Dearest Readers,
Well. Does a lady apologise? Rarely. But loyalty is a tricky business. Two loyal parties seldom survive unscathed. Someone must disappoint. Today, regrettably, it is I. You asked for delivery. I served absence. Consider it suspense. Be assured, this typewriter intends to work overtime in the coming year. And when skirts begin to lift, do not protest. You asked for the wind. I once believed inconsistency could be disciplined with a New Year’s intention. Instead, I have been forced to ink the unavoidable.
First, gratitude. Genuine gratitude. To those islanders who showed up during Cyclone Ditwah and did the work without auditioning for sainthood. But the rest of you know who you are. Those who documented generosity with cinematic commitment. Capturing hunger, innocence, and yourselves smiling awkwardly while speaking to no one and everyone at once. Performing importance. Do not misunderstand me. You are important. You truly are. You live between the abyss and Hawkins. You maintain the wormhole where compassion meets clout. It is a delicate balance. Exhausting, even. Moving on. When schoolchildren protest their rights, we must take it seriously. Especially Gen Z. This affects you. Today it is a trophy. Tomorrow it is precedent.
But hear me carefully, dear child. There is a difference between courage and self-sabotage. Publicly torching the institution that feeds you does not make you revolutionary. It makes you searchable. Systems exist. Flawed, slow, bureaucratic systems. Learn how to bend them before you attempt to burn them. Power to you. But power without strategy is just noise. Speaking of noise, I watched one of the nation’s babies confidently announce that the government should investigate who stood behind the cyclone. Darling. It was Vecna. My heart aches for the victims. But citizenship demands vigilance, not just sympathy or a death-certificate distribution ceremony. If the government wishes to improve one small thing, perhaps it could begin with feeding its own.
Someone please arrange lunch for Archuna. A man cannot collect arrest warrants on an empty stomach forever. To the Karens vacationing on my island, welcome. Respect the culture and the system and you will be cared for generously. A public officer avoiding eye contact does not mean collapse. It often means exhaustion. If procedure in a developing country offends you, choose another destination. The image you leave behind costs us more than your absence ever could. Now, about fire. There are two ways a man sets himself on fire: peer pressure and mental instability. Lately, protest fire has joined the list. Performative suffering. Brown boys burning themselves into relevance. Attempting to feed us. Lead us. Save us. All while demanding applause. Well, don’t be such a pick-me. Transparency has never been your strength. We know the history. Speak before others do it for you. We remain, as always, with our readers. XOXO.
Take your time. One imagines this must be a stressful moment. Which brings me to the tilted statement posted by Ne-Yo. An aesthetic choice, perhaps. Though one wonders if the tilt was intentional symbolism. The OCD crowd certainly noticed.
Or was the suggestion that those who trusted you were somehow not aligned in the head? A little bird also whispered that while governments hesitate between yes and no, another party has been rather busy laying foundations. If you notice buildings suddenly illuminated these days, darling, do keep walking. They are merely heading toward their much-awaited date with the insurance man.
And then, just when one believes public trust cannot erode further, the Consumer Affairs Authority raids a private medical laboratory in Laggala. Single-use blood collection tubes washed and reused. Expired testing equipment quietly stocked. A new fear unlocked indeed. This is not satire. This is rot. Are you joking? Because jokes require consent. James Charles may crack one, but even he knows when the punchline is shared. Claiming Australia is ahead of America in ketchup packaging is hardly radical. At this point, most countries are ahead of America, sweetie. So, tell me, dear reader. What are your New Year’s plans? To escape the fate of Ophelia? To write earnestly on the first page of a new diary and use the rest as hand wipes? We need better improvements. Better accountability. Better year-end dumps. And while you are discarding excess baggage, please dump the man-children too.
I shall see you on the other side. As the sun riseth o’er the year’s first morn, may thy heart be glad and thy labours meet with favour.
Yours truly, and unapologetically unpunctual,
The Writer.
