Shall Not Sleep [bxb]

Chapter Ten

I woke to the coolness of paper carressing my cheek. It was an Alastair letter, looking like all the others, but was the most beautiful thing in the world to me. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning as I unfolded it.

Something else tumbled out of the envelope but the light from my window wasn't enough to find it. I flicked on my lamp and find, like a miracle, a curl of jet-black hair, tied with a shred of red ribbon, nestled in the folds of the blankets. I held it up to the light. Each strand glistened like it was wet. My fingertips weren't sensitive enough to get a full grasp of how it felt; I held it to my lips. Impossibly soft... I imagined a whole head of such inky, glossy hair and it almost made my mouth water.

He got his hair from his mother, beyond a doubt.

With it still pressed against my lips, I returned to the letter.

My dearest Max,

Thank you, thank you, and thank you again for your gifts. Please find enclosed a lock of my own hair; it is the only gift I can return. Unfortunately, having a personal photograph taken in an active war zone is a feat I am unable to accomplish.

I have framed your lock of hair on the inside door of my pocketwatch. My comrades must wonder at how often I check the time. Having seen your hair in your photograph, I knew what colour it was... but seeing it with my own eyes, no photographic or historical distance, is astounding. The colour is so... lively. So playful. Calling a mere hair colour "lively" and "playful" seems so silly, but I cannot help myself. It is truly beautiful.

As for your other photographs—words cannot describe those. You entrance me. Your eyes (green! I cannot tell you how amazing it is to see eye colour so clearly represented in a photgraph). Your little smiling mouth. And I just want to run my hand down your chest and stomach.

Can you send more photographs? Please.

The rest of the letter continued in pencil instead of ink.

I wrote the above paragraphs before I received your next letter. I can scarcely describe what I am feeling. Joy. Wonder. Confusion. Frustration. Joy that this is possible, somehow. Confusion over the rhyme and reason of it. Frustration that it has so far been random and has not yet entwined our paths. It is amazing to think that you have been in my home. You, Max, wonderful creature that you are, inside the walls of stodgy old Lansing Hall! You, laying eyes on my mother's sour face, my father's egg-like head, and hearing my darling little sister's voice. It is too strange for words.

Like you, I can hardly move for how tense with anticipation I am. Max... it is difficult for me to even write these words, but... I lust for you. If we were to meet, you would find yourself so tightly embraced you would scarely be able to breathe. And then, well... my upbringing has me blushing at the mere thought of what I would do to you. Suffice it to say I would immediately have you in a similar state of undress as in your final photograph.

Are you afraid? Nervous? I myself am driven into a torment of fear just acknowledging the feelings I have for you, but I have the excuse of being from another, more restrained time. If we are blessed with physical time together, I hope it is soon. I cannot dispell the feeling I have, that I haven't much time left on this earth. The way things are going here, combined with what you have told me about this war... I cannot say I am steeped in optimism.

What I mean is that I desire you more than I desire anything else in the world, and if I die before I get as much of you as I can, I won't die happy. There. I've managed to write exactly what I feel. Perhaps it's not too early to start breaking free from this archaeic propriety.

Yours everlasting,

Alastair

As usual, I finished reading his letter with the world's biggest smile on my face. This time, though, it brought, uh, the world's biggest... something else.