Dear Russia,
I think... if we were born in a different time, a different place, than we might have had a chance. We might have been better. And all of this could have stopped before it started. I think about this a lot. Not when I should be, not when it matters, not when you’re standing in front of me and my blood boils...
I think of us when I don’t mean to. I see you smiling so often that sometimes I think it’s real until I wake up. And I always wake up, and it is always the dream. There is no better us, There is only us.
I’m burning this letter, of course, can’t have you read it, God knows. But this one isn’t between us. Isn’t another ember in mutually assured destruction. I heard, once, that you could burn a letter to a dead loved one, since you can’t send it any other way. I hope this one finds you, Ivan, somewhere. I hope the smoke fills your dreams with the same promises so that when I see you again there can be something of the hope I’ve buried so deeply reflected back at me.
Good night, Ivan
America. Alfred F. Jones
