A Letter to Kirk Cameron

Dear Kirk,

I hate to begin our correspondence this way,
but I have a confession to make: Dave Eggers
never returns my letters. I don’t blame him,
& neither should you, he is a very busy man.
I knew you’d understand. You don’t know
Dave Eggers by any chance, do you? No wait,
forget I even mentioned him. I don’t want you
to feel like you have to measure up to Dave
Eggers or anything. I am sure you will make
a fine pen pal. Heck, you’ll probably answer
me without dropping quite so many literary
references that I shamefully have to look up
in Wikipedia, & then pretend that I didn’t look
them up in Wikipedia, because I knew who
Cormac McCarthy was all along. Do you know
who Cormac McCarthy is? I could teach you.
We could hitchhike across America & work
odd jobs as we travel. You could perform a few
scenes from Mad Max, while I do some of my
famous birdcalls. Of course, everyone would
go crazy for your Mel Gibson impressions,
but no one would appreciate my bird calls.
‘What is a bird call?’ they’d demand. ‘Why,
they’re calls made by birds’ you’d say. ‘What’s
a bird?’ they’d ask. Then you’d smile patiently,
& explain that birds are like feathery cannibals
that used to fly all over Earth. ‘I remember those’
they’d say. ‘They also had hollow bones which
rode upon currents of air,’ you’d add helpfully.
Then the men would let us live, because you
helped them feel a connection to a past that
they thought was lost forever. Then I’d dust some
ash from your shoulder, & you’d smile at me.

Sincerely,
Ryan