A couple of years back, say, twenty-two, I met a very pretty girl. Truly pretty, one of the most fine-looking people I’ve met outside a fashion industry. I met her when her mom and she came to an exhibition opening up in the hills in some minute village and my mum was doing the opening – it was a lovely setting indeed. (I always preferred village events to large city events; there was a lot more heart and a lot less showmanship.) She was my age, so around seventeen, wore a long skirt and a scarf around her head in a very cool looking way. From head to toe she was designed flawlessly, even her eyelashes, even her fingernails. She had a sister whom I’ve met later, who was normal, as far as I could tell. Me being me walked up to her and asked something, don’t remember what, and she just stared at me, blinking seductively. I turned to her mum to ask if she understood human speak. It was not an offensive question or demeaning – I was truthfully considering the option she is forest-folk, a magical creature.

Clearly we had relatable mental defects. For a while her mum was happy we hung out, although we both proved too mercurial for her taste. Over the following college years, we would just go on spontaneous hitchhike trips, or long train rides, we’d stay in distant relatives (of hers) bizarre places. It was great. I hold all of those adventures as happy memories. She loved being looked at, touched and painted on (though we never had sex), would often wear clothes that exposed her breast though exquisite weave or see-through material. We once made her a dress out of a gift of silk and painted it into a fiery, magical event fit for an enchanted queen WHILE she was wearing it – she was like a living canvas. People often stared or even walked into furniture or fell off their bikes riding pass her. She seemed oblivious to her appeal and I considered that a great plus – he strange innocence in the matters of courtship.

Gradually, even by my standards, her condition began to worsen. I am always very careful with my crazy, like an addict is careful with their drug, and despite often feigning complete village idiot mode, I am not so easily thrown over the railing. She, though, began to exhibit inconsistencies that weighted heavily on her appearance. For a long time, I think, her mate of choice was a very old Austrian hippy with AIDS. He was as cliché as you can imagine, pompous and possessive, he kept trying to provoke me into a fight as at the time I was just starting to train as a soldier. Though we lessened our correspondence since, she would write to me from time to time, tell me he’s died, tell me she’s going to study spiritualism in Tibet, tell me she wants to meet, then - having not shown up to the meet though I would wait for her for hours – accusing me of trying to drive her crazy, being in cahoots with her family... She’d call me a 100 times and if I picked up, she’d utter the most beautiful sentences, like: I have to comb my hair now, comb it very carefully, there must be a knot left or the entire book will unravel…

She wrote to me today again, after half a decade, I think. More. It’s just strange lists, some sort of recipes for nothing, some advice without any sense in it. It’s an odd feeling, knowing she’s still around, still thinks of me from time to time. Makes me think of those we can’t save, because Gods have a cruel sense of irony. There’s an address clearly on the back of the envelope. I may try to write to her. In her own speak. Carefully, gently. But is that a cruel thing, a taste of kindness, or would I be kinder still ignoring her completely?