Blapalap wrote:
dear motu: it’s bean time.
Mizark,
You should know that the courier was as unhappy to see me as I was to see him. I doubt you are aware of this, but I have left the minding of my mail to my old enemies, the Sentinels. It is part of the dues I owe Asthaom. They keep my daughter’s vigil, and that means monitoring my letterbox for members of the “old guard”—the extremists and loyalists who sought to fill the power vacuum I left behind. (Though I’m told so few remain, this practice is becoming incomprehensible to your generation.)
I digress. What I am saying is that you must have made a concerted effort to get this message to me, and they must have decided it was worth my time. Mind you, I have kept the council of untold thousands through the years. You are in the company of traumatized footsoldiers, refugees, and widows—people too wounded in heart and mind to comprehend. To their suffering I have answered with silence. There is no other answer I can give them.
To you I answer: Yes, it is almost fall. We used to harvest tepary beans this time of year. Why did you send this to me, an old fool living out his twilight years as a shepherd of the ash wastes? I have cast off the heavy yoke of agriculture with the rest of my people.
Please do not answer that. This message has troubled me greatly and I am afraid of my own indiscretion.
Never write to me again.
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