Dearest Sarah,

can i tell u what a joy your correspondence has been, myself and Capt Yohansen, here at the Cape Baren lighthouse and Starbucks have enjoyed your amusing tales of gassing small animals and interminable poetry about multi flavoured tea bags, immensely, just not while we have been reading them. I'm sure you understand.

Is it true that some day you will be able to overcome this affliction, we have been praying for you in the intervals between cleaning the espresso machine and making delicious if slightly un coffee like substances for the stray sailors who wash ashore. Able-Seaman Ferrortor, the lovely gentleman sailor who brings freshly roasted beans from the farthest corners of this wide world to our lonesome doors daily, has procured the name of a certified organic doctor who claims to have cured many cases such as yours. some have even gone on to live long fulfilling lives as, well better if we don't say, i would hate to get your hopes up for naught. Knowing how cruel children have been to you, and how indeed Capt Yohansen has often referred to you in both the third person and as an alien life form, we both have turned to the good lord for your deliverance, tho why the good Capt makes squealing noises like a pig whenever i hold our weekly prayer sessions i can only speculate. he is a good and kind man, rarely on the same day, but it is a tough life out here to lead.

He has taken to standing before the beacon making very cute animal shapes on the passing traffic, and when lonely, will turn the light off. it is a very solitary existence, but i continue to say to him that we are all part of the good lords plans and that making obscene phone calls to the Vatican will not get him any closer to god, just a step closer to having another restraining order taken out against him.

How i wish we could both be back together like the good old days, those carefree playful times when we were children, me grinding the Moroccan roasted beans and you with your miniature gaggia, frothing the milk inside your Barbie Playtime Starbucks, how we did laugh, is a a question i shall never understand, but my mother sent i a photo montage of my entire childhood, and while you were not in a single shot, i imagined that there you were, living and breathing as one with me in each, as if your withered limbs could sustain such an undertaking.

I do have some wonderful news for you, Captain Yohansen is pregnant, yes its true, he is expecting to have the patter of little feet around the house in December, i am so excited. We have both said many many prayers to the little baby jesus, and he has granted our wish, tho by some miracle, the little bundle of joy will be a Swedish netballer of some eighteen years of age, as the good capt says, it is truly a miracle and we cannot question the ways of the lord. I agree, but only when in handcuffs and am fed the special relaxing Haitian blend, i can have one and feel so relaxed that literally weeks roll by before i am in control of my senses.

Well my dearest Sarah, all my love, Capt Johansen sends his, well if he knew i was writing to you he probably wouldn't, but i can tell by that way he shines the gleaming chrome and froths the milk that he is wishing you well, if not in spirit then from deep within him, somewhere. You and your horrible affliction are never far from my prayers, tho as far away as is possible in physical circumstances, I'm sure u understand.

All my love and prayers for a brighter future than could be imagined to anyone else in the ward, i am praying that they can loosen the shackles, just a wee bit.

Martha Graham-Steinhaen-Grossenclienre-zietgist-kenyanblend

Cape Barren Lighthouse and Starbucks

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My dearest sweetest darlingest Sarah,

Such good news I could bear to hold onto no more, knowing that you would be as overjoyed, as excited as I. Capt Johansen and myself have bought a tree. Yes its true, I know that you, confined as you are in the shackles of that disgusting affliction which makes me ill just knowing that your hands will touch this piece of paper, will rejoice in the news. The precious little bundle of joy is a conifer, we have named it Constance, after my great aunt Constance, who if you will remember made great sport with the Duke of Dribbling and invented the wheelbarrow, a woman of substance and temperament. Constance, how the beauty of the name reminds me of the clouds as they scuttle past the lighthouse, she is a mere twelve inches high, but already she is the source of great pride and love, and if I may be so bold, a wonderful comfort to myself on those long lonely nites when the good Capt. rages against the moon and his arch nemesis, the Purple Spadger from atop the beacon.

Oh my sweetest Sarah, the poor Captain has not been well of late, I can hear him now, running and muttering curses of such a vile nature, he locks himself into the tower and will remain so aloof for many weeks on end, coming down only to visit the shops or to buy a newspaper or rent a video of young women wrestling in interesting varieties of food stuffs. I fear that since the loss of our child he has been quite broken upon the wheels of sanity, how he did love that child, in his own way, and with the court hearing approaching the loss is weighing heavily upon his tormented soul. I feel such pity for him, and yet know that, he has much to answer for, I informed him on many occasions that he needed a remote control for the television, but no he insisted that a child could be taught to perform all the commands, sound, on/off, and channel surfing, and that remote controls were the work of the devil himself enslaving the population in the wickedness of idolatry. I cannot tell you of the white hot rage that was flung against my good person when I pressed upon the good Capt. the meaning of idolatry, that it had nothing to do with being lazy or not moving from the couch for weeks on end as the good Capt. is wont to do.

