A Christmas Kresten:

Kresten:

You accused me of holding others to impossible standards. Perhaps Alanna made that accusation. I cannot remember now. But you called me a moral perfectionist. Yet it was you. You held me to impossible standards. I will never know the life of reciprocal relationship. How can you call the travesty surrounding Alexandra a relationship? How could you hold that against me? It’s been ten years since anyone has “formally agreed to date me”. How can anyone require that of me? The formal agreement is the reward, not the prerequisite. But I may never be rewarded. Alanna is dead. There is no escaping that fact, except by following her own route. Perhaps I ought to consider it with more seriousness. I do love the Japanese for that, among other things.

I hope you are happy to see me reduced to this. You have won, after all. Fascism has come to this country. What else is a “formal relationship” except for an elaborate social conspiracy? I thought I’d found a commiserator in you. But you were only ever one of them. Shame upon you for pretending towards solidarity with me.

I can change neither the World nor myself. I am too weak. What others take for granted are a fantasy to me. No amount of authenticity, pain, anxiety, talent or reasoning can contend with the argument “but I am already happy”. I have nothing to offer. So be it. I can take. I’ve done that my entire life. You know that best. It takes one to know one. But if I die before you do, if my conscience catches up with me before yours does, then know that you must carry the torch for the leeches in my stead. I do not doubt it will be me that gets to see Alanna first in Heaven. After all: she was innocent, and I knew that from the moment I first met her. An empath picks up on things like that. But no one ever told you empathy was creepy. Like all truths, you had to realize it in the domain of a private genius, using convention to contend with it until the Truth came to Light. That is why I feel betrayed by the World. Because people are so fucking self-entitled, and yet not one of them regards me as entitled. They will kill you for stepping on their lawns, but they won’t spare you the fruit of their garden.

I can see them now as you must see them. And my one advantage over you – my empathy – has made no difference.

Oh, well. I guess I cannot save them for themselves and from each other, after all, and since no one saves me from them, I ought to save myself.

Alanna died because she was innocent. I failed to prove otherwise.

I was innocent as well.

Only you were the aggressor in that situation. Even if I die before I can prove it, I want you to remember that.

Regards,

Dmytri.

P.S.: tell Tony to keep off of my property. It’s what you do best, not that others’ property ever meant much to you.