Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock

This letter from Leonard’s future wife, A, describes their active sex life, which contrasts teenaged Leonard’s virginity. 

A describes their life working and swimming outdoors at Outpost 37. In the future, Leonard fights in a war and attempts to escape the new government, the North American Land Collective. The state imprisons him at a labor camp and sends him to a testing site where A works. She reads Hamlet to the silent Leonard, who recites the play back to A. They fall in love while daily trading lines from the play. 

A’s father, a powerful veteran, arranges for his daughter and Leonard to join him at Outpost 37. The couple marry and have a daughter named S. A describes how she and Leonard kiss whenever they see shooting stars outside the lighthouse. She pleads with him to “hold on” (77). 

Leonard describes his friend Baback, a small Iranian American boy who toted a violin case throughout his sophomore year of high school. During gym class their sophomore year, Asher Beal hits Baback in the head with a ball. Several students follow suit. Asher strikes Baback into the bleachers.