Dear whom it may concern,

The wind stops, the skies open and the snow begins to fall. The first taste of snow in the new year or what feels like a cold January morning where only the intimacy of company could warm you. To new beginnings, to tears that went unfelt and made ice cold. I'm beginning my journey again. I've been in the wild for about 5 years now, the whistling of the wind and the sudden appearances of wild animals are now familiar to me. The rustling of trees, the silence filled with crickets at night, everything is alive.

I've never felt more alone and surrounded than I have in the wild. I take walks every day scouting for something new to study, something new to become. But winter this year has been anything but new. Everything's dried out and hollow from the months of cold we had that started in October. The animals have left, the ducks no longer swim in the pond, the squirrels no longer hide in the trees. It's the year 2035 and almost all of life is gone.

I've been alone for about 1,830 days and counting. I cannot even remember what the sound of another feels like. What touch may offer, what company brings. The pond where I use to read books and play as a child is dried out and frozen over. Remnants of the past sit at the bottom of the now-empty hole. It's funny, I watched the whole forest die and change into something even more deadly.

Death must be where nothing becomes nothing anymore. Where life has lost the inspiration to transform and is now just stuck, frozen in timelessness. I have no idea how old I am nor do I care to know. It would only be a reminder of the endless years spent forgetting who I was and becoming the singular point of life and history, for humanity's sake. I hope someone finds me and looks at my remains and sees my beauty. I hope they see my burdens, my will to live, the pain in my bones, and the scars left by learning how to survive on my own.

What do you do when you no longer have a purpose? Do you live and wonder and think? Maybe for a time being that seems to fill the empty void that life once overflowed but it is no longer enough. It is never enough. I am always left here, stuck, frozen, empty. My only company is the words I refuse to unlearn, the pages of books I've filled with monologues of memories and dreams of a better today and tomorrow that never comes.

"Today feels different," I tell myself, as I wake up and try to quiet my already pounding head. Meditation is the only thing I have left that reminds me of my immortality, something I know even the dead still do. Being. Listening. Breathing. Existing outside of the now and into the infinite. I sometimes dream of meeting my loved ones on Venus or Mars, where life continued, where we ascended and transformed past our existential crisis. I sometimes open my eyes and think it's summertime. I sometimes wake up and think I heard the laughter of the man I once loved.

Today, it's only me. Today it's only us. Today is only minutes from tomorrow and only an hour from forever. Today the pond freezes over and I hoped I was frozen inside. Forever beautiful, forever human, forever a part of something bigger than myself. No longer small, no longer in need of purpose, just frozen as a part of time itself.

My wish is that someone finds this letter and knows of the love I felt, the hope I had, the dreams I could've succeeded at. I just hope someone finds this letter and sees me, feels me, and knows that if love can exist in silence, in solitude, that life can also bloom from nothing. That love can feed a vacant soul, that I didn't give up.

I waited by the pond, waiting for it to begin to melt, for the floors to begin filling with melted ice, with seeds to begin sprouting once more. I waited and waited but the ducks never returned.