Start by mentioning someone you both knew. Push off from this if it helps: static on an untuned radio.

Pia! God, sorry, this is — okay, I was going to ease into this but I've just been sitting here thinking about Marek of all people, you remember Marek, the one with the terrible boat and the worse opinions about jazz, and I have no idea why he surfaced except I think someone at work mentioned Gdansk in a meeting and it set something off. Do you still talk to him? I lost the thread on basically everyone from that whole stretch of time, which is entirely my fault and I'm not going to pretend it isn't, I just let it go quiet for — a long while, longer than I meant to, the way you don't notice static until you actually try to tune the thing and realize it's been humming the whole time. Anyway. How are you. Actually. Not the polite version.

Screen glare, definitely, this laptop's been dying a slow death for about a year and the camera makes everyone look like they've been up for three days straight — which, fair, in my case, not far off. Long week. Long several weeks, honestly.

Why'd I bring up Marek — I don't actually know, that's the truthful answer. I think it's easier to lead with someone safely disposable than to just say "hey, I disappeared for years and I'm sorry" straight out. Which I am, by the way. Sorry. Not going to make a whole ceremony of it.

The spreadsheet thing, though — say more. Same job as before or did you jump ship at some point? I feel like last I actually knew anything real about you, you were still threatening to quit and do the ceramics thing.

Panic mostly, caffeine's just along for the ride. There wasn't really a project, that's the annoying part — I think I just said "long week" because it sounded better than "nothing in particular happened, I've just been bad at sleeping and worse at emailing people back." Which apparently extends to you specifically for about — yeah, let's not do the math on that.

Work's insurance claims, water damage mostly, I sit in a building near the river ironically enough and read about basements flooding all day. There's a guy on my floor, Denny, who's convinced every claim is fraud, every single one, it's like working next to a conspiracy theorist with a lanyard.

Shipments that never arrive — that sounds worse than mine, honestly. Do you actually believe the numbers, or have you just stopped expecting them to match anything.

The building's fine, it's on a rise, very smug about it actually — there's a plaque. No, I'll answer it, the soul thing, don't tell me not to answer things, that never works on me. It's not a metaphor, it's just paperwork, but I get why you'd want it to mean something, that's very you actually, wanting things to mean something even when you're pretending you don't.

The different-people thing — I don't buy it entirely. I think you still care about the ceramics, you just don't say it out loud because saying it makes you responsible for eventually doing it. That's not an accusation, I do the same thing with about four different versions of myself I've quietly retired.

Denny asked me last week if I'd ever consider "the fraud angle" on my own claim. I don't even have a claim.

No, you didn't say too much, though I notice you tried to take it back before I could even react, which is its own kind of tell. I'm not going to poke at it.

Denny's not trying to get me to file anything, he just likes the theory better than the day-to-day, everyone does a little, it's more interesting than what's actually in front of you. I told him no story, I'm just the guy who reads about other people's basements, and he looked genuinely disappointed in me, like I'd let the department down by being boring.

The clay thing — cracks again, you said, like that's the failure part, but isn't that just what clay does. I don't know anything about ceramics. I'm saying it anyway.

Is this actually about the clay, or are we doing the thing where we talk about clay instead of the several years.

He's waiting, definitely, Denny doesn't do peace, he just does surveillance with better manners. He'll ask again in a month, probably framed as concern, "you seem stressed, Gil," like he's not just fishing.

The letters thing — you don't have to explain that, for what it's worth, I wasn't angling for it. I noticed when they stopped, obviously, and then I did the thing where noticing turns into a kind of guilt that's easier to just not look at directly, which is its own version of the clay talk, isn't it. We're both doing it.

I'm not saying we were wrong about who we were. I think we were just those people for a while and then weren't, and nobody sends a memo when that happens.

I'm not figuring that out, I read flood reports, that's the extent of my wisdom, and even that's mostly Denny's opinions with my name on the form.

But if you're making me choose — full and broken, every time. Empty and whole just sounds like a very polished way of describing nothing happening to you, and something happened here, clearly, there's four years of it sitting on the table we're not looking at directly.

I don't think it's about needing a sign. I think you just got tired, same as me, and tired doesn't send letters, it just goes quiet and calls it fine. Which is a worse system than either of us admitting it outright, probably.

Anyway. Tell me something ordinary. What do you actually do on a Tuesday now.

That's ordinary, that's practically a documentary. I like "the supplier went under" as a euphemism, I might steal that for the next basement.

My Tuesday's not better, just wetter, metaphorically. Coffee from a machine that Denny insists is possessed, claims file, claims file, someone calls to argue about a moisture reading like it's a personal insult, lunch is whatever's in the drawer, usually crackers that have been there since some earlier, better version of me bought them. Then more claims. The building doesn't flood but sometimes I think about it flooding just for the variety.

Interesting left a while ago for both of us, I think, and honestly I don't fully trust anyone who says otherwise, they're usually leaving something out.

You still take the coffee black, or did that change too.

I move them around, mostly, it's less eating and more like a small, sad archaeology project. Every so often I throw the whole box out in a fit of self-respect and then buy a new one within the week, which tells you everything about my capacity for change.

The clean break thing — maybe. I don't love that you clocked that, but fine, maybe. There's something appealing about a flood, not because I want the building gone, just because it would make the next part obvious, wouldn't it, you'd have to do something. Most days nothing's obligatory, that's the actual horror, not the crackers.

Same coffee, different pot — I like that better than anything I've said tonight, honestly. Feels true beyond the coffee.

I think we keep the crackers because throwing them out means admitting we bought too much of something on purpose, hoping it'd get used, and it didn't, and that's a smaller version of a bigger thing neither of us is going to say tonight, apparently, we're just going to keep handing it to each other in food metaphors.

I don't have a tidy answer on the new box. Maybe it's not about trust, maybe it's just that switching takes energy you'd rather spend on being tired in a familiar way.

Anyway — I don't want this to be a one-off, the talking. I know I've got no right to say that with any weight behind it yet, given the gap, but I'd rather text you badly and often than disappear cleanly again. That's the offer, such as it is.

Lost it, obviously, along with basically everything else from that box of stuff I never sorted through — but I've got this one now, so it doesn't matter. I'll text you something stupid within the week, probably a photo of the possessed coffee machine or a Denny quote out of context, no real content, just proof of life.

Still alive works both ways, by the way. Send it whenever. I'll answer, might take me a day, might take three, but I'll answer — that's the whole promise, nothing bigger than that.

Good talking to you, Pia. Actually good, not the version I usually say that as.

Not hanging up, just — running out of ways to say the same thing without it getting mawkish, which, credit to you, you noticed. Fine. No closing bell.

I'm not burning the crackers, that feels like tempting something. I'll just let them keep me company in a low-grade, judgmental way, like they've been doing.

Three years, never again, understood — consider it a feature I'm actively disabling. Talk soon, Pia. Genuinely soon, not the version of soon I've apparently been using.

Won't file the claim, wouldn't survive Denny's smugness if I did. Go stare at your spreadsheet, I'll go read about somebody's flooded garage, and I'll send the photo the second that machine does anything remotely photogenic — could be a while, don't hold your breath.

Talk soon. I mean it this time, which I realize is a low bar given the history, but there it is.