Man Of Few Words

Chapter 63

I got back out of bed a few hours later and decided to read all the messages one-by-one starting with the oldest. It was going to take a while. Some of them were very long, and most of them were hard to read for one reason or another. The most common reason being sloppy punctuation.

The reasons for contacting me were diverse, but generally not as weird as I had first assumed. Still pretty weird though. There was definitely a common undercurrent. It felt like most of them, one way or another, were satisfying an appetite for drama, and saw me as a kind of morbid novelty. Not a single message referred to anything other than my terminal illness. Many of the women who sent them explicitly said they'd like to meet in person, or at least seemed open to the idea, but I wasn't biting. None of them really appealed in that way, and I didn't send any more replies except to Paige, to whom I sent what I hoped was a thoughtful and grateful response.

After writing to her, I took a break to have something to eat and to rest my brain. Even as I'd been reading, there were new messages dropping in at regular intervals, so I realised I was going to have to dedicate a bit of effort to this if I wanted to read them faster than they were coming through.

I was well into the second "shift" of the day – I must have read nearly a hundred messages by that point – when I came to a new message from Inge. This was a relatively long one, but the punctuation was close to flawless. I don't think she'll mind if I simply copy and paste it here:

David,

I want to say sorry again for how I reacted on Thursday. I was really shocked. I just wasn't prepared for that. I'm sorry if it felt like I was blaming you. I hope you can accept my apologies and forgive me.

I've been thinking a lot about you for the last few days. I want to see you again. Despite what happened and how I ran off, I enjoyed our date. It felt good, didn't it?

I keep telling myself that this is all so much harder for you than it is for me. I'm pretty confused, yes. I don't know. I suppose I thought I was looking for a long-term life partner. Something tells me to spend time with you though. Every way I think about this, every way I write about it, it sounds quite awful.

I'm just going to stop now. It's over to you. If you want to see me again, let me know. I'd like to invite you to my place for dinner. I'll make schnitzels with cabbage and potatoes. It's my mother's recipe, and it was my favourite as a child.

If you're not interested, that's OK. I understand.

Inge

I am still interested. I didn't bother reading the rest of the messages. I'm going to her place tomorrow. I should get some rest.