| Dead Letter By Amanda Finch [email protected] CATEGORY:
VHA ARCHIVE: Pertinent info intact. Thanks to Becky the Beta-Goddess! Any mistakes you see are mine. -------------------------------------- Mr. Padgett: I've finished your book. Not "finished-off" your book, which was my first inclination. I'll ignore for a moment your verbose flatulence masquerading as literature, and the fact that you're in serious need of spellcheck (you know, the new typewriters, the kinds with the television sets on top that you may have seen -- they do that stuff for you). Has anyone ever told you less is more? You seem to have embraced this ideology in your apartment decor and your hygiene, so I can only hope your writing style isn't far behind. But I digress. First, I'd like to violently skewer the subtext of your supposed novel. I think my motives here are obvious: my partner. I don't profess to have any keen insight into Agent Scully's mind, only the experience of having been her partner for six years now. I sure as hell don't profess to know her deepest, innermost secrets, but I bet I *still* know more than you do. The difference is, I'm not trying to write a damn book about her. Even if I did, it wouldn't be the indecipherable jumble of bullshit you wrote. (I'm guessing they've stopped inviting you to the Summarize Proust competitions.) I don't think Agent Scully *really* wants to screw the insane. Of course, that's just what I think. Then again, once a man's taken a good look at her and hasn't 1) morphed into someone else, 2) oozed any viscous fluid from his orifices or 3) told her she had to go to Utah to autopsy something disgusting and scientifically impossible...hey, date material! Not that my standards are much higher, but come on, are you delusional? Whether she was simply fascinated by your weirdness or legitimately jonesing for your flesh is none of my business. That's her deal, not mine. What disturbed me more than anything were your other assumptions as to her character. Agent Scully is a beautiful woman, yes. (At least you got something right.) But she isn't an insecure, beautiful woman. Anyone who's known her for more than five minutes could've told you that. The fact that you could be in an elevator for any length of time and not notice the way she carries herself says more about you than it does about her. She demands respect on sight, and invariably, she gets it. With that hypothesis, you only succeeded in projecting yourself onto her. So let's talk about *you* for a few minutes, shall we? I'll start. Phillip Gregory Padgett, aged 28. You were born in Landford Heights, Maine, but your mother, Linda, couldn't deal with your almost perpetual illnesses, so she foisted you on a spinster aunt in Bowden County, Maryland. You lived there for two years before your aunt died, possibly of complications from a lung infection that you gave her. You were nine, and soon spinning in the social services obscurity of the Bowden County judicial system. If your mother was alive, she didn't reclaim you; if you had other relatives, none came to your side. No foster families wanted a sick kid, and the orphanages took one look into your haunted eyes, crossed themselves, and declared that you were a risk to the other children. You've felt diseased from the beginning, haven't you? Even now that you're reasonably healthy (physically speaking), you still feel it right there on your heels, like it's part of your shadow. Guess what? It is. The first time I laid eyes on you, I expected a phlegmy cough, some shaky breathing, maybe a limp. You do have a slight limp to your right leg, and the woman who finally did take you in was the one who wielded the length of pipe that put it there. You're registered as a former student with three
different two-year colleges -- the kinds of colleges that
don't nurture writing talent, personal poetry or
histrionics. You went to each one for one semester, and
never went back. The only jobs you've held since then
consisted entirely of manual labor, janitorial work and
maintenance, things you were dreadfully ashamed of doing.
You held one job for two whole years, your personal best,
at a public library. All was fine until you drawn to one
of the young volunteer librarians. (If you've any such designs on Scully, let me put any questions you have to rest: No. Hell no. Not that you could anyway. She's faced down more powerful threats than the likes of you.) You've written approximately five books that you tried to shop around to publishing houses. To their credit, they didn't get past the first three pages before they declared you a lost cause. I've been reading some of the rejection letters they've faxed to me. One of the secretaries nervously told me that they'd turned those letters over to the police, because obviously you and the publishing agent started a correspondence. It started out with simple rejection and escalated into cease and desist orders. That particular publishing agent vanished last November, according to the Manhattan police department. That's funny...*you* were in Manhattan about that same time. I'm working on it, Padgett, and my mind works faster than you type. All the women have hurt you, so now you're thinking it's time to hurt back. I look at Agent Scully and I see Agent Scully. You look at her and you see your mother, throwing clothes that haven't fit you for three months into a beat-up blue suitcase and sending you to Maryland, crying the whole time, yelling at you to stop coughing. You look at Agent Scully and you see your aunt, wasting away to nothing, not even able to stand the sight of your face after all she'd sacrificed to take care of you. You see your foster mother coming at you with that pipe. You duck down and taste dirt, then *pow*, you hear your own leg breaking. You feel the sharp edge of the bone prodding through muscle. How can I see those details? I imagined them. Under other circumstances, I might feel sorry for you. See how little room your small life has taken up? I've no doubt that you're behind these killings, and that's a rather long chapter of your existence, but know, too, that it's also the *final* chapter. Forget Agent Scully for a moment and my resentment towards you for trivializing her integrity with bad prose, but remember that I hunt people like you the way some people search for order in chaos. I don't give up. And as for the whole "damp strings" tangent you got off on around page 430? Please. If you so much as thought of touching her "middle C," she'd kick your ass. She's a 12-string double-neck Fender Strat. On a really good day, I only know the three punk chords, and you keep dropping the pick. I've enclosed your book, Neighbor. I made a copy for our official federal files. May I suggest the publishing house down in the basement? F. W. Mulder ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ April 1999 |