Author’s Note: Sometimes a random reading will lead to random inspiration and a random result. I like this way.
Create an imaginary friend.
Find a newsagent and buy a postcard. Send it to them.
Whenever the fancy takes you, you buy another postcard from a local convenience store or tourist shop and tell your imaginary friend you were thinking of them and hope they are well.
On a holiday to the beach up the coast, you buy a postcard each morning and tell your imaginary friend the ins and outs of work, the minor procedure you had last autumn and that you’ve taken up running. Each evening you post it.
One day you find a postcard that is a little suggestive, perhaps raunchy, and with trembling hand you write to your imaginary friend that you’ve been thinking of them. You’ll let yourself imagine they are your lover, and fantasise, and then consummate the idea at home. Later you’ll write a breakup postcard but you say you’ll hope to remain friends.
A few years will go by and the urge to write to your imaginary friend will pierce your stomach as you watch a gig at a local café. You write a note on a serviette as an apology.
The distance between postcards lengthens, stretching out to fathoms, and finding a working pen in the house is a miracle.
One day, you will realise you stopped writing to your friend. Regrets hurt.
Finally, as a salve, you will sit down and write a lengthy letter to your friend, taking the thoughts from the shelves of your mind, and cataloguing them as museum pieces for an audience of one because it will help if someone knows the truth.
Set aside packs of postcards and pens for your funeral.
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 