200 letters for Mason

It was a wonderfully calm morning, Shallow Dump was draped in this foggy, summer-morning heat that stuck to everything. Drops of dew were dripping from the roses outside Shallow Dump n.18, the biggest, most crooked house in the street. The big, old and bent house, with the exceptionally overgrown garden, belonged to Mason Rembrandt.

Loaded outside this very huge, fertile garden with it's red brick house behind it, on this wonderfully calm morning, was a pile of letters about the size of a large television set.
The envelopes were all addressed to the same place, in colours of yellow, blue, white, brown, green and some even red, and all of them had been left by the porch of n. 18.

Parts of the mail delivery had been mashed into the mailbox with great force, indicating the mailman wasn't especially thrilled by the idea of having to load 200 more letters than usual in his bags this morning. You could also tell by the sledge leaned up against the stonefence, covered in tiny bits of paper.

The tall and stilty Mason came staggering out of her house. That was the way she moved, slightly like a giant, she had the longest legs in the world, today wearing her gigantic green rubber-boots. Mason had very characteristic cheekbones placed in a hollow, milky face. As usual she was wearing her catty glasses.
Her ginger hair stood out in every direction, making her look like she was wearing an agitated red cat on her head.

The moment Mason realised that a mountain of letters were piled up in front of her house, she let out an excited squeal. Like the wind she ran up to the attic and kicked all the boxes with junk into the same corner. With amazing haste she swept the floor quickly with a mouldy old broom.
She didn't have time to even consider breakfast before late afternoon the same day. Every single letter had been sorted after colour in the huge attic, stacked neatly beside each other. The fuzzed, gingerly striped cat, Scruffy, was purring in the sunlight beside Mason, that sat with her legs crossed in the centre of all the letters. In one hand holding a cold cup of tea (that she had completely forgotten), and in the other hand, a long, long letter.

Her mouth had slightly opened, completely unaware of the world around her. Beside her was a few biscuits on a plate, but they had not been touched, and a glass of milk had tipped over when she was reaching for a new letter earlier. But sitting among all this mess, she was glued to the floor for hours. Outside, Shallow Dump was consumed by darkness, but in the flickering light from the old bulb in the roof, she sat like a statue and read through every single of the first 200 letters that were for Mason.

//mason

The first letter for Mason

Out of all the letters that had ever been sent to Mason, the first one she ever got, was the most remarkable one. She put that above all the others, even though it had been kept in the huge attic with all the other letters for six years, it was now where it belonged, in her minuscule kitchen, framed.

Everyday, as she was frying up bacon and toast, her cat stroking itself against her stilty legs, she would look over to that frame, looking at the nervous little handwriting spreading across the red paper. If she bent over a bit closer, perhaps when wiping her hands clean on her apron, she could read what it said. She had read it so many times, she nearly knew it by heart.

My Dad

First I want to apologize, -sorry dad, sorry I ran away and you looked everywhere for me. I'm sorry I was nowhere to be found. So sorry.
I know my life has always been a bit secluded from you. Even living in the same house as you for the better part of my life haven't really made us open up to each other. This is my last chance of showing my integrity and to be absolute and honest with you dad. And this time it is essential that you at least try to understand. Just try, please.

There is never a chance in the world you will ever accept what I have done or what I will do in my life. I'm telling you that you couldn't ever respect me or praise me, because I was never enough for you, I was never the daughter you wanted to have. I can't be someone I'm not. And I know I've tried, I've tried and tried, sometimes I catch myself in the middle of trying again, but I know for a fact that it is useless to even attempt. Because you are as a mountain.
You are as a mountain, your head so far up, my small words could never reach you, so far up, you could look down at everything I did and was, so far up, you were always in control, so far up the air was thinner and more important up where you were.

Well forget about that, I'm not looking for an apology, I just want a certain level of acceptance, after all, you are my father, and despite a lot of different things, I still love you.

