ZILLAH: Dear Mr. President, I know you will never read this letter. I’m fully aware of the fact that letters to you don’t even make it to the White House, that they’re brought to an office building in Maryland where civil-servant types are paid to answer the sane ones. Crazy, hostile letters – like mine – the ones written in crayon on butcher paper, the ones made of letters cut out of magazines – these get sent to the FBI, analyzed, Xeroxed and burned.
But I send them anyway, once a day, and do you know why? Because the loathing I pour into these pages is so ripe, so full-to-bursting, that it is my firm belief that anyone touching them will absorb into their hands some of the toxic energy contained therein. This toxin will be passed upwards – it is the nature of bureaucracies to pass things vertically – till eventually, through a network of handshakes, the Under-Secretary of Outrageous Falsehoods will shake hands with the Secretary for Pernicious Behavior under the Cloak of Night, who will, on a weekly basis in Cabinet meetings, shake hands with you before you nod off to sleep. In this way, through osmosis, little droplets of contagion are being rubbed into your leathery flesh every day – in this great country of ours there must be thousands of people who are sending you poisoned post. We wait for the day when all the grams and drams and dollops of detestation will destroy you. We attack from below. Our day will come. You can try to stop me. You can raise the price of stamps again. I’ll continue to write. I’m saving up for a word processor. For me and my cause, money is no object.
Love, Zillah
