I recently rejected a book proposal sent possibly by an inmate (you can supposedly tell, because everything's handwritten in pencil), and it felt really weird sending a handwritten rejection to him/her. Here I was, rejecting someone locked up in a tiny box for who knows how long. But, it's not really pity or sympathy I am talking about here. The person could have committed a horrendous crime, which would probably scare me more than make me pity the person (although, I wonder if that makes me an uncompassionate person, but let's not get into ethics at this point) and I would probably have rejected the proposal anyways even if it wasn't sent by an inmate. The point is, it just felt like I was sending a note to a wall; I would never be able to hear the person's response to my rejection, a response that I would be able to hear if I had called the person. Sure, I can imagine how he or she would react after receiving my response, but that's just my imagination, a mental picture created solely by me. In other words, the real response can't really come to me. Maybe, it's the fact that an inmate is locked up in a cell. I imagine a concrete box with a small barred window, and my handwritten rejection just bouncing off the sharp corner of the box.
People nowadays lament their relationships that seem to be comprised of only one-way communication. They complain, "People just won't listen!" I have a feeling that the concrete box image is also suitable for this type of a complaint. But, just imagine how more alienating it would feel if it wasn't that the other person didn't listen, but that the other person couldn't listen and you couldn't listen to him/her? The one-way communication that comes not from someone's stubborn intention to not listen, but from unchangeable circumstances into which people are coincidentally thrown seems more tragic.
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