[Return Letter]
[Sent a week after the full moon. On unlined paper and written in black ink. Sloppy script.]
Steve,
“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."
Good to hear from you, Kerouac. Would love to discuss morality at length. What is above price and has no equivalent? The things you value, I know, qualify. Honor. Right. Etc. Would argue even those things have a price in this world. Shouldn't, but they do. Or do you feel that in their purest form they don't? Honor, if bought, isn't honor. Etc.
Would continue, but things here have gotten complicated. Funny thought, isn't it? That they could be more complicated than when you were here. Somehow, it's happened. Could blame you. Say your leaving tipped the scales of town morality firmly from gray to something sinister. Pick the most sinister color you can think of and enter it here. Colors are subjective, I find, as are their meanings. My point is, long-winded as it has been, that I don't have much time for writing. I'll give you the salient points. Try not to read too much into the brevity or lack of intonation. Know that I am, at all times, conveying levity in the words.
Did you believe that?
Your penned letters to Janus probably received no response. Or, if they did, it wasn't Janus penning the words. Not much of Janus present in Janus at present, but we're working to resolve that. Did we go on a date? Yes. I did splendidly. Even opened the taxi door for him at the end. Think he was mildly traumatized by my charming behavior. Will, hopefully, be able to ask him yourself soon.
Got locked in a cellar by a vampire. Was interesting. Did a lot of reading. Spent time thinking. Planned my future memoirs. Angered my best friend by not allowing her into my treehouse. She's in love with your Owen. It's, as they say on Facebook, complicated. Spent a few months being drunk, which didn't stick. Decided to look into werewolves. Got a job at an interesting library. If you're ever in town, you should come by. It's the in Capital. Have an office in the basement. Suits me. Glad you wrote?
A.M.
P.S.: “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”