Dearest Tedward,

By the time this letter finds you, I will be long gone. Please don't be surprised when you find a few minor things missing. I needed them, you see, and I didn't think you would mind much. I've taken very little really. In the grand scheme of things, what's a car? What's a house? What's a firstborn child? Or a right arm? Or a kidney? In the end, you've still got what's important, like your sense of self-esteem, and life can go on as it always has. (Although I'd suggest you drive automatics from now on.)

It all began shortly after you slipped into a coma, when our house caught on fire. It was a tragic accident of course, when the 20 barrels of gasoline I had brought home for a craft project exploded. Apparently the souvenir fuse I had brought back from Germany and carelessly set up on top of the barrels with wires accidentally connecting it to each barrel... apparently it had gone off somehow. Fortunately I was able to collect the insurance money.

And then I heard from Eric, and I had to go.

I'd best start from the very beginning. Long before I met you, there was Eric. We grew up together in the crusty yellow hills of Livermore. We both lived down in the valley, where there wasn't much to look at, so in the cool of summer evenings, we'd go up together to the top of the hills, where there wasn't much to look at. Sometimes we'd go downtown, where there wasn't much to do, or to the movie theater, where there wasn't much to watch. It was bliss.

Then one day, Eric died. The coroner's verdict was "spontaneous combustion", but it was a lie. I was there. I saw what happened. Eric exploded for no reason at all. I was devastated. I went into mourning and ate nothing and drank nothing and spoke to no one for almost two hours. Then I went shopping and I found a really cute skirt and I felt better.

Without Eric in my life, however, I totally lost my sense of direction. Drifting aimlessly, I ended up at Harvard, where I double-majored in law and pre-med studies, and drowned my sorrows by making many good friends, becoming president of the student body, and leading the football team to unprecedented numbers of victories. After my undergraduate years, I continued to drift, ending up in both law school and medical school at the same time. Every time the pain of Eric's memory grew to be too much, I coped by discovering a cure for cancer or causing the Supreme Court to reverse a landmark decision. I grew dependent on my hobbies, such as developing multimillion dollar businesses on the side or designing spacecraft capable of interstellar travel.

And then I met you, and you were everything I ever wanted. You had wonderful taste in hats and you drove a cherry-red Porsche 911. I had simple tastes back then. The plan at first was to marry you, wait until your hat collection had reached completion, and then kill you for the car and the hats. I never expected to fall in love with you. But day by day, love grew. I loved waking up in the morning to find your arms around me, and I loved playing with that little whorl of hair on your right forearm. I loved the way you'd make that funny face when I punched you in the kidneys. And after a while I was afraid I wouldn't be able to let these things go.

Then I realized I didn't have to. With a little ingenuity and a cheap hacksaw from Home Depot, I could have your arm around me any time I wanted to, and I could punch you in the kidney anytime I needed to, and you didn't even have to be around. So I was set. I had the hats, I had the baby, I had the car, I had the relevant parts of your body (I suppose you may be surprised at my choices, but, honey, you shouldn't be) and I was ready to hit the road.

Then Eric appeared out of nowhere, like an angel from heaven. That is, he fell from out of the sky and crushed a mother and child taking a walk. He struggled to his feet, dazed and bruised, and then he saw me. I spoke first.

"I thought you were dead!" I said.

"I was," said Eric. "I am."

"Then how is it that you're here speaking to me?"

"You're dead too," said Eric. "And so are they," he said, waving at random passers-by. "And them," he said, indicating the mother and child he had crushed in his fall. "Especially them."

"We're all dead?" I gasped. "How can this be?"

"Well," said Eric, "remember when we were young together, and we'd go lie in the fields of nothing up above Livermore and look at nothing? And we used to wish on the stars that we couldn't see very well because of the bright city lights?"

"Yes," I said, tears coming to my eyes.

"Well, I made one special wish to myself, one that I never told you, and that was that if anything ever came to separate us, like death, or like living 5 miles apart from each other or something... well, you know I couldn't bear to be separated from you forever... so I made a wish."

"Yes?"

"I wished that if we were ever separated, that everyone would be instantly killed and we would all live forever in a grey purgatory of a zombieland, forever undead in the twilight hours, without aim, without hope, without life, without joy, and oh, and also that we'd be really happy together."

"Oh, Eric!" I said, and ran into his embracing arms, dropping your own arm as I did so. As it hit the pavement and rolled into the gutter, I suddenly remembered you, dearest Tedward, and I wrote you this little note, to tell you what had happened to me, and let you know that you were dead.

It's funny, isn't it, considering you never even drop me a note or leave me a message when YOU'RE going to be out late. And that's why, my dearest, that's why I'm better than you.

Yours forever and ever, but not really,
Annie