“THANK YOU” by Thomas Moffet, NYC

topic: LOVE AND HEARTBREAK medium: TEXT

PenTales Pick of the Day

By: Tiffany J Colón

This piece is a letter to a woman named Inga who somehow managed to make a very lasting impression on the narrator after just one night.  Their conversation seemed therapeutic enough to throw him into a loving relationship with a woman other than her.  I like the familiarity in this piece.  It allows the reader to feel as though the narrator is talking to them, recounting memories they never had.  This letter reminds us that sometimes love needs outside help in order to blossom and grow.

Dear Inga,

This is a very belated note to say thank you for walking me home when I was a little bit drunk and very sad. I like to think of myself as a gentleman–the kind of person who would walk a girl home, and not the other way around, but you insisted. Also, I don’t want to point fingers, but it’s partly your fault that I was drunk, since you gave me those shots of Icelandic schnapps or whatever it was, that tasted like licorice. Anyway, I don’t know if you remember, but it was snowing, and you were telling me about Iceland and a boy you liked back home who had broken your heart. I was telling you how things were falling apart with me and my girlfriend at the time, that my therapist had described the relationship as like being on the Titanic, and asking if it was possible to swim with seals in Iceland.

(Parenthetically, let me apologize for being a shitty friend at the time and not focusing on you and the boy in Iceland, rambling on about my own situation, quoting Bob Dylan songs, and asking questions about seals. This was three years ago and I didn’t know where I was going. I was, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, at the end of one road and I couldn’t see where the next road began. That was when I still thought hearts broke suddenly and got fixed just as fast. Now, I think it’s more like a collection of little moments that bring about the ends and beginnings of things. So that’s why, these few years later, sitting in my apartment, looking over at Sarah, curled up on the sofa with our twenty-pound cat, I wanted to say thank you.)

When I woke up the next morning I couldn’t remember most of what you said. I do distinctly remember you said advices instead of advice, and I thought it was the best thing I’d ever heard. I also remember that you linked your arm under mine on 14th Street, when I wobbled a little on the icy sidewalk, as the snow fell on the trash bags.