Below is the transcript of the note written on the inside of a regular sized greeting card that we received from a regular phone reference caller. To the Reference and all other wonderful staff at the Library,
Please accept my most sincere thanks for your unfailing kindness and patience with me.
I deeply regret that – by default or design – I have been unable to visit the library, now, these five years past.
I know I must prove tedious to the reference staff – in particular – with my frequent telephone calls and requests for information, however obscure. Please know, that it is born of a compelling need to keep sharp my mind, ever as the very body be steeped in corruption.
It has been my pleasure to come to know so many of you by name, and by temperament, which has been invariably amiable and tolerant. I have found your keen wit, sharp intellect, and immensely pleasurable discourse to be both engaging, and edifying. I know that you have allowed me to give vent to whatever transient interest I might have. To offer – then – as an apology, I once possessed an IQ and a mind that thrived upon knowledge.
All, now, is as smoke and mirrors.
I no longer watch television, as I find it to be both jejune and/or frightening, especially now, in a world I scarcely recognize.
I have the leisure – if not the inclination – to spend hours lost in thought, or, at work upon my writings; it has proven to be a tonic for loneliness and for days of intractable pain, an acceptable anodyne.
Please know that my requests, however silly, obscure, or banal, are – at some elusive base – bound by a discrete, yet common thread, fully as delicate as any web spun by Arachne.
And whilst I may have nothing else left, I have – of candor – a full measure.
I cannot auger the future, nor have I Cassandra’s gift of prophecy, I only know that once, I looked full upon the face of the Gorgon… yet lived. And did I emerge from that refiner’s fire ennobled, better, or with a burnished brightness that hurt the eyes? Time is forever the enemy. Having been chastened, was I purified as well?
But to you, dear, dear people, I can only say, ‘Bravo, Brava, Kudos, and deep thanks’, weaving for you – were I able – a fragrant garland of laurel wreaths for your hair.
