Never Trust This Person

Dear Kuo,
I saw you yesterday and you were carrying a bright green budgie back home. I always thought budgies were meant to be in pairs, or is that only love birds?

I live in a house with a flat roof, but not the kind you can sit on. But maybe I’ll try to climb on top someday, because you can wave to people from high places. People ignore me when I wave to them, but it must make them feel happy because when I wave to myself I feel happy.

Becci

—–

Dearest you,
I don’t think anything belongs in pairs. Necessarily. It just happens that people like things in pairs. They never ask the birds what they think, do they? I don’t think you should climb up on your roof. People might think you need help. People shouldn’t have to go out of their way for someone to bother them. Likewise, it’s too much of a bother for them to wave back. I don’t wave to anyone anymore.

- Kuo.
P.S. The budgie flew away. I guess it didn’t like me enough. Or maybe it liked outside more.

—–

Dear Kuo,
I think birds can really talk, they just hide it with squawking noises. At night, when not a human soul is alive, they sprout posh British accents and go ‘Yes, dear, those pesky homo sapiens have finally toddled off to slumberland. Now we shall dine.’ They have caviar and sandalwood wine.

People like things in pairs and in symmetry. What if you’re a symmetrical pair? Do people love you more then?

- Becci

—–

Dear you,

I don’t think birds like sandalwood wine or caviar. Because otherwise, they would have come sing to me long ago for treats. I don’t think birds are British either, because then they would stop singing when it comes to time for tea.

Are teacups more beautiful because they look alike? I don’t know, because I was never allowed to use the good set as a child. Even now, I don’t think I should buy a set for myself. I might break one of the cups accidentally.

I don’t know if people love them more. I think the symmetry lies in their heads.

I don’t think they really love each other either, the couples I’ve seen.

- Kuo

—–

Dear Kuo,

If teacups look the same I think they must be drunk and held the same way because you can’t be semi-identical. Yesterday I saw two cups on the table with the same pattern but one was turned a different way and it was ugly. It made me very angry and I went to my corner and I sat down.

- Becci

—–

Dear Becci,
All my cups are solid colors. They’re the generic Ikea ones. Mass produced. They reminded me of the people I saw walking down the street, all dressed alike. I don’t think that’s ugly at all.

- Kuo.

—–

This was something a friend and I wrote many years ago, and it was just floating around in my hard drive. To explain, both of us were ‘in character’ at this point, sending ‘letters’ to one another. I embodied a certain type of character, as did he. Eventually time/work/life struck us both and we never finished our project. It was meant to be a culmination of letters that each added a stroke of description to their own lives. My character, as I had somewhat planned it, would have slowly revealed her location in subsequent letters and the many things in her life.

To this day, I don’t know what Kuo had planned to write.