To Whom It May Concern:

You may wish to know that months ago a plainly packaged journal was left at the base of Lisbon’s iconic statute of Adamastor. Long thought by Pessoa scholars to exist yet nowhere present in the now legendary trunk, this handwritten journal accounts for the second half of his, or rather, Bernardo Soares’ masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet.

You may wish to know that the journal entries proceed without a lapse in continuity beginning at entry #482, except Soares, or rather, Pessoa, has followed his occult interests to the point of no return, becoming an alchemist in search of the word for the universe, a word ostensibly capable of forgiving ourselves the need for all other words, a word, paradoxically, that is not a word.

You may wish to know more, much more about this veritable un-earthing of the aforementioned book seemingly guarded by Portugal’s maritime menace but I am not in a position to further disclose the circumstances, which must remain at a loss for words due to the parties—and text—involved.

Naturally, you may wish to ask yourself what motive have I, doubting this anonymous correspondence, chalking it up, as they say, to mere rigmarole. I can only hope you allow the authorship of the selected excerpts I’ve enclosed to speak for him, or rather, them, or rather, me.