always find strange.
The dream wasn’t about ice cream or all those walnuts that I picked during that innocent part of my life. There was a swing there, facing the walnut tree. There was nothing special about it. It was a normal old wooden board, hanging from ropes. For a child, it was more than that. I spent long hours on it, thinking with my fresh, curious child instinct, figuring things out with my untouched logic. Whenever I found it boring to solve the puzzles, I forgot about them and tried to swing as fast as I could. Fast enough to reach the lowest branch of the walnut tree in front of me with my toes. Now I know it wasn't possible, simply because the ropes were too short to get there, but for a child who didn't know about the value of numbers, there was always a chance. So I kept on trying.
I never reached it, but I only stopped trying when I was 8. When I learned how numbers work, how they can be lower or higher than each other. One day my uncle explained that the swing was lower than that branch and it was impossible. It was painful, but I understood it. I think I became an adult that day.
In the dream, I jumped the moment the swing was closest to the branch. Hit it with my torso instead of my toes. It felt like years of falling down, seeing leaves and a few walnuts falling with me. They were probably worth a couple of ice creams. All of us floating in the air, I could see a walnut spinning around itself. I was as excited as when you're waiting for a wheel of fortune to stop, to know if you're a winner or loser. This time the outcome wasn't meaningful, that excitement lingered with that ever-spinning wheel. Not for winning or losing, but for spinning.
That night I slept with no care in the world, not even the pain in my right arm wrapped in plaster could disturb me. I slept with ease and woke up this morning with all regrets. I'm sure that I will never experience that ease again, not as long as I'm awake. I'm still an adult anyway.
A.
Letters to a Friend — Hamid Attaran and Judith Børtveit, 2023.
Music reference: Slow — Leonard Cohen (2014). The song is mentioned in the story; no lyrics or audio are reproduced.
© 2023 Hamid Attaran and Judith Børtveit. All rights reserved.
