The Lost Letters of Annabelle: Seventh Letter

June 4, 1813

Dear Kitty,
     I know you have pressed me on and on to tell you more of Matthias. You complain every time I write and fail to mention him. To tell you the truth Kitty, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about him. I have tried to forget him, but the harder I try the more he comes to mind. Yes sister there was not a happy ending. I shall explain in a moment.
     In the market, in the square, and in the papers I manage to catch little things about him from others. The news trickles in and how my heart beats in different times! My emotions - since the event that lost him from me - for the longest time have been in disarray. That is one of the reasons why I did not tell you anymore of him for a while. I could not understand my own feelings and thoughts, let alone voice them.
     I have felt them all Kitty. First the feeling of betrayal - oh how I abhor this emotion! - the pain inside was enough to kill one. And sorrow is an illness that robs the body of want to live. Anger is a poison to the soul - it stole my heart out from under me, and yet made my mind all the clearer in intellect.
     Darling Kitty I mentioned Matthias not because every time someone spoke of him or I thought of him I battled a monster within. All I wanted was him. I always got everything I ever wanted or knew to be content without it. Not with him. I wanted him. So terribly. I want him still. And the knowledge that I must not, can not have him fills me with such selfish pain. My flesh screams out for an embrace that must never come. I must never give in.
     I played with fire. It was warm, it was bright, it was exciting. But if I let myself too close, I will burn to ash.
     And yet I praise God. This is the peak of learning who I am. What I am capable of. Where there is weakness on my life. If I had learned of womanly lust as an older woman, independent and without guiding parents and loving cousins and sister, I might have been persuaded to take the wrong path. The hand of mighty God has held me back, has taught me of strength as this young age to face my life with my head held high because I have denied the flesh. And as long as I cling to the Almighty I will remain victorious over all desires.
     Yes, Kitty. Matthias is gone. Tension arose between myself and Mother and Father. And Matthias would wait no longer for me. He found another woman. He has moved on. And he is happy. Lord be praised, for I could not bear it if he was unhappy because of me. Has Matthias forgotten me? I do not doubt it. But I am pleased for that. Let there be no unhappy memories. I am hurt. It was to be expected.
     I am to blame for all this. But I do not regret it. Is it wrong for me to think this? We ought to say so. And yet, had I not made that "wrong choice" to encourage Matthias' affections in the first place, would I not still be as naïve of such matters of relationships as I had been? Yes. Though ignorance and naiveté be a blissful state. You and Mother and Father and Aunt tell me of the world outside that I had been so carefully guarded from and only told about. And yet I stepped outside.
     You know me Kitty. It is so unlike me to do such a thing as to be involved with a heathen man. And that is putting it delicately. If Mother and Father tell anyone of my falling in love with Matthias, my reputation shall be in ruins, for everyone would assume that I had gone the whole way - committed an unpardonable act of today's society. You know what I speak of Kitty. You know I have not done it. Though in my monstrous state I spoke of I almost wished it.
     Though no one is happy the way things are now, now that I know that this - though perhaps not the best way - is what is meant to happen. Things had to take their due course. Praise God. I am whole again. I am well. I have learned of life. Though this was a hard lesson to learn, this is the better path.
     God watched over me. I have grown again. I am at peace once more.

My love,
Annabelle

The Lost Letters of Annabelle: Sixth Letter

April 16, 1813.

Dearest Kitty,
     Joy of all happy moments! What a man, what a man Matthias! He tells me we are just friends, and what does he do but the next week appear again to dazzle this girl with his handsome face and mannerisms! To leave the shop and walk among the gardens again. I admit it Kitty, I was so infatuated with him because of his surprise affection that I took his hand as we walked. I am embarrassed to speak of it now of course, but foolish as I was I had no thought of who might be watching as we went along.
     Oh Kitty I must be in love. How else to explain my behavior? My listening to him speak, holding his warm and gentle hand - a little bony too, but are not most hands? - just absorbing all of him with me eyes. Oh Kitty Kitty what has happened to me? I am in ecstasy.
     Am I like a pup with an adopted mother to think this way? All day long I think of him. Matthias. Oh how I long to call him mine. Might it happen one day? Oh that such a man might one day call me his woman?
     And then I think of what you would say to me. I know my dear. I am a foolish woman. Oh you would not say that, of course. But it is foolish of me to hope to ever love this man. And what if Mother and Father find out? It would all be doomed. But don't you see Kitty? That's the excitement of it! It is my big secret. The worry of being found out mixes with my happiness every time someone speaks his name. Oh the emotions of my day swing so!
     Not to mention that it all has happened so fast! To think, that only a few short months ago we had met! I know, I know Kitty. There are no faeri stories in life. Eventually I will be found out. But still! The excitement! The thrill! These are days I shall never forget, though they fly by.
     And who knows? I just might get that happy ending. I do not see it, not with the trouble I would be in, how that could at all be possible. I walk the edge of a knife. And still I battle myself how I am to win his soul. But oh the pure pleasure to receive attentions from this man. Things cannot go on like this forever, I know. But how I wish they would.

Annabelle

Alien Journial - Stupid Is...

     Evolution, evolution, evolution. What are these humans thinking? Don't they realize that they were plopped on this on purpose? If they do, they refuse to believe it. They think that they were smart enough to mutate faster and better then everything else.

     If anything, humans are de-evolving. What with all this "smart" technology, humans get stupider every generation. Nobody knows how to fend for himself anymore. Or as somebody in a movie - I think his name's Forest Gump - said, "stupid is as stupid does."

     Man oh man, humans are stupid I tell you. On those little packets of nuts on their aeroplanes the tiny print says Warning: contains nuts. And that big can of nuts in the grocery store warns that it was processed in a factory that handles nuts. You would think that humans would know that without having to be told! And what is it with a lot of people being allergic to nuts anyway?

     Then there's American TV. It's full of reality shows and comedy shows and movies where people talk and act with minimum intelligence and logic.

     Top that off with the decaying grammar of the English language and "texting." You know, before there were voice recorders, if someone wanted to remember everything someone said, there was this thing called "shorthand:" basically a bunch of squiggles and humps and lines representing whole words and phrases. Now, everything's digital and we have texting and something called "twitter."

     One example that I find funny and yet peculiar is LOL. Everyone tells me it stands for Laugh Out Loud. Someone else told me is means Lots Of Love. But my favorite one is the one my mother told me: Little Old Lady. I love to LOL about LOL antics of the LOL. LOL!

     So there.

A. L. Yan