Those dark Piscean hours before work, lit by the stove's blue flame, the blue light of my phone scrolling Twitter. I hadn't seen anything from Trout Fish in some days. I searched his @ but nothing came up. Musk, I thought. Fired some engineer. I went through my notifications for a thread I knew he was on, clicked on the gasflame colored letters replying to @troutfishfarms. A blank page, no followers or tweets. Just that openmouthed yellowgreen fish in its circular tank. I'm shocked too, I said to the fish. A ban crossed my mind, was crossed out just as quickly. He's gone, I thought, with nothing but good reason. Others had noticed sooner; from their lamentations I gathered he was taking a little break. He'd be back after a while. Then again maybe not.
But Trout was more than a mutual & some days later I thought to get in touch with him, let him know I accounted him a friend online & off. I could send him a message through another app, but that was still online; & the medium is the message, or so they say on Twitter. So instead I took Trout's absence as the chance to live out my Luddite dreams. Conscious though I was of anachronism, I wrote him saying I wished to stay in touch. Unused to the pen on the page I faltered along, crossing out words, scratching them again between the lines. But he would get it—we both are men of letters little known & less respected.
I folded the letter & placed it in an envelope, & went to Twitter to take down his address. But whether Twitter, like time, systematically erases the words of the deceased, or whether Trout himself had expunged his personal data—whatever the case, his address was not in our messages. I felt dejected, then foolish for feeling dejected, then more foolish still for having failed to write down his address. I tried to recall it. I knew the city & state, & by my perfect memory for numbers & trivial facts (which has many times unsettled a pretty girl) I arrived with some confidence at the number of the house. But by my equally poor memory for the most obvious & essential facts, I failed to remember the street. Again dejected, then foolish.
*
A few days later at lunch, I was translating some lines in the Anabasis. Xenophon was telling which generals were set over the army in some Persian engagement. I passed from right to middle, & came at last to the left, the εὐώνυμος, the well-named. The lexicons have it that εὐώνυμος is a kind of joke; to Hesiod & Pindar it was honor & good auspice, but to Aeschylus, who rewrites the past through the mouth of his Prometheus, it is the ursprung of the ill-starred, of birds that bring bad omen. To persist, then, in calling the left by the name of the good is to mock the Fates—or perhaps the name is a spell to ward them away. Εὐώνυμος, I thought, εὐώνυμος… I took the envelope from my desk & filled the missing line of Trout's address: Left Street. Εὐώνυμος indeed.
Later that day I sent the letter. Whether he'd get it or not or ever would reply, I was glad to cast it out upon the world. And I hoped it would alight in friendly hands.
*
A week later I found something in the mail. It was the letter I'd sent, & I was sad to see it. I stood at the mailbox holding it a while, then went on inside. Later, while I decided whether to put it in my desk or in the shredder, I took another glance at the address. It was the same one I remembered, except for the street. This letter was addressed to the Trout Fish not of Left Street, but of Right.
I smiled & started opening the letter. I didn't know how, but Trout must be up to some trick. Yet unfolding the sheet from the envelope, I found the very same I'd folded in a week before. Down to the crossed out words, the very same. This trick of yours grows more elaborate, Trout. It must be a photocopy, I thought. But first, why? & second, the paper I use has a faint (& faintly infuriating) watermark, visible under just the right light. And holding this letter under just the right light, I could see it was not of any paper—nor of any hand—but my own.
I set the letter down & put on coffee, got out the decanter half-empty & light of brandy. Perhaps I'd just forgotten which street I'd written—right & left, like right & wrong, are all too often confounded. But in the hard expansive truth of the caffè corretto, I knew I was not mistaken. Εὐώνυμος, I thought, εὐώνυμος…
*
The following morning I awoke to a message on Twitter. Trout had returned, & he said he'd received my letter. I went to the other room & turned on the light—there sat the letter on my desk. Once more the blue flame for coffee while I puzzled what it meant, this doubled letter. My mind went as always to Borges, his abomination of mirrors & spectral duplication. I resolved not to become one of his characters, wearied with unrealities. Glad though I was to hear from Trout, & hopeful he'd received the true letter, my fear of the false one made further correspondence impossible. Immediately I deleted my account.
After work I soaked the letter & its envelope in solvents, until all the ink had run out. I knew from the Book of Sand that one cannot tear or burn any pages that threaten to multiply. So I folded again the denuded sheet, put it back in its barestripped vessel. I waited for garbage day & tossed it in a can a few streets over. After that I broke my lease & bought a field that runs down to a stream. I built a cabin that has no address. I send & receive no more letters, but sit & watch leaves go by, harry the occasional fish with a cold-thrilled toe.
Yet a writer cannot keep from writing, nor a vain man keep from sin. One of the two, I sit here scribbling now. Perhaps I will destroy this account, for I fear to wake to another on the table beside it. But perhaps I'll put it away, & one day they will take it out & read it & give it to Trout—the real Trout, be he of Left Street or of Right.