Letters to Maureen
© Druid
© Druid
ave you ever had an imaginary friend?
Someone who you could play with as a child. Maybe fantasize with or about in later years. The imaginary friend who was the holder of your secrets both past and present.Just about everyone has had, have now or wish they did have access to a friend like that, even if just for stress relief.
I did.
Her name was Maureen.
Maureen was..well..Maureen.
Her facial features often changed depending on my mood or my need for her. She was sometimes tall possibly shorter, voluptious willow like, I never really knew for you see unlike most friends of this nature, I never actually visualized or talked to Maureen.
I would write to her. Let me explain.
As a child I considered myself lonely. My family was constantly on the move, my father was employed as a trouble shooter with an international engineering firm. Friendships were barely made when suitcases would be packed and flights booked. First names were hardly remembered let alone surnames, addresses or phone numbers.
One of the saviours of my travels was reading. Books were something that I could always get my hands upon and as any avid young reader knows, the more you read, the more you have the yearn to write.
Something.
Anything !
To write words and have them read by others became a childhood passion for me. This desire kept my imagination thriving.
So I started writing the letters.
And I invented Maureen.
I found myself constantly intrigued by local postal customs and their associated efficiences and deficiences. My parents always sent postcards, letters and cards to relatives and friends, in return receiving much more of the same.
Depending on where we were, the odd birthday or obligatory late christmas card was all I ever received. Any real written correspondence for this kid was simply a non-event !
When in my early teens I decided the only way to write, be read and receive letters, was to do it myself.
Why not !
The solution was simple enough. Write whatever I want, diary like entries, opinions, even movie or book reviews, then send it to our next destination the day before we left.
I used to get a kick out of opening a letter written maybe a month earlier and read about things that in many cases I had very nearly forgotten about. My mother thought it politely amusing and would often say to her aquaintences at the time what a resourceful young teenager I was.
I could always tell though that these same aquaintences thought I was very strange for writing to myself.
That was when Maureen came along.
I found it easier, if not even a little comforting, to write to myself as someone else and by choosing someone of the opposite sex it opened new avenues for self expression, imagination and thoughts to be aired privately.
Maureen proved to be just the friend I needed. Her female view of things often enlightened my male dominated subjects of scrutiny. Above all though, its practical novelty was fun.
At the time.
Dear PJ.
That's how the letters started and they always finished with simply, regards Maureen.
Until recently (I must point out that these letters continued for some eight years, even after my parents passed away. I found myself often falling back for a little bit of written support with Maureen) everything was fine with my secret friend.
I didn't notice the mistake until a second reading of that particular month's letter (yes, I'd gotten into the habit in later years of writing monthly). The letter had been addressed to Maureen and signed by me rather than the standard reverse.
This was inspirational to me!
With questions asked and views and opinions put forward, I decided to answer myself. I received the next letter from Maureen as expected but in reading what I had written, I noticed an unusual amount of spelling errors. In fact, with some of the words used, I had trouble remembering writing them at all.
But it was the next letter that really made me take notice.
It was from Maureen as usual but the contents of the letter were confusing even a little strange. Talk of things to do in my next vacation and things I should be doing with my life before it was too late are usually fine, but I didn't write it.
Or at least I didn't think I did.
I checked the post mark and it's date only to find it was sent from the same post office as the others. Thinking it could have been a slight memory lapse on my behalf, I wrote straight back to Maureen questioning the validity of the previous letter with emphasis on not making an error such as this again.
I even marked the envelope in such a manner so as to know if it had been tampered with even though I doubted such a possibility.
The letter took only a few days to get back to me.
I can still clearly recall the shock after I opened the envelope.
The entire text of the letter was different to what I had written and sent!
It was not written by me, it was written to me!
It was not even addressed to Maureen!
It was from Maureen!
How could this be? It wasn't possible!
I was worried, no, not worried, scared.
Scared for not knowing the answers. Scared to try and find them out. How could I possibly write something, mail it to myself and have it returned not only to read something entirely different but to be written by someone who doesn't exist?
I had to make sure that I wasn't going crazy.
I decided it was time to say goodbye to Maureen for good. My habitual game had rapidly lost its shine. The fun was gone. I was ready to admit I was now too old for my literary friend.
Far too old.
Far too afraid.
I wrote my final letter farewelling Maureen and in no uncertain terms, convinced her of my intentions. As an added safeguard for my now very shaky sanity, I recorded every word of the letter on a portable cassette player for when the letter returned.
With the letter addressed to Maureen and posted, I had nothing else to do but wait.
Questions bombarded me.
What if the letter is the same?
What if it's not?
But that would be impossible wouldn't it!
But what if, what if?
It came.
It was addressed to me.
With shaking hands I put the headphones from the cassette player on, inserted the tape, pressed play and while waiting for it to start, I opened the letter and on hearing my own voice cueing the start I started to read the letter.
I screamed!
It was different!
Since then I have undergone a self admitted clinical evaluation. Both psychologically and psychiatrically based. I kept myself there for three months. Tests were done and done again. The results found nothing and proved without doubt, normality. Finally, at the clinic's insistance, I somewhat reluctantly agreed to return home.
And when I got there, there were no letters waiting for me.
Nothing from me.
Nothing from Maureen.
I remember collapsing on the floor and crying with at last, relief. For the first time in over three months I slept soundly.
Why then, do you think I am telling you all of this, now that I am cured, clinically proven and back to normal, no longer crazy with fear.
I'm telling you because I need new friends!
Real friends!
Because I need your help!
And I need it now!
You see, I received some flowers yesterday with a card attached.
Maureen is glad that I'm back..........
