Script capital alphabet flash sheet

The ink finally came through the cold, so I am writing this with the good pen and the last of the Lisbon paper, which you will forgive me for hoarding. The clerk at the Holloway post station swore the sorting engine would reject anything not typed, but I told him a script hand is older than the engine and therefore has a claim on it. He laughed and stamped the envelope anyway.

You asked in your last letter whether the letters of the alphabet still mean anything to the people who keep the old presses running. They do, in the way a locked drawer means something. Down at the bindery they have pinned a flash sheet to the wall above the type cabinet, five rows of capitals joined into one long breath, each loop left open like a door nobody has bothered to shut. Old Ferris says every letter there was drawn by a hand that was never in a hurry. I think he is right, though I have been wrong about most things this year.

I chose the S. Its entrance curls back on itself and its exit runs off the edge of the page as if it has somewhere better to be. Ferris asked why I wanted the one letter that could not stand still. I told him a name is only a line we agree to keep, and I wanted a letter that refused to keep its own counsel.

Write back soon. Tell me whether the river has frozen at the old weir, and whether you still walk past the bindery on Tuesdays. If you do, look up at the wall. The S is still there, waiting to be finished.

Yours, in ink, Esme