Continuation of Undelivered Letters 02. Mirror has gone full Optimism now so you cannot collect this article on the mainnet anymore. If you wish to collect but don’t want to do it on Optimism, you can collect the related NFT here:

https://opensea.io/collection/felisnotebook

He took a drag of his cigarette, as always with his sight wandering far away and his brows furrowed. She looked at his profile with amusement.

"You look lonely when you put up a face like that while smoking," she said, "or are you?"

He looked at her for a second before exhaling a long white smoke away from her

"Are you?" He asked back. He gave out a thin, tight-lipped smile as he did so.

"Well," she shrugged her shoulder, "to me it's both a curse and an old friend. Especially now that I am walking my own path."

"Find friends," he said.

"I have friends," she chuckled, "it's just that once you get acquainted with loneliness, they stick with you regardless of friends. Or maybe I want something deeper."

He inhaled the nicotine again. The fire had burnt up more than half of the cigarette by now.

"Are you?" She asked again.

"Probably," he replied after a minute, "Probably because I chose to be, too"

"Do you like yourself?" He asked suddenly.

The girl raised her brows inquisitively but nevertheless gave it a thought as she shook her plastic coffee cup and bit the straw. "Yes and no," she said after a while, "I'm proud I am me but at the same time, I hate that I'm proud I am me. I brag sometimes but I regretted it afterward."

"You brag?" He asked back. His brows burrowed deep as he asked. When he moved his hand the ice in the bright-colored drink in his hand rattled in unison as if they are agreeing with him.

"I thought I do," she told him, "but I can't seem to tell whether I brag, or I confuse my insecurities with the thoughts of doing so."

How easy would it be for the ignorant The fool, the narrow-minded! For they live in their own world For their mind so simple, their soul at rest!

How nice  it must be for people to feel without guilt as they live for nothing but themselves and care not for the world outside their house

but I, I and my mind, I feel too deeply when I wish I do not at all** **So suffocating they were That they make me empty.

On one particularly chilly day, she sits by the cafe window. A cup of warm latte is in her hand, a notebook nearby. As she blinks, her eyes trail along the street, watching people passing by the cafe. She watches them as if they are actors on TV and she is merely a viewer. She has been doing this numerous times, but still, every time she distances herself and views the world goes like a theatre behind a glass wall, cold, foreign loneliness will catch her unguarded. She can never see that coming, nor she can tell if they actually came to her. All that she knows is when it comes, it will catch her in between her ribcage.

"Do these people know sadness?" she will ask herself every time, "it is strange knowing that among these people walking on the street, someone may be thinking of their loved ones while the person next to him may be lonely. Someone may feel alive and blessed but at the same time the person behind him was planning a suicide."

She looks at the empty chair in front of her. He isn’t there but she can smell his usual cigarette scent. She knows what he would say,

"That's people. They are selfish. They just are."

It is strange that people are alive, and they are selfish, and it's natural, and here she is, watching them as if she is not one of them.

"I had a dream last night. A man was walking alone in a field of snow without shoes. Two young male lions were with him and he looked like he was lost in his own thought."

He munched on his lunch quietly, waiting for the girl to go on with her stories.

"Do you think it's strange?" She asked a question instead. "It's a dream," he said nonchalantly, "it's supposed to be."

"I wonder where did he come from," she said, "and why did he look so sad."

The girl looked around, noticing each one of the people walking about, living their own life. She began to realize that just like she knew nothing about that man in her dream, she knew nothing about other people's lives as they, too, knew nothing of her. Even him. Even her. Even both of them.

"Are you going for a smoke?" She asked.

"Later," he said.

Ah, so much love

So many broken pieces

"We haven't talked for quite some time, I guess you were busy," a sweet, female voice emerged from the voicemail, "I hope you are doing good."

A pause ensued. He inhaled smoke, phone on an ear.

"I don't think I'll be returning soon. Even if I do, I don't think I would want to see you around anymore. It really isn't comfortable for both of us... for me at least. Sorry to sound dramatic but I guess I suck at this kind of thing."

"Okay, I'll be going," she added after a short chuckle, "Wish you well."

The voicemail ended. He shoved his phone back into his front jeans pocket and lit up another cigarette. Exactly at that second, the rain started to pour down quietly behind him.