A note from a stalker, or something more?
I work at Barnes and Noble, as does my fiancee. Being the rather cute girl that she is, she’s had a few guys hitting on her (I was the successful one). Just recently, a creepy guy who looks like Jeffrey Dahmer saw fit to give her flowers and a poem.
My fiancee wasn’t working tonight, but in the section of the store she usually cleans, I found…something weird.
An envelope sticking up out of a harbound copy of The Brothers Karamazov. Written on the front in script was “Please Read Me.” The letter was typed, save for the date written in black felt marker “9/17/06” and is as follows, as best as I can replicate:
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“Hello,
I need five minutes of your time to come to an understanding of the events that have unfolded today for both of us today. You have worked almost the entire day, burdened by the heavy circumstances of your job, tasks, routines. I have been to the market, the bank, and ultimately compelled into a gas station.
We do not know each other but I think you are lovely. This is neither a terrible mistake nor a devious ruse. When you smile, it makes me feel understood at just the right pitch. It’s a rare smile “with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life…it
I think it’s nice when through some Byzantine series of events our days possess the capacity to surprise us. Due to my lack of courage and charm, I am afraid to approach you in person. I hope we meet each other some day and love one another with as much tenderness as a brand new marshmallow. This is the end of the letter.
Avec mes sentiments distingues,
Dear Stranger,”
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Over the “Dear Stranger” the letters “octor” are written in black felt pen and make it read “Doctoranger”.
I’ve got no explanation for this…I’m not sure it was for my fiancee. If not, who was it intended for? I hope I haven’t…opened myself to something odd.
It’s the “doctoranger” bit I find the weirdest. I mean, the rest sounds like something written by a guy who’s a bit of a loser but intelligent and with literary interests-I mean, he quoted Fitzgerald and closed with a sentence in French, then signs the thing with what sounds like an internet handle.
The Doctoranger…Dr. Anger?…thing got me too. But I didn’t think it sounded like someone intelligent wrote it. To me it felt like someone trying to sound intelligent, like someone trying to write a normal love note and failing.
Maybe it was more creepy when I was standing by myself in the section reading it.
I agree it’s kind of creepy.
The peculiar phrasings – “compelled into a gas station”, “as much tenderness as a brand new marshmallow” – and the self-referential ending – “This is the end of the letter.” – look to me like what someone suffering from some kind of mental illness might write.
Or perhaps he just rolled a BOHICA on his Write Poetically skill.
It it could be an Anagram. try going here http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/
Incidentally, my fiancee left me after four months of marriage. Maybe Doctoranger got to her.