Dear Mr. M Read Online Free

rush of bubbles that roils up like thunder to burst through an iceberg of bubble bath. But I doubt that makes you laugh. I see an earnest expression. The earnest expression of a writer who takes everything about himself seriously, including his farts.
    In any case, this morning you opted for the shower, a rare exception. I’m sure you have your reasons. Perhaps you’re in a hurry, to be on time for an appointment. Maybe it has to do with your being home alone and unable to warn anyone should you become unwell. You wouldn’t be the first writer to be found dead in the tub.
    I think about you as the water pours over your body. Not for very long; it’s not a particularly pretty thought. My impression is that older people tend to choose the shower in order not to have to look at their body. Please do correct me if I’m wrong. For you that’s not a problem, apparently. Apparently you can stand that, the sight of a body whose folds and crinkles seem above all to be a foreshadowing, indicators of a near future when that body will no longer be around.
    As far as I can tell from here, your wife never takes a bath. Even though she’s the one who has nothing to be ashamed of. Before the mirror, under water, only half covered with a hastily wrapped towel, it doesn’t matter, she can take pleasure in who she is. But she never stays in the shower for more than a couple of minutes.
    Personally, I regret that. I’m not made of stone. I am a man. During those two minutes I’ve often thought about her, just as I’m thinking about you now. Hanging over that chair at such moments is no pair of pajamas, but a white towel or bathrobe. She herself is in the shower by now. She closes her eyes and raises her face to feel the jets of water. She welcomes the touch of water on her eyelids like a sunrise, the start of a new day. She shakes her head, briefly but vigorously. Drops of water fly from her wet hair. Somewhere in a corner of the shower stall or close to the bathroom window you can see a little rainbow.
    The water pours down her neck. Don’t worry, I won’t go into any greater detail about the thoughts that come next. I won’t defile her beauty; not out of respect for your feelings, but out of respect for her.
    So the actual showering lasts barely two minutes. But after that she stays in the bathroom for a long time. To do things, I suspect. Sometimes I fantasize about just what those things might be. Sometimes I wonder whether you still fantasize about things like that on occasion, or whether they are just more annoying details to you.
    —
    This morning I’m having some doubts about that new material. The new material I could give you. Last night I read your book, hence the doubts. Yes, that’s right, I read
Liberation Year
in one sitting. I am purposely avoiding terms such as “in one fell swoop” or “at a single stroke”—I simply started around seven in the evening and by midnight I was finished. It wasn’t as though I couldn’t put your book down, or, even worse, that I needed to know how it ended. No, it was something else. That same thing you sometimes have in restaurants: you’ve ordered the wrong dish, but because you’re ashamed to leave too much behind on your plate, you go ahead and eat more than is good for you.
    It’s hard to pinpoint exactly. In fact, I’ve had the same sensation with all your books. You take a bite and start chewing, but it doesn’t taste like much. It’s hard to swallow. Odds and ends become stuck between your teeth. On the other hand, though, it’s not really bad enough to summon the waiter and demand in a huff that the dish be brought back to the kitchen.
    I think it’s far more simple than that: even wolfing down a miserable meal adds to our stockpile of experiences. We’ve eaten absolutely everything on our plate. We feel our stomach bracing itself for a serious bout of indigestion. Perhaps we order a cup of coffee and something on the side to help our stomach out a bit.
    And