"Hello, honey ...

Well, a thousand years have passed since your last letter. There must have been a lot of events in the world during this time. Someone's child, born on the day when you put a dot on a piece of paper, is already running around the floor, knocking toy heels. But I don’t care. My love for you is closed from the rest of the world by an amber shroud in which it is difficult to breathe, but live long.

I have become another thousand years closer to the day when I can press you to my chest. And we will be together again - now forever.

You ask to tell about yourself. This is a sad topic of conversation. The days of the executioner are terrible, and the nights are sleepless. Just the thought that I and my comrades are cleansing this world of filth helps me to stand. Screams, blood, interrogations - these are some simple decorations of my life today. And this scum of the human race, with which you have to nurse from morning till night, deprives me of the opportunity to see you, lean your cheek against your blond head, sit with you on the bench, seeing off the departing sun ...

I hate them for it, I do my duty with great zeal. The captain promised me a promotion for special services. For you and me, this means the opportunity soon to acquire, finally, our own home. Have you already figured out what color we will have wallpaper in the bedroom? Only not pink, I beg, only not pink ...

For some time I began to hate all shades of red.

Yesterday, one of the most dangerous spies was brought to my interrogation. If I did not know who she was, I would give in to her strange charm. It is hard to say how she looked before. Little was left of her former appearance now, but she was surprisingly holding on, this serpent doomed to a heel.

We interrogated her together, and my partner, whom I already begin to hate quietly, overdid it from the very beginning. I will not describe to you the horrors that he did, I will only say that there is no such pain and such humiliation that he would not make her experience in these two long hours. They brought us to us, although torn to pieces, but a person was carried out by the wheezing bloodied garbage ... And my colleague, I will not name him, washed my hands in a dirty rusty washbasin. As if cheap government soap can cope with these stains!

My partner is a true master of his craft ... In his work, he uses antique tools taken by him against a receipt from our museum. I will tell you in secret that one kind of these creatures of someone's madness can cause horror. And their use as intended is not at all descriptive.

I looked at what was left of this ... creature, and could not believe my eyes. What a perfect shell can take evil! Crumpled and trampled, she managed to keep the grace of movements, the quiet power in her eyes. Even this humiliating nakedness ... this witch presented it in such a way that I wanted to turn away so as not to cry out for pity ... However, it made a completely different impression on the rough cattle with which I have to work.

One strange thing does not give me rest ... Well, okay ...

Sometimes I dream of our house. He is not yet in the world, but for me he has already opened his doors. My tormented feelings are resting there, in an ill-equipped rocking chair, with a view of the sunset ... No, it's better at dawn. The sunsets are too red ... And you are still asleep, in a silk cocoon of sheets, a moth at five minutes ... And I, turning away from the window, amuse your eyes, touch the birthmark on my cheek ...

Imagine, our ward also has a mole! In the same place where you have it - in the middle of the “great tearful path”, as we christened him jokingly ... And yet someone kissed her, this mole, and more than once ... Now you can’t see her under blood but a tear sometimes washes it away like a golden grain of sand ... Although it would be better if she did not do it ...

I can not say that I am sorry for this ... woman.We have been taught too well to hate them, so that we now have doubts. But her strange similarity with you makes me constantly think of our secret world with you, which we always hid, first from adults, then from children ... Only her eyes save. They are not at all like yours - wide open, like windows, towards the sun ... She has them, like loopholes, dangerously and predatory eyes. One, however, completely swam ... I do not think that he happened to see the light again. He seemed to wink at someone, and so remained closed. The second was focused on me, as if it was I, and not my infamous partner, who was the cause of her suffering.

It is strange that good and evil forces are able to choose such similar vessels for themselves ... Your angelic purity and its diabolical impurities settled in bodies capable of passing off for mirror reflections, being put next to ...

It is a pity that I never heard her voice. It's important for me. Very important. For me, it's more important than anything ... I have to make sure that this voice is not ... (crossed out three lines)

What a stupid letter comes out. Of course, I will never send it. Like the previous ten. Forgive me, dear little man, but my barking from the dungeon should not be heard by anyone except other dogs and their terrible prey. And the fact that I cannot be silent and I take out a sheet after a sheet of breech paper - let's consider this as my voluntary confessions ...

And now I have to go back to work. The lunch break is over, screams come from the cells again. It is customary here to serve zealously, and a five-minute delay may be perceived as criminal negligence ...

And I, besides, have an important thing ... I have to hear her voice. Now. Immediately. Until my partner spoiled her vocal cords. There is still a chance to make sure that ... (crossed out)

And you have to wait quite a bit. My answer will come to you when that imaginary boy, who was born at the same time as your letter, says for the first time. (crossed out line)

After all, say? Will say? Well, at least one single word ... "

*** Extract from case # 007724376.

“... The name of the addressee of the letter could not be established. The name of the prisoner # 008014445, previously recorded from her testimony, also failed to confirm or deny. Lieutenant N did not leave other records to judge the reasons for his suicide ...

Prisoner # 008014445 was taken to the infirmary, where she died from gunshot wounds, without saying a word. No special signs were found on her body. Separately, it should be pointed out that the birthmark described in the letter never existed on the face of the prisoner ... ” © Mr. Kiss, One Hundred Splinters of One Sense, 1998–1999