A. V. Laider

On the hostel’s letter-board, among envelopes growing old in captivity, the narrator finds one that stops him: his own, addressed to A. V. Laider.

In a rain-bound seaside hostel, where the narrator has returned to recover from influenza, a letter he once sent to a near-stranger has gone unclaimed. Laider, the pale, enigmatic fellow convalescent he remembers, had seemed content to let their days pass in silence—until a small social awkwardness finally breaks the ice. What follows is a tale shadowed by palmistry, guilt, and the uneasy question of whether our choices are truly our own. What did Laider see in his past that made him doubt the freedom to choose?

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