Dear Samir

     I could never hope to make you understand how sorry I am for the damage I have done.  It has taken a long time and plenty of deep thinking for me to realize my mistake but I have finally “come to my senses” so to speak.  You see, I never could completely believe that third letter was so bad, but I began honestly trying to remember what it said, I came to the conclusion that it really must have sounded rather affectionate to you.  Samir, can you believe me when I say that I didn’t mean it to sound that way.  You see, over here we often have a different way of using words or phrases that doesn’t follow the dictionary.  So when I say “My!” I didn’t mean to sound possessive, but that was only used as an exclamation - and so were the words “Boy!” and “Man!”  Do you understand?  Oh, I do hope so!  I guess you might call the use of these words in this way, slang, but perhaps you understand also when I mentioned the names of those songs, I wasn’t applying them to us.  Often my favorite songs are love ballads, but that doesn’t mean I love the words. I love the music — the words usually mean nothing.  Do you see what I mean?  I wish I could explain all this more clearly, but it’s very hard to say what I mean in words.  Really, I am trying [to] let you know that I don’t want you to think that I intended to write love letters.  I like you a lot, Samir.  You’re a good pen pal.  But that’s all there is to it.  You’re just a good friend.  Please try extra hard to understand.  I’ll admit our quarrel is my fault.  Yet I can only say I’m very sorry and ask your forgiveness.  The decision is yours.  Do you want to continue writing or not?  I like writing you, but you decide.  I hope you aren’t angry with me after this letter, but you probably will be.  Still, try to forgive me.  You see I am depending on the answer you give me for the ending to my story.  The story is a fairy tale, but it is also the story of our correspondence.  The title of it is “The Cavern of Confusion” and I’ll send you a copy of it if you want to read it.  But I can’t end it until you reply “yes” or “no” about writing me.

     Now there is one other thing.  After your last letter, I was so furious that I burned all of your letters.  I wonder what you’ll think about that.  You’re angry.  I can almost see the fire flashing in your eyes.  If i were in Cairo we’d probably be throwing things at each other.  But let’s forget that for a moment.  It’s much nicer to see your eyes sparkling with laughter.  So even in these troubles times can’t you manage again?  It’s much more fun to laugh at me that to frown at me.  So smile — chuckle — laugh and let’s have fun!

Laughingly yours,

Cindy,