Love Letters to my Deceased Wife - III

JZL CK
3 min readMay 21, 2022

In the bus ride back home I dread quite a bit for its crowded carriage, I heard a voice much like your own. After an epic war with my inbred inhibitions, I asked the seemingly busy girl if she would be willing to read out a few lines for me. For a coffee and half a pack of mediocre cookies, I was granted permission to record her voice reading out your words. I am deleting all my music playlists- I have a feeling that I won’t have time for ’em any more.

One of the things that I miss the most is watching you read an interesting book- a piece of enticing literature, a thrilling fiction, a sad poem; I could read the book through your face. I adored the way the words had full control of your facial muscles; how it would twitch at the death of a beloved character, how it would stretch your lips when the narrator makes a witty comment, and how it would squeeze your cheeks when the protagonist loses the love of her life.

Books - every single one of them, reminds me of you now. And I don’t read them for myself, I read them out to you in my head; and surprisingly, my facial muscles also seem to have fallen to the spell cast by the words I buy or rent.

Human heart must be made of titanium, right? Assuming, titanium is among the strongest of metals. You know, I’ve never been that good at that stuff, like you were. Whatever the case, it must have been made of something really strong - cause no matter how many times mine break under the pressure of your memories, it always finds a way to heal itself - only to be broken again though.

I know that you wouldn’t want me to miss you so very much- but it is too late for that now. As you know, I’ve got no say in matters of my heart. I’ve heard that to truly know how you feel about someone, you have to imagine telling them ‘Good bye’. In my case, God took it quite literally. And by the time I was sure about how I felt, it was too late. It must be one of humanity’s biggest failures that they can’t truly appreciate the value of something until they lose it- and a cruel attempt at humour by the creator.

You really were the best thing about my life. If I were forced to celebrate a day of the year as my own, it would be the day I met you - it still feels like I am living in the same day, which just got stuck in time or extended indefinitely. How divine would it be if time was reversed, and I could live those days all over again - even the slightly bad ones, well - especially the slightly bad ones; so that I get to make them at least a little better. I am not sure though how any of my days can be made better without you.

I think I am gonna stop writing these letters to you now. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to get the right words out- if there exists anything of that sort. But inside my head, I’ve written volumes for you which lack translation to any of the languages known to mankind, except yours. So, I’d want you to do me this one favour and read my thoughts - you were always good at that - even when I myself were absurdly incompetent in that domain. If you’re good with that, you can start now…

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