I know I already cleared myself for weekends off from comics, but Mondays? Well, I should have put comics up today. I’ve no good excuse. So I’ll try to make it up to you by telling a little story that I just thought of.

When I was flying from Wisconsin to Portland, right at the tail end of August, I eavesdropped. No, I flat out snooped. I was sitting cramped in the middle seat, hiding behind my headphones from neighborly conversation, and I couldn’t help but catch a glance through the space between the seats in the row in front of me. A young woman had her laptop perched on her drink tray and was sorting through old emails. All of the emails she was looking at were from the same person, a man, presumably her boyfriend or husband or ex of either. These email were love letters, and they were beautiful. I mean, they were possibly some of the most beautiful writings I’d ever read over a stranger’s shoulder. I wouldn’t even try to replicate them here. This woman was obsessively poring over them, reading each one in a list of hundreds, and then rereading and rereading. It’s because of this that I assumed that the author of these letters was no longer in her life. If they were still together, she would be reading new love emails from him. He would be sitting next to her on the plane, or waiting for her at the gate, not in an archive of dusty old affections. I wondered if maybe he was dead.

I guess that’s my story… my battery is about to die. Comics again tomorrow!