Bad apples

 I think of the rain sometimes.
The difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius is greater when you understand the distance. If you have only experienced one of the two then there is no point of reference and it's hard to understand that forty degrees can mean a hundred and four. It is a bit like that with the rain, but it is also more difficult to explain.
When I think of the rain it seems to me like the rain lasted forever. There was rain every month, the was random rain sometimes, when it wasn't supposed to rain and no one was expecting it. There was rain when nobody knew there was going to be rain because nobody bothered to look at the weather report; if rain came then rain came and there was not much to do about it. Rain was fine, nobody worried about rain unless it wasn't coming.
I walked about twenty block under the rain one time because I didn't want to wait for the bus anymore. I ended up so wet that my teeth started shivering and my skin turned purple. If I could spend all the days of my life deciding if I want to take the bus or get wet, I would pick either because both would mean there would be rain to see. But it is different here and now.
There is no rain. The winters are cold and unforgiving and it only rains at night. Now I don't get to decide between taking the bus or getting wet because there is no rain when the sun is out. There is no soaking of the streets, there is no smell of wet dirt.
I finished writing my first long story on a rainy afternoon. The drought makes me feel like there aren't enough words out there for me to express what I want to say, and I think about the rain when I'm desperate and lonely. I think about the sound of water hitting the streets made of stones rather than concrete, and the trees dancing with the wind, and the grey skies that open up to let the heavens cry. And I often wonder, what's the point of having grey skies if we don't get any water down? 
I think of the rain when I sit on the edge of my bed and there is only silence. The clock ticks and tocks and there are no raindrops. The bookshelves crack and shake and there is no thunder. Here, there is thunder without water, and it feels like screaming with no sound, it feels like heartbreak.
It is easy to think about the ocean when it rains, like waves of happiness, a memory of the water that keeps coming around. It is easy to think, "ah, that's the same water," and smile. And when it rains I feel a little bit less lonely. And when it rains, I feel a little bit more at home.
But when the winter hits, I look out the window and wait for the spring. And when spring doesn't rain, I wait for the summer. Then I wait for the fall. Then I wait again. I have forgotten when it's the time for rain, but in my mind it is always raining.

 Dear Mr. Shaun David Hutchinson, 

A little bit over a year ago I read your book "We Are The Ants" and I decided it was the best thing I had read in a long time. It speaks to me in so many levels, I had to go back, read it again, highlight all the things that made me cry, and separate all the end-of-the-world chapters. It is not often that, as a reader, we come to find books that make us feel this way, and I cannot thank you enough for that. I don't think I liked YA before this, so I'm going to blame you on that. 

I'm trying to say something specific here, I swear, I just need to put my brain together. You see, I've had depression since I was very young. I thought about killing myself a few times before I was even twelve; I want to believe you will understand why it is important to me to say this. Sometimes, when we are depressed, we think nobody understands. We think, "so what's the point?" And it takes someone telling you that they don't see the point either to make peace with yourself. To understand that, no matter how many bad days there are, there are always good days too. It's hard. But you know that already. 

I'm not a teenager anymore, and I've come a long way, and had a few traumas myself, to tell you that your book was not just a book to me, and no matter how much other people didn't like it, how much it didn't matter to other people, it mattered to me. 

After I read "We Are The Ants" I decided I wanted to read everything else you'd written, and I came across "The Five Stages Of Andrew Brawley."
This is what I was trying to get at. Here's the thing: my favorite part of We Are The Ants is that it doesn't focus on the fact that the characters are queer; it's just something that is, and it's okay. The thing about Andrew, it's that somehow it ends up focusing in this fact. 

When I was around the age of ten, someone in my family told me this story. We come from a small town in Mexico, but I never got to see much of it. In that town, there used to live a gay guy that I never met. He decided to be openly gay. He wore woman's clothes and talked 'funny' and wore make-up and had long hair. He was gay. For me, when I finally understood what it was to not be straight, he was a hero. 
One day he was walking down the street, and I'm not exactly sure why or how it happened, but someone decided it was a good idea, an acceptable idea, to throw gasoline at him, and set him on fire. They burned him alive. He had to run and jump in the town's fountain. He survived, and he kept on being gay, but I will never forget that it was okay for someone to set a person on fire just because they were gay.
He wore the scars for the rest of his life, and for everyone who saw him, it was something that was inevitable. What did he expect it he was gay?

Today, gay people can get married almost anywhere in the world, and they have rights, and if you set someone on fire you will most likely go to jail. Today, it's easy for some people to forget that it was not always like this, but I don't want to forget. For some reason, I don't want to forget. There was a guy in a small town in Mexico who got set on fire because he was gay. It hits you like a slap on the face, doesn't it? When you are old enough to understand that these things happened. This things still happen sometimes, somewhere. That people still get killed because they're trans, because they're gay. That we still cannot come out of the closet because we are afraid. 

Rusty reminded me of this, and I cried more than once thinking about him. I don't think a lot of people would understand why I cry. I told several people, when I was reading the book, "they burned him alive," and nobody, nobody could understand what this meant. They burned him alive just because he was gay. and it makes me cry every time. They burned him alive because he was gay. 

I'm still not sure if I'm disappointed with the truth of the book or not. I honestly can't tell what would be worse or what was more horrifying, but I can tell you that I'm grateful for you to tell the world about this. Whoever read your book needs to know: There was a guy out there, who got burned alive just because he was gay. And whether we like it or not, it's something we don't have the privilege to forget. 


As always, thank you for writing. 
Love and respect.
-Abel.