I long to long for a cigarette.

Dear Trevor,

Do I have dreams? Not in the sense you think of them, as that would require me to sleep. I don’t sleep. If I recall correctly, I rarely slept well when I was where you are, but I loved the feeling of a good nap.

There is night here. It never gets fully dark, just as the foggy days never seem to get bright. The nights here remind me of the summer I spent in Alaska as a young man, where the sun seemed to tease the horizon more than dip below it. I have an old couch in my cabin, and when it gets too dark to sit out on the porch, I go inside and lie on the couch. Sometimes I close my eyes. Sometimes I lie awake and stare at the ceiling.

Gordon says that nights are hardest for him, as the quiet and dark make him long for his pipe and some decent tobacco. Once I picked up a pack of cigarettes from the store, but I’ve never opened them. I still recall the pain and loss that came from the cancer that took me from you. I had to give up cigarettes along the way and whether it was that act or the fact of coming here, I’ve lost all taste for them. It’s strange, but I still desire to have the desire for them. I long to long for a cigarette. Funny.

I do imagine and I do remember. I’m not certain dreaming is much different than that, although dreams seem to happen much faster than waking thoughts. I can vaguely recall dreams that seemed to last a lifetime, although I know they happened during the nine minutes between snooze alarms.

What do I think about? That’s more to your question, I suppose. I think about you more and more, as your letters have given order to my shiftless life. I have become the envy of all the residents in my little town. I think about how much I wish I was there to guide you through this part of your life. I think about how I missed the chance to raise your brothers. I wonder about how they turned out—what kind of young men they are. I think about your sister and how I’ll miss meeting any of her boyfriends for the first time. That was something I always wanted to do—to make a boyfriend wait nervously on our porch.

I think about your mother. I wonder if she was heartbroken when I left. I hope she was, I suppose, selfish as that sounds. I think about my brother, your Uncle Floyd. I wish I could tell him how he should be living, but I doubt it would make a difference, even if I rose out of the grave to speak.

I think about food in the same way I think about cigarettes. I’m not sure what I long for more, a great, thick steak or the hunger for one. I would love to feel hungry and then I would love to eat something savory to smother that hunger. I’m never hungry here.

More than anything else, I think about the boat and the woods. Those are the two ways out of this town that I can see. Most newcomers seem to go into the woods. I’ve tipped my toe into those shadows from time to time, but haven’t seen much that draws me further. Fear and not much else at all—except maybe the post office and your letters—holds me back.

Should I stay? Or should I go “onward.” That black woman Crazy said that’s where the boat goes. Onward. If I go into the woods, does that count as going onward, too?

All my thoughts seem to be questions.

Dad