Dear Charles Worley and all the other Baptist pastors preaching against gays,

Seems to me it would be far less time consuming, and a lot more fun, to round up all the fat white bigots and place THEM in an electrified pen. Just think of the lovely sizzling sound y'all would make.
Sincerely,
PC

Dear Wall,

Unless you're providing structural support, we've always been taught you're bad. I remember watching the Berlin Wall come down and the ensuing jubilation and gushing commentary. Politically, socially and individually, the consensus is you're a negative thing, Wall. There should be no barriers, within reason, between countries, ethnicities, rich and poor. And individually we must always let down our guard in order to have meaningful relationships. But there is a kernel of an idea that has been forming in my mind these last few years - a terrible, treasonous idea. I'm a Liberal. A Canadian. An enlightened being with a heart and conscience. I'm supposed to be the good guy! These thoughts should not enter my mind. But they're there, swirling and threatening to multiply like bacteria in a petri dish. I will never admit this to any of my left-of-centre friends. And at dinner parties I will continue to extol on the evils of Harper and Bush - for I truly do despise those guys. But this idea brands me a traitor to everything I have believed in and held dear. The idea is this: maybe you, Wall, are a good thing. Maybe you're even a necessity. Maybe the grand human experiment of co-existing on this planet has failed. Maybe we need to build a lot more of you, Wall, strong and thick and high. Maybe Al-Qaeda wouldn't have crashed into the towers if you, Wall, had been between us, so tall that we could go about our lives as if the other didn't exist. After the end of the Cold War human beings decided to be human beings and age-old animosities were dug up and acted upon. Would the souls that were lost in the Bosnian War still have been lost if the Berlin Wall had been left intact? In Rwanda, if the Hutu and Tutsi tribes had you, Wall, between them maybe Romeo Dallaire wouldn't have had to shake hands with the devil. And if long long ago Jews had you around them, Wall, incredibly high and protective, would the Hitlers of this world have had nothing to say? Am I wrong? Am I terrible? If my twenty-year-old self were to meet me now would she be disillusioned? Have I turned into an old crank like Archie Bunker before I've even turned 40? It's fitting that I should think of Archie. It was while watching an episode of All in the Family that I remember first learning all was not well on planet earth. Meathead and Gloria were discussing having children. Gloria was pressing for a baby and Meathead got angry and yelled that he didn't want to bring a child into this terrible world. I was 8 or 9 at the time and understood that there was truth in Meathead's words because the studio audience fell eerily silent. How did this happen, Wall? How did I reach a point where I could consider you a good idea? Maybe one day it will make sense. Until then, publicly I will support your dismantling. But privately, between you and me, Wall, I see your merits.
Sincerely,
PC

Dear Cruelty,

You continue to surprise me. Not that you exist. I'm not that ridiculous. I watch the news. I've done my time in a schoolyard. You exist all right, Cruelty. But for some reason I'm surprised when I personally encounter you; when otherwise mature and rational adults put you on display. Not long ago I learned that someone I care for, someone who I thought cared for me, at least a little, has been speaking cruelly about me. The discovery was, shall we say, disillusioning. You're at your most potent when you aim for the heart, aren't you Cruelty? Of course, in true optimistic fashion I attempted to deny it, to tell myself it wasn't true. But of course it's true. Well, you may leave a mark, Cruelty. You may leave a scar. But your work is never permanent. For as much as you're a part of human nature so is your arch enemy, Compassion. And I still believe, even after 39 years of witnessing human nature, that an act of Compassion can fling any act of yours into oblivion. I'm proving this to be true. The everyday kindnesses of friends, family and that stranger in the supermarket are already working to erase his affect on me. Already my heart is lighter. Your work is being undone, Cruelty. I have a theory that if I were to compile a list of all the instances of you in the history of the human race, from lions eating Christians to imperialism to Hitler, and compare it to a list of all the instances of Compassion, from separation of church and state to the WWI Christmas truce to Gandhi, that the scales would tip, ever so slightly, in favour of good. So, in the end you don't win, Cruelty. Any feelings of triumph you may experience will only ever be fleeting. Compassion will defeat you every time. And so, until we meet again, Cruelty. For unfortunately, I know that we will.
Sincerely,
PC