To Whom It May Concern

I recently came across the image published in your latest issue and was wondering if you could put me in touch with the artist.

This may sound strange to you, but I believe the image depicted is of the crossing that opens between my home and yours, once every one hundred years. I was on that crossing and have spent my whole life thinking I was the only survivor.

I remember so little; I was that precarious age between toddler and child, where memories exist only as echo and fog. It was early morning and we had been sailing through the tunnel of ice without incident. Our ships are made for ice you see, they creak and groan but for them it is like breathing. They relax into freezing temperatures like hands around a cup of hot chocolate. Excitement rose as we neared the edge and heads leaned over railings to catch a first glimpse of our new home. Cameras chirped like birds in spring. (Yes, we too have cameras. In fact, where do you think you got yours from?)

But when we hit the water, that violent transition from hard to soft, from solid to liquid, a hand fell away. Warm breath turned cold. I can still hear the angry snap of wood; the hard splash of bodies.

It is everywhere: in the honking of horns, the shatter of a plate, the flick of a switch.

A family discovered me in the woods, shivering and blue. They believed me to be abandoned which I suppose I was. They took me to their cabin and as I warmed myself beside a fire, they built a story around my sudden appearance which I could not contradict.

To Whom It May Concern

They explained away my crossing with a flick of the hand. It was a dream, the result of a hyperactive imagination, a fantastical concoction to explain the trauma of my time in the woods and whatever came before.

But I know it to be true, and I believe the artist does too.

My address is enclosed, thank you for your time.

M.L.