Mrs. Lonleyharts – Alexander Kattke

July 7, 2022

I tap my pen against the stack of papers, scanning the many questions and choose the best ones. My articles are the light tower in the fog of life. A cliché line but one that suits my purposes. I hear the confessions of the lovelorn, if only they knew what I really thought of them: uninspired fuckholes.

One begs me for my help in finding their prince charming. On my TV plays hardcore bondage I got from a shop that was raided by the FBI not long after I visited. The masked participants are cut into little by little as they are instructed to sing. They sing very poorly for my liking.

Clarissa writes: “Dear Mrs. Lonelyharts, please help me with this embarrassing issue I have. My boyfriend can’t bring me to orgasm. I think it’s the scent I give off because he’s very reluctant to give me oral.” That’s the gist of what I got from skimming a long-winded whining from this letter. “Dear Clarissa” I write with a perverted smile “Maybe it’s time to find a new man? One that tolerates your dirty pussy. If there’s no synergy in the bedroom then what’s left? A man can be replaced with a vibrator.” I try to be cute but I know my editor won’t like that one. Or maybe we can save it for an April Fools or March issue?

The BDSM video cuts to nude women in a cage in the midst of a snowstorm. More letters; one from an underage colored girl self-conscious over her small breasts and experiencing the pain of razor burn. I hold back my contempt, ignoring in the corner of my room an abandoned spider web where pieces of an eviscerated fly reside frozen in time. “Dear Aniyah, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. We all blossom in time. It works the other way around too; the catty girl who bullies you will age faster, soon she’ll be showing her true corpse-like inner self by the time she hits 26.” I splice in an inspirational quote from a cheap paperback I keep for such occasions to cap it off.

I take a break and have a drink. I start to contemplate greeting card writers and fortune cookies. Eventually a robot will replace those writers with electric typewriters specially made from the discarded remnants of deformed newborns that will overheat and cooled with virgin tears from orphanages. The greeting cards and fortune cookies will have one thing in common: they’re both printed by Chinese slaves.

I look out onto the countryside and admire its beauty, gazing upon that splendor while holding a nearly empty beer. That true splendor of course is a lack of people. No more noise. No more stupid questions. It should all go back to the animals. I blow my nose and return to the letters just before going to bed. “What does a man look for other than a perfect body?” I sigh and type a half-hearted reply “What a man wants is a fun personality. And it doesn’t hurt to be a blonde either. Please die of bulimia.” I made myself laugh. I take a pencil eraser and delete my snark as I prepare it to be mailed back to my editor. I enclose a note: “Hey Mike, how about a raise. Where do you find these brain donors? Your friend, Ted Bundy.”