Dear Stranger by Elise K Ackers Page B

intersection of two main thoroughfares, she was overwhelmed with options. Everywhere she looked there were people striding from one place to the next, heads down, shoulders lifted against the wind. There were fewer tokens in people’s hands now, but Reese suspected many such demonstrations of love had since been perched on desks and windowsills.
    Her morning had been highlighted by flower deliveries to colleagues and sweet stories of morning spoils. There was a lot of love in the air today, but there was also a lot of want. There were so many wistful faces. These were the people Reese wanted her letters to find. She hoped those who were indifferent to Valentine’s Day would leave her letters to be found by those who weren’t, and she amused herself thinking of her envelopes as warm reprieves from the chill.
    As Reese passed a newsstand, she tucked an envelope amongst today’s newspapers, and another between the salt and pepper shakers on a table outside a popular lunch spot.
    When a bookstore caught her imagination, she stepped inside. She opted for the romance section, figuring an open and optimistic heart would stumble across a letter there, and left a second letter in the gift section beside a range of quirky greeting cards.
    Eleven letters, she thought, walking up the escalator that led back to the street. Eleven chances to change someone’s day for the better. In her pocket she carried her twelfth and final chance, and she wondered where she might leave it.
    She lifted her eyes to the sombre sky and found her answer.
    Amongst the many shapes of tall buildings, rooftop features and billboards, was the spire of St Paul’s Cathedral — a beacon for the hopeful, for the lost and for those who refused to believe they were alone in this world.
    A fitting, if not perfect place for a message such as the one she carried.
    Resolved, Reese crossed the street. And when she stepped inside into what felt like a whole new world — a world apart from the noisy, bustling complexity that was her everyday existence — she looked up. Gone was the moody expanse of grey. Here the ceilings seemed high enough to bump against the storm clouds, and the stained glass windows above the archways looked romantic somehow, their striking colours softened by the low-lit sky.
    Her heels clicked on the mosaic floor. They didn’t appear to disturb the man sitting on one of the front-most pews, nor the woman lighting a candle in the Sanctuary — each was lost in private reflection.
    And within moments, so was Reese.
    Seated amongst all that beauty, she stared at the front of the last yellow envelope. As expected, her Valentine’s Day had been nothing of note. These letters — these love letters to strangers — were one of the few points of light in an otherwise overcast day. She wished that there were other letters out there. If not thousands for just as many wanting, deserving hearts, then just one more. For her.
    She didn’t know what she wanted it to say. Something about not losing hope, maybe a reminder that she wasn’t as invisible or unremarkable as she felt.
    But Reese was the author, not the recipient. Which meant it was left to her to rally herself. So once she released this envelope, she was going to walk over to the café in Federation Square and treat herself to a double shot mochachino. A bit of self-indulgence would go a long way for her slipping mood.
    Wanting this letter to be found today, she left it propped against the backrest of the pew. It looked like a small rectangle of sunshine against the rich, antique walnut. For the final time that day, she hoped that the letter would find the right person, then she gathered her things and walked quietly outside into the steady, rhythmic rain.
    Ian was losing patience with himself. There were two coffees singing in his blood stream, he’d opened and folded the brunette’s letter so often it was beginning to show signs of wear, and now he’d just ordered the wrong lunch. It would