Early Winter - 1893

It was that last letter that settled itself somewhere between his vertebrae and refused to budge. For endless days and nights, emptiness and darkness chased itself around in Ja--Vince's mind, followed always by some thin flash of what could be gold, if one squinted hard enough. He didn't dare to think he was privileged to believe her, this daring Ophelia who had come from nowhere with ghostly reassurances and half a mind to almost understand him. And yet, he kept the thin scrap of parchment tucked neatly in his side-table where the dreadful pirate had no reach, under lock and spell.

Finally, on one particularly dreadful evening, late beyond that which any decent person ought to be awake in the midst of December, Vincent felt the tug of rebellion in picking up his quill once more. This was his only escape.

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Ophelia,

It has been some weeks since our last correspondence. I would be remiss in not asking how you have been and yet it feels entirely inappropriate. Instead, I shall tell you that my darkness has been cast into a melodrama. I know not where it ends and I begin, these days accustomed to it like a dull ache that the body resets its baseline to accept as a new normal.

Tell me, has anything of interest happened in the wider world? Have you any stories to distract my bored, fraying mind from this monotony? Any trivial dribble will do. I yearn for company more than substance.

Yours,
Hamlet

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