Mr Keller: If You Have More to Say, Say It Properly

To: Mr. Samuel D. Keller

Subject: If You Have More to Say, Say It Properly

Date: March 13, 2025

In her reply, Mrs. Whitely rejects Mr. Keller’s contempt and challenges him to face her properly.

Mr. Keller,

I have read your letters, all of them. Yes, every single one. You may believe that you were clever in hiding them and in never sending them, but paper has a way of finding its way into the right hands, and your words have.

I must admit, you did surprise me. Not because you resent me, as that has always been obvious, but because you seem to believe your resentment is profound and even noble. You write as though you are the only man alive who has ever chafed under authority, the only one who has ever thought himself too good for the work he does.

Allow me to tell you something you very clearly need to hear. You are not unique.

You mop a floor you believe you are above, and yet you continue to mop it anyway. You call yourself educated, yet you use that education only to wallow in self-pity and to draft bitter little speeches you lack the courage to deliver. You claim to see through me, and yet you have seen nothing that I do not already see in myself.

You call me petty, as though you expect that to wound me. Petty power, Mr. Keller, is still power. And here is the truth you seem unwilling to admit. You obey it. Every night, you show up. Every night, you submit to it. Every night, you prove me right.

So go ahead. Write another letter if you like. This time, send it. Or better yet, say what you have to say to my face, if you have the courage.

But as long as you continue scrubbing floors for a paycheck while pretending you are better than the rest of us, you are nothing more than what you already fear you are. A coward.

If you truly have more to say, then say it properly. Otherwise, stop wasting my time with your unsent monologues.

When you find the courage to speak, you will know where to find me.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Margaret Whitely

Inspector