Long Distance [1919] opens with a striking contrast: Chet Ball, once a rugged lineman from Chicago, now rests in a quiet English hospital room, painting a wooden chicken with hands more familiar with climbing poles than holding a brush. His broad shoulders and sun-worn face seem almost out of place amid the dainty surroundings of Reconstruction Hospital No. 9. Though the toy he paints is small and colorful, it stands as a powerful symbol of how far removed he is from the grit and peril of his past life. The room is serene, but its silence speaks of wounds deeper than the ones bandaged—of memories shelved and voices silenced by trauma. His leg, technically healed, remains a constant reminder of the moment his life splintered, and his mind, still reeling from the shock, struggles to make peace with the transition. Each brushstroke is not just a distraction but a fragile attempt at reclaiming balance.

Chet’s camouflage during battle—strapped high in a tree, reporting artillery movements—now seems unreal to him, as distant as a story told in someone else’s voice. What brought him down wasn’t just enemy fire but the weight of what he witnessed, absorbed, and could never fully describe. The therapy at the hospital, intended to re-anchor men like him, relies as much on routine as on gentle human contact. One afternoon, a letter from Chicago arrives, its envelope bearing the familiar script of home. Miss Kate, a nurse with more compassion than ceremony, offers to read it aloud. Her voice, soft and deliberate, breathes life into the words that speak of mundane joys, neighborhood gossip, and memories that once made up Chet’s world. The distance between the letter and the man grows smaller with each line, the warmth of the writer breaking through the fog of war’s aftermath.

Before he became a casualty of psychological injury, Chet lived large—climbing poles with swagger, swapping jokes with coworkers, and charming local girls without effort. But it was Anastasia Rourke who captured something deeper in him, a relationship built not just on flirtation but on shared wonder and the thrill of unpredictability. Their romance, brief but vivid, never got a chance to mature, stolen by the draft notice and sealed by a hurried farewell. That unfinished chapter in Chet’s life lingers in his thoughts like a song that cuts off mid-verse. As he listens to Miss Kate read the letter—perhaps written by Anastasia, perhaps by someone else from that old world—he’s momentarily transported. The act of hearing those words, rich with personal familiarity, becomes its own kind of healing. Not a cure, but a connection.

Chet’s painted chicken remains unfinished, much like his life feels. He pauses now and then, not due to fatigue, but because each detail reminds him of the hands he once held, the streets he once walked, the job that gave him identity and thrill. War may have separated him from all of it, but the letter in Miss Kate’s hands rebuilds, line by line, the bridge back to meaning. The toy in his lap might one day end up in a child’s hands, or on a shelf, forgotten. But in the moment, it’s a talisman of possibility—something he can finish, control, and offer. In a life where unpredictability and loss have dominated, even this small act gives him agency.

Long distance, in this context, means more than geography—it measures the emotional chasm between who Chet was and who he hopes to be. It reflects the gap between trauma and recovery, silence and expression, disconnection and intimacy. The letter doesn’t fix anything, but it opens a window. And through that window, sunlight filters in—quietly, persistently, like memory stitched back into the fabric of a man’s fragmented life. Chet may never return to dangling above the city skyline or lighting up streetlamps. But perhaps, with each letter read, each toy painted, and each tear gently blinked away, he’s already climbing his way back.