He'd had e-mail about a year when the letters started coming. Every day. A journal, chatty and informal. From someone he did not know in a place he'd never heard of. Each day an account of the events of this person's day. Tension over a new obligation at work. A leaky roof. Years and years of the dreary life of some boring person, evidently a woman. Why did it take so long to get the dish washer fixed? Was it ever fixed? The mysterious person never said. And what about Marie-Claire? Did she get her diploma? And the dog Max with the ear mites?
From the first he decided that he would not answer these e-mails. It seemed to him that whoever wrote them had chosen a random address to send her daily burden of mediocrity. Weeks went by when he deleted them without opening them, but he found himself feeling guilty when he did this and he would worry that he had missed something important.
When she totaled her car she didn't miss a day. Had her left arm in a sling and possible damage to her spleen, but she got her story out that day of the person pulling out in front of her without signaling when she was perfectly legally changing lanes. Or so she said.
He had a life of his own, didn't he? So why was his mind so often preoccupied with the eventless days of this nobody? His own life was much more interesting - or should have been. But did she get the car fixed or did the insurance company total it out?
When the journal stopped one summer day he felt bereft. Nothing the next day or the next. It was over.
Now he had to know who this person was and why he had been the recipient of her daily thoughts. He fired off an e-mail. ``Why did you send me your journal? Why did you stop?'' In a couple of days her answer came:
``I thought if I found ten random addresses in the English speaking world, I could share my life and maybe get to correspond with some people - some interesting people perhaps, but no one ever answered. Now I'm doing it in Spanish.''
He did not reply.