greetings,from the Dunhers

Dear friends and family,

I realize that Christmas is dawning upon us soon, and it is routine for me to issue a letter recounting the past year, preferably with great reflection and a promise for personal change. Alas, what’s left is bitterness and little sympathy, for our family at least, we have had to endure a great line of challenges.

For one, my husband has long renounced his Christian faith, instead opting for atheism, proud to debate his many wayward, thoroughly confusing ideas about man and religion. Although he was precise to say that he no longer believes in God, and claims to have been liberated by this, I have observed a new kinship to stray animals, particularly the dogs he collects from the neighborhood and raises in our backyard, now smelling of shit and disease.

It is impossible for us to have intercourse anymore, I feel as if I am betraying our Good Lord whenever he attempts to touch or caress me, and that I will immediately explode into many bits of flesh and bone if I ever orgasm again. As a result, we’ve had to use more indirect measures, substituting intimacy with toys and several other unmentionable objects, always careful to not have too much fun.

Our daughter Grace, once the medal and pride of the family, gave birth to a bastard baby. Even as the creature exited her filthy womb, then filled with blood and puss, she insisted that she was still a virgin. Either some form of twisted miracle has befallen our already cursed family, or some element within her psychology refuses to acknowledge the act. A few weeks after birth, Grace insisted she return to this thing she deludingly calls a career, leaving me at home with a shrieking manifestation of all that is wrong with our family.

We have no inkling as to who the father may be, although I suspect it is our neighbor’s devious son, who has historically been a complete menace. He may only be 9 years old, but he is as evil as they come. The baby even has a dent on his upper forehead, and an enormous set of testicles for his age, and despite the fact that he will grow up lacking in any valuable skills and a face not even a mother could love, I try my best to provide, or at the very least, restrain myself from accidentally hurling him out the balcony.

Christmas theoretically, is a time for gifts and forgiveness, but I feel as if these two things are extinct in me, and the very family I once cherished, have sacrificed much for, has become the ultimate burden to myself and our reputable community.

If you do wish to visit us anytime during the holidays, please be prepared to endure the stench of filth and dogs in our home, a baby whose incessant wailing is no doubt a mark of the Antichrist himself, and my pseudo-religious daughter Grace who will insist on unloading verses from the Bible onto any visitor, forever ready to guard her virginal status.

Merry Christmas,

Adriana Dunhers.

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