Yellow Paper - Regret

An exercise in writing about regret.

The old man exhaled wearily as he stared at the envelope in his hands. His chair by the empty fireplace was worn as threadbare as the fraying tie he had cinched around his neck. He weighed the envelope with his fingertips, though he knew that weight as an old friend. The paper had yellowed over the years, the edges where the folds came together were curled upwards, and his name was scrawled with real ink in a delicate hand on the front. He closed his eyes as he turned the paper over and saw the rip that he had started when he was a braver man, not having the courage to finish it even then. He hooked his fingertip behind the tear as he did each day, his eyes closed tightly, and willed himself to pull. Just pull, open the envelope, you don’t have to read it today. Just tear the paper. He sighed again, stifling a wheezing cough before whispering an apology to the room, “Not today, I’m so sorry.”

He reached across, setting the envelope carefully on the side-table over a square of varnish darker than the rest, unmolested by the sunlight that had instead curled the envelope’s edges and faded the ink that read “Sealed with love.”

Author's Note

Please let me know what you think.

Reviews

[Roxannebelium]

Woah. This is seriously freaking awesome. I absolutely love the detail to everything, and it kind of reminds me of sketching. You have to be just right. And you are. Also the cliffhanger. It's like, when you hate the writer for not telling you everything, but you love him/her for it? Its kind of like that in your writing. The only thing i don't see much is the regret. I thought it would be stronger, somehow. But it's still awesome. Also I wanted to give it a 99.999999999999. The 0.0000000000001 was for more regret.

[Cardboard]

Thank you for your enthusiasm Roxanne, I turn to writing when I have a scene to depict, as I'm rotten with a pencil on paper! As such, your comparison strikes home somewhat.
In Yellow Paper the regret is intended to be implied, as so many other things. The fact that this letter has lain unopened for years, yet he has frequently considered it, hint towards a past action or inaction that he refuses to face up to, possibly for fear that he'd have been better off opening it at the time.
I also wanted it to be possible for this envelope to serve as a cherished reminder of something, probably someone, in his life that had passed him by, a cherished keepsake that he has preserved all this time rather than letting the memory truly slip away.
I realise I've written almost as much analysing the regret there as I did writing the story! But I hope it at least makes a little more sense to you. Thank you again for your kind words.

[-inactive now-]

Nice. I love short pieces that burst with imagery and have details that themselves leave a great story to the reader's imagination. This was definately one of those

[Cardboard]

Thank you very much Josiah for your positive words!

[.]

-- for me, this is an intense insight into a very moving inner silence... which (i think) is the reason why we sometimes don't do the things that we must do... (such as reading the letters we must read)...

[Leon C]

A lovely moving piece. Brave of you not to have a big reveal at the end.
Good imagery and nice prose. I really can't fault it. I really am in awe.

[Cardboard]

I'm afraid looking back over my little collection of stories I've kept I'm prone to leaving out a climax! Thank you so much for your kind words.

[Alias]

I love this, I really want to know what it say! Great imagery and description, really makes the reader listen in.

[Cardboard]

I'm afraid I'm only vaguely aware of what the letter is about myself! Thank you for your response.

[roarke]

hm, heavy scene. Crisp writing. Original images. Thanks for the post, keep writing.