When I lose touch with someone, the last thing to let go is their language—how they would write about a day, verbalize a Wednesday walk, how they would choose precisely their ways to punctuate and exclaim—through my knowledge of one’s language I feel befriended and beloved.

Scarlett and I started an email thread in late 2020, and since then we’ve been emailing each other whenever possible. We document this spontaneous selection of email excerpts to celebrate the great time we’ve had reading and writing letters, which began with my disturbingly intrusive question: do you really not mind me bringing up suicide every time I come talking to you?

We decide to make these excerpts semi-public to people we care about, in a context of our own that is no longer trivial. We believe it’s still crucial to write and to exchange, and we hope to inspire a few with our fragmented rants and yawns and dedicated non-conformity.

真的不介意我每次找你都聊自杀吗，我觉得正常人应该会受不了（介意的话我下次说点别的）。......只是，如果不是因为失去朋友，那到底是哪里出错了，我哪里出了问题。为什么大家都可以步入正轨。又为什么我不能停下来。

c

Wednesday, Oct 28, 2020 at 2:06 AM

上次和你讲，没有想过能活过二十岁是真的。……我似乎从一开始就偏离了正轨，在过去的每一个场景中，我永远都在做一个Outsider。

scarlett

Wednesday, Oct 28, 2020, 14:06

是没有想到你那么快就回了（上班毕竟很耗费精力）。对话一旦发生就要继续下去，这无疑是一件好事。可我同时会想，总有一天我们不再说话，一想到这里我就不知道怎么做了。人生里还有很多显而易见的好事，我没有办法尽情享受它们。我在事情开端想到最差的、也许是注定的结局。“听完这首后，请你砸烂我的手指。”只有事情戛然而止（真正意义上地），我才会觉得轻松一点。