Hello.

How are you?

Nice weather we have been having, yes?

How is your husband?

I hope this letter finds you well.

Openings.

They are always there, permeating the parchment of a letter, staining it with insincerity and dullness that melts into a void from which no one can escape.

We try to gloss it over, putting lipstick on a pig whose true identity shines through, no matter how deep the hue, how expensive the brand, how thick the application.

Why do not we push and pull, rage and scream, asking each other what really matters?

How is your mother doing?

--when we really want to ask--

Has the cancer killed her yet?

There are ways to get around this just by rearranging a few words.

But NO.

That'd be *way too easy.

Hey there.

I'm really not doing so well.

I prefer rainstorms, this sunny weather bores me to pieces.

My husband died eight years ago, Janet.

You know full well that I haven't been truly well since age seventeen.

Perhaps since the openings **** us...

...we can be brutally honest and **** them in return.

With honesty---

---the same honesty that those who write the openings omit, feign to recognize, shove off in a corner somewhere.

Honestly--

*Hello, how are you?