Dear Writer,

Nobody caught themselves. Everybody went a little crazy. I know you weren’t expecting it, but in some way, you anticipated it. First the perfume bottles burst, without any obvious force, a completely berserk thing. And then the fans, the big ones we had custom-made to cut through all the soot; those stopped working, and so the room filled with a panoply of sugar scents like a dollar store catechism. I looked for you, but you had already left in the way you do--escapist, sideways, creepy, if someone didn’t know you. But I know you. I know you can’t handle a space getting filled up by things that are uncomfortable for you for very long.

I should have left you alone. But I also knew where you were going because it is always where you go--that trendy inn with the wicke...

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