The Collapse CC: Bicentennially Yours

 06 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

I note by the count that this appears to be my 200th letter to you since this situation more or less started.

I say “200th”. In point of fact I do not know that this is precisely true; this is based on my count – which to be fair, has often been off in the past; as I like to say I am accurate but not always precise.

Still, let us assume that – for better or worse – this is indeed letter 200.

I have to confess to you (you will already know this, of course) that most likely these are more letters than I have written to anyone ever, perhaps even as many as I have written in my life. That strikes me as a rather odd thought.

Even when we were growing up, letters were still something that were “done”, even if not to the frequency of the previous two generations (by our time phone calls were a regular thing, even if there was such a thing as “long distance charges” – how strange that sounds now). And we, in turn, were building on a tradition that went back in some form to the Roman Republic, where we still have the correspondences of Seneca and Cicero.

I remember writing in high school to our friends that were slightly ahead of us in college, the anticipation when sending the letter off and the pleasant surprise when the letter returned. And not just any sort of letter: decorative letters in calligraphy or the text written in a spiral or wave or even with elements of foreign languages.

That age, at least for us, passed too quickly. Letters became small notes in cards and then just cards on holidays – and then almost nothing at all, as e-mail and text messages overwhelmed even calling someone else.

And then, of course, The Collapse. And up to 50 years of electronic records were wiped clean.

Buried in a small chest somewhere I still have the letters I received and in some cases those that I sent to my grandparents and parents and family members. It is odd, looking at them now, the cramped pen style and the thoughts of a boy and teenager writing about far away places that likely none of them would ever see. Beyond that, I have nothing except what I may have downloaded on a computer that I begrudge the use of for the power drain it represents.

Except for these letters now, of course.

They are perhaps not as remarkable or meaningful as the letters written in the past and savoured by generations, but perhaps also they represent yet another small way to push back against the entropy of a civilization that, having placed all on an altar that was more out of control than it believed, suddenly consumed it all.

Cicero and my namesake, I suspect, would probably be pleased.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca