"Block Sender"

The break-up had been a nasty one. Neither had compromised on their positions and in the end, it was Karen who had walked away, unwilling to submit to the seemingly tyrannical standards he demanded. What right did he have, anyway, to make demands on her? She was her own person, a slave to no one.

For several days after the end of the relationship, Karen was not at all displeased with herself, but rather smug and self-secure. She felt that she had escaped a future disaster, had been rather perceptive and had sidestepped the train wreck that a long-term relationship with him would have been. She had let relationships go too far before, but this was the beginning of a new way of life for Karen. Now, she was on her way to true happiness, and she was relieved that this rapidly approaching delight did not include him.

After a few days, the first e-mail message arrived.

There was nothing written in the "sender" block, and the subject line simply said "hi," so she had to open the message to discern its author. At first she suspected junk mail: an offer of debt consolidation or a free Hawaii vacation. It was nothing like that.

She had forgotten his way with words. He was blunt when she needed straightforwardness, and poetic when she needed wooing. Here he was, in the lines of this letter, alternately displaying these qualities as he spelled out for her what she was missing now that she was "free." He was not cocky or conceited in expressing this sentiment, but rather matter-of-fact and even gentle. If he hadn't known how to write, Karen would have stopped reading after the opening paragraph, but he had baited her, and she had jumped at the enticement. She found herself in tears as she scrolled to the end of perhaps the most beautiful message to ever appear in her inbox.

Then, as if the words of the message had all suddenly become their own antonyms, she deleted the message permanently, and reaffirmed in her mind her decision to stay away from him. Rather than convinced to return to him, she was now more furious than ever and cursed him in her mind as she, in defiance, stormed away from her computer and sought solace in the other glowing screen in her apartment.

Another message appeared in her inbox the next day. She opened it for long enough to find out who it was from, and got rid of it.

The next day another message was found when she logged in. The messages kept coming, sometimes spaced days apart, sometimes one right after the other. Some days, depending on her mood, she would read them, sometimes coming to tears, sometimes on the verge of running out of her door to find him and say "yes." Other days she ignored them as best she could, though the sheer beauty of his skill as a wordsmith would sometimes make her open them just to savor a few phrases before sending the e-mail into cyber oblivion. Some days he would find a scathing reply in his own inbox. Still he wrote.

Deep down, Karen knew he was right. Her life was empty without him, but she had to show that this freedom she had fought for and won could triumph over his loving sincerity, no matter how eloquently he expressed it. He was chasing her, but she would not be caught, though she wished sometimes that he would just make her his own by force. That was not his way, though. He waited to be invited in.

The years went by, and the e-mail messages still haunted her account. She aged, and badly. She went through many "lovers," many attempts to numb the pain and feed her self-destructive ambition to escape him. He did not relent, though she continued to break his heart with her seeming indifference or contemptuous replies. He wrote still, consistent and sincere as always.

One cold night, she received his e-mail and had read half of it when her body and mind, sick from years of running, gave up. In her last moments, she regretted her avoidance of him, but still would not admit to herself that he was all she ever needed. As she slowly slumped over the keyboard, she heard a knock at the door, but her failing body was unable to respond. The conclusion of this night's letter had informed Karen that he was coming to see her tonight, coming to give her one last chance. But she could not receive her persistent admirer. She had run too far and for too long.

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Contributed byStephen F. Pizzini
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