How does one get through to such a beast, the courts I suppose will decide upon that one, his need to have a child as a substitute remote, was quite overwhelming, I merely pointed out which of the surrounding farms contained one, mapped out the interior of the house and held the pistol at our good neighbours temples. The kindly local constabulary could see that I was a mere pawn in a game of my husbands own making. I have been reliably informed that much of the captains texta markings are slowly wearing off, with only the "mute" button still clearly visible upon little Timmy's forehead.

Sweetest most precious Sarah, your mother wrote a long anguished letter begging me to never reveal just how hopeless your case is, and pouring her poor devoted heart out that she wished I were her daughter, and not the hideously deformed malediction of subspawn that she now called her child. How her heart is filled to breaking, your mother has so much to live for, so much love to give, so many lovers that your father has threatened to rent her the house by the hour, and then there is you,the millstone firmly planted around her loving neck. She tells me,with tears smudging the very letters as she writes, of the anguish of having to visit your hospice and of how her hands shake as she feeds those enfeebled lips through the grate, or at least would do if she were to ever to find the time to see you. Such courage from a woman I have never known before, when the howling winds whip the seas to froth and the very walls of the lighthouse seem fit to crumble before natures onslaught, and I need to find that inner strength to crawl into the tower to light the beacon, knowing that my fate could be sealed with every footfall, I turn to thoughts of your mother to know what is possible.

I can hear the good captain now, storming about the ramparts, cursing the very air that is breathed by his foe, the purple spadger. I cannot understand his hatred of the man, sure he wears a purple cape to rotary club meetings and insists that he has super powers above and beyond those of mortal folk, but is this a reason for one to hate. To my darling captain it is more than enough, he has felt lost and that life has little to hold him to these earthly bonds since discovering that no matter how mature and aged one becomes, one becomes no closer to being able to fly, or as he weepily proclaims he just wishes to jump once and not come down for a while. He is quite inconsolable, I baked him a trout for his birthday and after he had blown out the candles, he began to weep as tho all of life where beyond his not inconsiderable intelligence, and I have oft considered it inconsiderable.

My fondest Sarah he speaks of you often, and whilst I would hate to repeat any of his threats, believe me when I say they are in earnest, but my poor darling, you know that it would be best for yourself and all of humanity, with the exclusion of those doctors who feel that your turning to a gooey ball of whatever it is that your myriad disease's possess is good for medicinal practice. I am certain that the more they do practice, the better they become and with the love of the good lord looking over their shoulders, not make such a botched mess as they have with your case.

Could it be true that the wonderful Dr. Spetlum tried to graft your foot onto the tip of your nose? I heard the tale from your dear father, he claimed it to be part of a radical cure which ended in near tragedy when one of the nurses fell over a skateboard in the operating theatre. How I did laugh when the image came to mind. Life for me here in the lighthouse is sadly close to intolerable. My hours are a barren moon, the tedium of watching the waves pounding over the broken bodies of sailors who ventured to close to the coast line when the Capt and I are entertaining and neglect to switch the lamp on, then monotony of firing flares at low flying aircraft and the occasional dolphin, it is just all such a wasteland, until Constance of course. She is so beautifully deciduous, gently rock back and forth before the fan, she loves it so, I have taken to crumbling oatmeal biscuits in her roots at morning tea, I can almost see the joy in her spines as she lets them rot into her potting mix. How I wished she did not have to grow into a sixty foot tree, how I would dearly love for her to remain this sapling for ever, but I know that is just my selfish side coming through, as your mother said to me in that tragic letter, it is better to just abandon your young if they ever grow over twelve feet high or are likely to cause social embarrassment, of course she was referring to you, the poor thing, how she must suffer.

I must be off my sweet Sarah, please no more of your pleas for someone to come and unlock you from that cage, the good doctors are only doing what they believe is in your best interests, I fear that your stubborn insolent ways are getting the better of their nature. We all know that your frightful, disgusting illness's and fungus's are Gods way of punishing your wickedness, the good doctors are not ignorant of this fact as they have all spent many years of schooling, whereas your mother went out of her way to ensure that you were never tainted with such foolish things.

How you learnt to write, and your scratchings on those little scraps of paper you smuggle out of the ward are just barely considered writing, is just beyond the captains and mines comprehension. Honestly Sarah, "pleeeese help me", there are only three e's in please, and is it a statement or a question or did you just decide in the ever so wilful way of yours that punctuation was dead and buried. Please my dearest little one, have some thought for your friends, I don't have all day to translate your every little selfish want, my head is just splitting from even mentioning that time you asked to be let out of the manacles after your escape from the basement during Christmas dinner some years back.

Anyway dear Sarah, I can hear the Capt. singing an old sea shanty, which as you know, means that he is getting ready to come down for dinner, I must go, but please take care of yourself, I have sent a copy of your note to the head of your ward, as one of your previous letters mentioned her, please dear, she may well be a cold blooded sadist, but really each to their own, who are we to judge, we are neither of us perfect, only the good lord is, and we both know how he views your wretchedness.

love beyond love kisses and kisses in somewhere near your general direction

the concubine of Captain Yohansen