Pen Pal

"Pen Pal" by Stephen Marlowe is a story about Matilda Penshaws, a woman who is looking for someone to marry at age 33. The novella blends humor and strangeness to explore the themes of love and the edges of what's real. Matilda sees an ad for a pen pal from Haron Gorka that gets her attention and she decides to finds him in Cedar Falls. However, she finds out that he is a strange person and his adventures don't make much sense. As she gets to know Gorka and his wife, she starts to think they are tied to something bigger in the universe than she is used to in her life. In the end, Matilda is let down, and she thinks about what she was expecting. She understands that chasing after wild dreams might not make her happy, and she realizes that it's important to be realistic and to find real relationships.