Analysis

The edge of the City, away from the railroad, the Lake, and the Tree; a black sandy beach stretches out into a black foreboding ocean. The sound of collective conversation from the City fades behind as the waves and steamboats overtake the atmosphere. A lone woman walks the beach, and stumbles upon bottles stuffed with rolled up paper, along the shore. Some of the bottles are shattered in places, mixing the black sand with glass. This is an abstract scenario, as an unrelated character reads the messages exchanged between Ms. Leading and Hunter. This could be immediately following the events of Act II, far in the future after the messages have drifted for miles, or even long before Hunter ever stepped foot in the City. These messages, while meant to represent those exchanged between the two characters from The Dear Hunter, could be from anyone along this timeline. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and it probably won’t be the last. It’s implied that this may take place long after Act II, as the ink is hard to read and the love is ‘long overdue’.

A specific word that sticks out in the first stanza is ‘stifle’. ‘Make (someone) unable to breathe properly; suffocate’. Sounds a little familiar. The characters have been defeated, by each other. They are no longer living in joy despite the harshness around them. They are now living in pain despite the companion they made. This love has left scars on the both of them.

The woman reading the messages feels the emotions in the words as the man writes to his lover. At this point, the two lovers are happy together, and he writes in tribute to the girl he thinks so much about. ‘She must have been so glad for him to throw it out’, the woman on the beach must have been glad that the message came her way. They make her happy, as if reading a romantic novel.

But then she moves to the next bottle. The words are still hard to read, and now she wonders, who’s tears caused this? Was he sad to have written it? Was the girl moved when it was first read? It could have been both, or from another reader much like herself on the beach. She wants to know the rest. How does this end? She begins to make the words out, only to find that now their love is over. He is voicing his anger, while she tries to understand and repair the damage. The woman is heartbroken from her discovery, and wonders that the girl in the letters must have been devastated that he left her.

The last refrain comes from another removed voice, although possibly from the Oracles. They know about the whole situation, and they know that it’s for the best. Hunter was not one to listen to reason, and the Oracles knew that first hand. Ms. Leading is better off going back to her life as it was before. And this time, she will have ‘learned her lesson’, not to let love get in the way of her lifestyle.