10.9.2025

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My dearest North Star,

I ran out of gas faster than I expected. So now I'm stumbling along with just a backpack and a few weapons I could carry. I feel like I'm playing the last level of some bad post-apocalyptic video game where every decision is a bug. What I couldn't carry, I hid in an old transformer station and traded a few pieces with passersby for something more useful. Sometimes it's just a can of beans, or batteries, sometimes a few bullets, but I found that even that has its poetics. My pen ran out, but I managed to trade it for a pencil with some hippie who believed that the aliens were messengers of God. I suspect the old fool had some ink cartridges hidden away. If I had taken it, I could have written you a hundred more letters, but that's who I am, a good-natured guy.

 

Yesterday I was walking through a town where we once went on a trip together. So long ago, but I still found that bench by the ice cream shop where a whole scoop of strawberry ice cream fell on your new dress. I started laughing when I remembered your shocked face. I´m sorry, my Little Star, but you were just too adorable. The ice cream shop is still standing, but that silence… is everywhere. I sit among the ruined cities and I can listen only to the wind, which apparently has a higher IQ than most survivors, as I was able to find out for myself. I miss music. I hide, I feel fear in my bones, and yet, as I watch the world burn, all I think about is you. Wasn’t it in a song? I should be thinking about survival, strategy, long-term plans, but you know what, my Star, the hope of finding you is the only thing that drives me forward. The only thing that gives me meaning.

 

At night, I picture your smile and remind myself that nothing I’ve lived through means anything if I don’t find you. There’s no one else left. So I keep movin through the rubble, through the fear, ready for anything, with only a trace of sarcasm as my shield against the madness of this world. And if someone asks why I’m laughing while cars burn around me, I’ll tell them it’s because of you. You’d understand why.

 

I know I shouldn't be trying to find you. I know your life is somewhere else, but... what if...

 

I have to save my pencil, there are a few verses taking shape in my mind that I need to write down. Another twist of irony: when I had comfort, peace, and all the time in the world, I was paralysed by writer’s block and the dull depression of burnout, unable to write a single line. Now the words come to me everywhere I go, verses and stories come pouring in. Maybe all I really needed was a change.

 

I hope you are safe

 

Yours

Damian