There are exactly 11 years between Hector and me. Hector is now 28, and me, your daughter, is 17.
I think this is the part where the raised eyebrows come in, and you build that high wall of ignorance and disgrace around you. I can't get past that, and I'm prepared for that. Instead of attempting to get your blessing, I'd rather just tell you what my life is like right now.

I have never been better, never better, never ever in my life have I been better. Never better than right now, right here with Hector. I'm living in his flat in Lovlenton, I'll have my final grade exams done by next spring and I'll get a job through Hectors company. We are planning on having children dad, you'll be a grandpa.

Hector proposed in February, we had a small ceremony and got married in May.
I am now a wife, I'm a student, I'm a lover and one day I'll be a mother too. Know that dad, that no matter what happens, and even though you will never see me again,
I'll always be
Your devoted daughter
Ally.

The Character Mason

Mason Rembrandt, being a dreamy, useless and clumsy person, has only one goal in life and that is to help people out. She has lost the apparent ability to do anything properly anymore and has let it crash out that way. Currently she lives in an over-dimensioned house made of bricks along a crooked road on the countryside. She has a little vegetable garden in her back yard, lined a long a river that runs past her house. Mason is a typical free spirit and spends her time best reading letters sent to her from all over the world, by people in pain. Read about Mason, her backyard and the letters and wherever that leads her.

The letter you never dared send

She was dredging through her old letters, shuffling through the envelopes, paper flying across the floor and slowly landing backside up on the scruffy wooden floor.

All around her towered massive mountains of letters, letters of love and devotion, letters of sympathy and understanding, letters filled with humour and comfort and letters of hate and anger. But she couldn't find that excact letter, the letter she had been digging after for two days straight. Her throat felt soar and dry in the crispy-papered air. Everywhere old stamps were fading underneath layers of dust, same as with the adress written on the envelopes. The adress these letters had all been sent to.

To Mason
The Letter I never Dared to Send
Shallow Dump 18
67 578 Forgeson

She had started the program across the internet, a website that was there for peoples own pain only. People posted long, complicated situations from their lives, they met comfort and unleashed their pain to the world. After just seven months her bandwidth had exploded, there was no way she could pay for more, as her job painting fences of the nearby old houses didn't pay off very well.
So she changed the website.

This website has been closed down, The Painful Program has been changed to a manual channel, which means you have to send your thoughts through old-fashioned mail. Yes, letters.
So, as a dare, send me the letters you never dared to send to get the pain off your chest.

The message was followed by Masons adress, for a while it was silent. She would stroll up the crooked street, peek down into the mailbox, pick up the occasional bill, or the letters that had been delivered to her by mistake.
Else than that, there was nothing, nothing for three weeks. It had been an especially hot summer, painting fences gave her neck and the lower of her back an excellent tan, but the rest of her was basically soaked in sweat and paint. So she spent the days away from the internet, listening to the birds sing, sitting in the frying sun, enjoying the light summer silence.

Peeking down her mailbox randomly one of these boiling days, her eyes fell upon a tiny, red envelope.

She picked it up and carefully read the address, she read it twice. Then one more time. It was indeed adressed for her and her house. She looked up at her red brick house and checked the number on her door, just to be sure, even though she knew her address well. She then read the description on the envelope one more time. Yes, it was for her.

Glowing with anticipation and with a heart thumping with excitement, Mason forgot all about paint, sweat, birds and the sun. The door slammed behind her, she let herself slide down the back of her door until she was sitting on the cool hallway floor leaning against the door. Her fingers ripped the envelope open and a neatly folded letter slipped out.

Her fingers were shaking and struggling to unfold it, resulting in curling it further. She licked her lips, they tasted salty with sweat and sweet with paint-remove chemicals.

She could remember that emotion so well, the feelings flowing through her as the first letter arrived.

Mason flung the shovel up into the air and shrieked with happiness. On the floor, just digged out, lay a tiny red envelope.

//Mason