The Direct Debit

Dear Caroline,

I am sorry to say that I am bankrupt. I know I am a banker but I am in heavy loss. The loss of my heart that is.

You see two years back I gave my silly heart on a loan to a woman. I didn't even know her current account details and asked her for no security bond in the transaction, assuming that my mortgage would be in safe hands. Now, I am nothing but an Automated Loving Machine and all I can think about is how this debtor of mine is going to return the object of matter. She has had it for too long now and seems to have forgotten the mutual understanding we had. I was going to charge her interest if she made a withdrawl but in the end, I didn't have the heart (obviously because she had it in the first place).

If you are too thick to understand this letter then I'll put it straight (and I am straight despite the italian shoes) I owe you. I really, really owe you. I owe you from the bottom of my heart (which, once again, let me remind you is in your custody). Things have not been the same since I met you at the bank reception and you opened an account with us. I would watch your funds go in and out everyday and wished it was something of my own that went in and out, in and out of you. You are the key to my vault, the signature on my contract, the exchange rate of my emotions. After seeing you, all the money I have seems pointless ( only metaphorically; twelve million pounds always manage to make a point) That permanent smile I used to have for wooing customers makes me feel like a mannequin now. How can I smile with you not in my life? I lay at night and dream of you. Dream of your eyes that are like a five pound note, of your hair that has the crispness of a new note and the shine of pound coin. I imagine the two of us counting all my money in the bank vault and watching CCTV all day. Instead of beads you could have pound coins in your hair (I know it will take a lot but I have it, don't you worry) or we could have your hair styled like the Queen's. You see, I am quite used to seeing her around me and any partner of mine has got to look like the Queen lest I be reminded of my nightmares of poverty as a clerk.

If we get married soon then we will have our honeymoon in our new Indian callcentres. Those guys make the best curry in the world and answer phones as well. Brilliant.

Let me know of your reply on this quote as your overdraft is running high and I am anxious for a direct debit. Once again, I owe you. Wasn't it Shakespeare or some other pen-pusher who said, 'How do I love thee, let me count the ways?' Well, being a banker, I could count for the rest of my life. I owe you. I owe you. I owe you from the bottom of my heart and what a nice bottom it is. Let me know when you want to make a transaction.

Your creditor,

Robert.

BestAudioCodes.com

Mortal love

Dear Condoleeza,

Last night at the parlour, I had one of those out-of-body experiences. Or maybe it was out-of-mind. I can't tell. All I'm sure of is that it was out of something. The experience made me think about our friendship.

You see, I was just having a normal day at the parlour: shifting bodies here and there, polishing the caskets...you know the usual. However, there was just one more body to be serviced. This old woman had been lying in the parlour for more than three days. She had passed away under some very sad circumstances.

This 83 old woman, Miss (we'll come to that later) Martha Stewarts was found dead in her apartment where she lived alone for the last 40 years. Her neighbour, a young lady, mentioned how Miss Martha had always mentioned that she was proposed by several boys in college and some men at work when she was in her prime. However, Miss Martha was what they (between you and me) call a Gold digger. She was loved by many but she never gave her love to anyone with the hope that that the next proposer would be a 'Bill Gates kinda fella'. Well, years passed and time made her once attractive figure turn different. Without the support of her self-proclaimed 'jugs' she was left to herself and 5 for 4 Chicken tikka masala tv dinners from Tesco which she ate every night for 27 years. They can tell from those damned spying value cards. Miss Martha lost everything for the false promise of money. They say recently she got into drugs and used to get something they call 'lds' from an unpresentable young man at the Bingo a go-go! by her place. She supposedly had too much of the nasty mind-bending stuff and died from excessive laughter while watching Teletubbies.

Her funeral service was attended by no one. I stood there for two whole hours and no one came. A sad state of affairs. In my ten years in the business, something like this has never happened. I tried to do the right thing and got her a toy from the show's selection and sent it down six inches with her.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that unless you want to fade out like her, you could always marry me and be saved. I love you on the condition that you don't like Teletubbies since this whole episode has left me jilted. And though I don't know about the wedding, you second-most important day on earth will be taken care of pretty well by me. I have a spare casket that I could spray-paint your favourite colour. Isn't it purple?

Love,

Matthew.

Anti-gravity love

Dear Jane,
I have been watching you from up here, not you in particular (all I can see is the Great wall of China, really) but I can see the whole of Earth and I presume you are still on the dear planet. How are things? If you think you feel bad because of the weather (I can see it all) then you probably want to get yourself a good umbrella because from what I can tell, it's gonna be a rainy week.

I write to tell you how much I love you. Love is a funny thing and I never really understood it until I was up here. I guess all I needed was space. Now I have loads of it. Actually, 13.7 billion light years of it. That's in radius. The rest we know fuck all about. Sometimes, I think of how its funny in a way that you are probably down there sitting with the cat and watching Pop Idol while I am here, suspended in universe on my floating recliner and watching the whole of mankind. Even then, you are not so different you and I (well, actually we are; what with you applying anti-gravity aging cream and me up here an exception to gravity). I wish I could send you a falling kiss but it would probably take a while to reach you anyway so I just wish and don't bother.

Remember what I told you before I left, I think, "If you cheat on me then I'll kill you bitch" were the exact words. Well, do you remember? I only mention it because we have all the equipment on our space station and you'd be surprised how much we can see from up here. I can tell you right now that you are wearing that stupid magenta top that I hated and what is that right next to your left hand??!!! Is it an astray?? I thought I told you to quit you bimbo. I'm not coming home after feeling like a tennis ball for five years to the queen of cancer. It better not be an ashtray. And for God's sake take out the garbage. How can you live like that? Those onion rings on your lap remind me too much of Saturn and you know when they say it-stinks-to-high-heaven, guess who is in between. That's right me. I can smell them from up here.

Remember what I said on our first date, I think "Your face is like the moon and your eyes are stars" were the exact words. I've been thinking a lot up here on my own and I think that compliment was the rambling of a drunken idiot. But then again, I had nothing to drink that night. I digress. My point is that the compliment was really, really blown under proportion. I just walked on the moon last Friday and it's nothing like your face (save the acne) and as for the stars, don't even get me started because I don't think you'll understand.

Please don't take anything the wrong way. It's just that all this floating around has made me want to kill myself and the whole cute planet before me. At times I get urges of pressing buttons here so that bad things will happen down there but these are bad urges and Willy (he's a friend of mine I met in my head) says that I should pay them no heed. Besides, I am here to contact intelligent life. Speaking of intelligent life, could you please shut that fucking Hearsay album you listen to every evening. Our radiowaves are full of this sort of I-love-you-baby-forever-no-matter-what-they-say pop gibberish and I think it may erase every possibility of contacting intelligent life.

I think about you all the time but then I realize that missing is something you do on Earth when missed is out of bounds. So I watch you all the time and go to play with myself on the moon where literally, no one in the world is watching. Well, of course the whole world is watching the moon and saying how beautiful it is but they'd never guess that I am pleasuring myself in their bare faces while the idiot lovers compare each other to the moon. It's sad really but I think I'm taking a giant step for me and a small step for mankind. Think about it, solo act in space! I could give you details about how one could use the lesser gravity to one's advantage but you couldn't connect to it because you will never be up here. If you keep eating those mince pies like you do, you'd be lucky if you could get up from the couch in two years. I don't want to think about such nightmares, not now.

Anyway, take care. I'll always be loving you. And watching you. So remember what I said. Not the moon bit; the cheating bit. And switch the nightlamp before you sleep every night like I told you to or else it may just cost you the Earth. I'm in no mood for wasting resources.
Love,
Bruce.