Letter bombs

We are all terrorists.  Probably every week we indulge in a tiny act which has all the hallmarks of urban sabotage: its immediate consequences are distant from us, the innocent are often harmed, and it takes no courage to carry it out.  We are talking about one of the most insidious, because most subtle, forms of terrorism: sending a letter. 

A letter is a time bomb.  We write it, we post it; hours or even days later, it arrives at its destination.  We do not have to witness or suffer the immediate effects; this in itself may encourage us to heights of folly or depths of despicability which the safety of time and distance alone can bring out in us.  A letter is nearly always the coward's way out.  It is controlled and one directional.  You, the letter-writer, call all the shots: the reader is never allowed even the smallest of walk-on parts.  If they are acknowledged at all, it is likely to be through patronising rhetorical questions.  Words are put in their mouth which invariably damn them even deeper.  As the writer of the letter, we treat our audience as little better than children, servants or slaves; they are seen in our mind's eye, but never heard.

Conversations are far more dangerous.  There, the audience has parity with the speaker, who in his or her turn will find themselves on the receiving end.  Dialogues can go horribly out of control; soon you may find yourself in uncharted territory, where your honed speeches are wasted and useless.  In contrast, a letter is like a rigidly formalised ritual, or a highly stylised game, where you have set the rules, and you are the umpire.

And yet sending a letter has its own dangers, willingly embraced by the sender.  Because of the time-lag between writing and receipt, a letter must always be an act of recklessness, a gamble, a death-wish almost.   We feel, we write, we send; we may well then repent in the leisure which the wait for its effects affords us.

But we know that a letter is unstoppable.  Once it is popped into the postbox, it is as good as gone.  We are like condemned prisoners, waiting for the last dawn; we are doomed, but we must wait.  During those long nights of the postal service, we may suffer ecstasies of remorse, sudden accesses of shame, fear, even circumspection.  And we revel in our impotence, for all the world like exquisite masochists.

Each time we post a letter we ignore this fatal flaw because the process has been neatly partitioned.  The act of posting a letter is, in itself, trivial and harmless.  The dreadful hour when the transmitted letter arrives and does its awful work is tomorrow, hence, never.  The personal casuistry of the twentieth century works its magic once more.

Because letters can be so apocalyptic in their effects, and yet so painless in their execution, they therefore form the perfect pick-me-up.  They offer the powerful and thrilling prospect of almost limitless potential consequences without the trouble of having to face any of them immediately.  Power without responsibility; it could almost be the textbook definition of a modern-day terrorist.

(1.12.87)

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