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Letter to the Editor


by stephen hastings-king


To the Editor:


Some time ago, I began to write you letters with the idea of helping your newspaper become a more complete map of our little shared world.  But as my work progressed doubts began to take shape.  

 

In the beginning I made microscopic descriptions of architectural features and furniture.  Then I began to include people, their personae and activities.

 

Then I realized that even though I am making this map I am part of it in the same way as the box scores and photographs of roller derby queens, advertisements for hardware stores and stories about distant forest fires. 

 

Completeness is an unattainable goal.

 

At night when the ceilings are galaxies of shadows I think about seahorses swimming past scallops shells in shower-curtain oceans. 

 

Somewhere there is a photograph of my father standing in a field of corn.  I remember the photograph.  Not the field.  Not the corn.  Not the father.

 

I am full of holes.
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