The Ecphorizer

Love Letter to Willie
Liz Barry

Issue #05 (January 1982)


Smitten with love, a reader longs to join the gang in Mburg


Editor's Note [1982]: In the October and December issues we printed "Letters

...carry me tenderly to Mburg, where we will dwell closer to the stars.

from Mburg," signed by Willie, the pseudonym of Warren Fogard. Here is a reply from another pseudonym. Maybe this is the start of something pseudo-beautiful.

Dearest Willie:

I think I'm in love. So far, it is a lopsided, unrequited, quiet passion which first began when I read your initial report from Mburg. You are my kind of guy, because I perceive in you the delicate, perceptive spirit so kindred to my own. This can happen, I tell myself. There is a precedent.

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett found each other's heart and mind this way. Of course, I am not languishing an an invalid's couch, scribbling my sonnets under the possessive eye and confining clutch of a paranoid parent. I do have a persistant cough, however, in this sunless, chilled and foggy climate. I feel only the sunlit heights of Mburg can help.

[quoteright]Willie, you must realize our own happiness, yours and mine, can be found if you rescue me and carry me tenderly to Mburg, where we will dwell closer to the stars, warmed by the passions of our love (as only Mensans can be), basking forevermore in the sublime fulfillment of our late, but fateful, destiny.

I can't express how eager I am to get up there where there is both serenity and excitement. Dawn here in the Big Valley, life has become so precarious and yes, threatening.

The big news an teevee this month is a good example. A group of our taller senior citizens out loose in the night and unscrewed the bulbs of the neighbor's outdoor Christmas lights. Then last week a real outlaw of this group shot some of them out with his grandson's BB gun. I tell you, when that hit the fan, there were vigilante teams springing up all over town.

The sheriff got the City Council and Supervisors to send out a hotline call to the Red Berets, but they wouldn't patrol the suburbs.

"Those old codgers are too cagey and vicious for us," their spokesman said on a local channel, but he pledged his forces to stake cut downtown parks for muggers and rapists.

In this depressing atmosphere the only time I feel lighthearted is when Uncle Quincy calls. He's a crazy old coot and so out of it he thinks Queen Elizabeth's hats are "real shick" as he puts it. That's what it sounded like, although when he has his teeth cut he's not easy to understand. Once in a while he gets off a good one. Like last week when he explained the Reaganomics' "trickle down" theory.

"It's based on the same idea," he said, "that if you feed a horse enough oats and hay, sooner or later the sparrows will have something to eat."

Willie dear, I figure I'd better make my feelings known to you while the Technical Virgin is still south. Actually, I am an RV - a Real Virgin, never having voted Republican in my life. But none of that matters anymore, since I get screwed just like everybody who did.

For the time being, until you come to get me, Willie, I'm lucky to live here in one aspect. The pickin' s are good in the better areas. Folks leave a little skin and meat on the chicken bones, and every now and then there's a dollop or so of booze in the bottles they throw out. Not that I would swig it. I am not a drinking woman, Willie, especially not early Wednesday mornings, the pickup day for their trash cans. I sbould, maybe, to help werm my hands, as the cotton gloves are full of holes.

So, Willie, I won't be slipping down to the cellar to nip at the raisin-jack. You can rest easy on that. Besides, I'll be busy in the kitchen cocking up love potions to keep you mellow and smiling, and to keep Vernalee out of it.

On good days I went to put in a bed of marigolds around the base of the marble Animal Control Officer. When I get into town I think I can work up a side-business booking bets on Javot when he runs at the tracks. That will help with the egg money.

I am shy at telling you of my beauty. Your own qualifications are intimidating, especially the suave and muscular ones. However, in all fairness, you should know that I am totally adorable, curvaceous, provocative, and a near perfect 36-DD, with long legs, dimples, luscious lips and curling lashes that I put on every morning, rain or shine.

There are four of us here at the house in the valley, too. Little Penelope, the friendly spirit, who in a former life was Harvey, the Big Rabbit; Mokka, the chocolate-colored gentleman who does fence patrol at dawn; Leonora the Languid, who ferrets out the best trash cans on our reconnaissance prowls, and who is never suspect because of an inherently innocent demeanor. And, of course, myself, Lovely Liz.

We are all solid citizens, but are now practicing inner transcience, preparatory for the en masse move to Mburg. So hurry, Willie, we need you. Don't resist -- it's Kismet ............

Love, Liz  


"Liz Barry" is the pen name of Lisa Barrigan-Basker, who lives near Sacramento and has been published in many national magazines. Take hear, would-writers; she has never received a rejection slip!

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