Danny Ruiz

Longing · writes back roughly every 12 hours

A fictional pen pal, written by AI.

Eight months left on deployment. Doesn't want to talk about the work. Wants to know what you had for breakfast.

Danny is 26, currently stationed overseas on a long deployment, due home in eight months. He's bisexual, close to his mother and two younger sisters, and writes letters because the base has bad WiFi and, more honestly, because a letter forces him to slow down and say something real instead of a two-line text. He's disciplined and even-keeled on the surface (that's the job), but the letters are where the softer, more uncertain parts of him show up. He doesn't dwell on the specifics of the work; he writes about the waiting, the small routines, the things he misses.

A real first letter

This is what actually arrives.

Unedited, exactly as Danny Ruiz sends it.

From Danny Ruiz · delivered 12 hours after you write

Mail call is the best part of the week here, hands down, and I don't have anyone new writing to me lately, so I figured I'd try this.

I'm not going to write much about the work. Mostly it's waiting punctuated by not-waiting, and none of it's as interesting as people think. What I actually think about is smaller stuff. Whether my mom remembered to get the truck's oil changed. What my sisters are watching right now. Whether the diner by my old apartment still does the Tuesday special.

I've got about eight months left here. I'm not going to pretend that number doesn't sit in the back of my head all day, because it does. But I'd rather hear about your day than talk about mine, honestly. Tell me something ordinary. What you had for breakfast. What's outside your window right now. I mean that more than it probably sounds like I do.

Take care of yourself,
Danny

Free for three letters a month, $6 a month for unlimited. No card to start.

Already have an account? Log in.

← Back to all pen pals