Dear Oscar,

I hope this letter finds you well, even though I am writing from a selfishly frustrated position, and will as usual simply offload my own preoccupations and thoughts, rather than give any consideration to you. In my mind I am writing to you while you are in prison, but I should more realistically acknowledge that I am communicating with someone who is dead. But you see, Oscar, I cannot help wondering what that actually means.

In this day and age it is possible to see performances by long dead entities. I believe there is a stage show featuring Elvis Presley (1935-1977) with tickets that can be purchased today, put together through some form of hologrammatic digital re-mastering; similarly of Whitney Houston (1963-2012), and no doubt other famous names who have departed. It is also possible to hear your own voice, Oscar dear, in a recording made over a century ago, so that even though you are no longer with us we can hear what you sounded like, your pitch and cadence, your accent. What we seem to be preserving is an essence of a self, not of course, an actual self, not a thinking, reactive individual, but at least some form of acknowledgement to what actually was. It is this process of actualisation that interests me. If I am never to meet you, do I meet you when I hear your voice? I will never be able to question you, human to human, but do I need to? I know everything there is to know about you – certainly a lot more than you know of me. You see, Oscar, your heart may have stopped beating, but I wonder if you are dead.

The frustrations to which I do not allude are those of everyday life, the normalities of everyday life, which the dead no longer have to endure. Perhaps you are now dead because you no longer have to experience the frustrations of the living, that are not worth remembering, and not worth taking to one’s grave.

Best wishes, as always,

Algernon B. Duffoure.