Dear thief:

I am the melancholic man who left his laptop computer on seat 8A of United flight #17, coming from JFK into LA-X, on June 14th (1998), remember? It was the end of a 2-month-long tour. I had just completed two huge art projects: a performance/installation in Manhattan, and a "Spanglish Lowrider Opera" in L.A. (which by the way opened that very day), and I was exhausted, jodido. I hadn't slept for at least three days. I walked out of the plane like a zombie and went straight to the baggage claim area. Minutes later, I realized my precious laptop was missing. I ran back to the plane like an (ex-zombie) madman, but the computer was gone, and never delivered to the lost and found desk. I don't know if you were a passenger who left after me or a member of the cleaning crew. And I really don't care. In fact I don't expect to ever recuperate my neo-Aztec high-tech control center. I just wish to make you aware of what you unknowingly did to my sense of self and identity; to my past and to my ideas.
Ladrón. You stole my digital memory ese; years of literary work; 5 years at least of poems, performance, film and radio scripts; essays and personal letters; several chapters of my upcoming book. You have not the least idea of what this means to a Chicano intellectual who has been fighting the erasure of collective and personal memory. You may not even know what memory is. Luckily many texts from the first three years (94-96) had already been published in books, magazines, and newspapers, but the last two years, auch!!; those are floating somewhere in virtual space, and only you or whoever you sold my machine to, have access to them.
Yes, cabrón. You stole my parallel mind, and memory. Well, not entirely. I have found earlier versions of many documents, and I have spent the last two months embarked on the Proustian project of reconstructing fragments of my already fractured memory through old discs, printed manuscripts and hand-written diaries, even napkins. And let me tell you, it's a pain ese, but nonetheless a true Chicano Buddhist endeavor. Maybe I will emerge from this nightmare a better writer with a stronger sense of self, just like Mexico did after the burning of the Aztec and Mayan codexes by the brutal conquistadores. Excuse my epic tone but I am understandably pissed.
By the way, how much did you get for my 4-year-old laptop? 500, 700 bucks? Did you feel any guilt? Did you at least have the curiosity to investigate the mindscape of your victim, and read my love poems and political essays? the breakdown of my taxes perhaps? my most intimate secrets? the ones I never even intended to publish? Did you access my e-mail, enter my cyber-heart, and peek through hundreds of personal letters of friends, lovers and family? Or did you throw everything in the virtual trash before you sold the machine?
You know pinche thief, as I write this letter I am realizing I don't really hate you. In fact I am begining to feel strangely thankful, for you have forced me into so many harsh realizations: a) my life (in capitals) cannot be trusted to high technology; b) airports are not less dangerous than say South Central Los Angeles; and c) I must always, ALWAYS be prepared to reconstruct the humongous puzzle of my already fractured self. So ... gracias ladrón.
But this philosofical realization won't exonerate you from divine justice. The crucial question still is, what will your punishment be? If you believe in karma, you are in deep trouble: For doing what you did, you might end up in your next life reincarnated as a stone or an oyster. If you are agnostic, your punishment will be even worse. One day in the immediate future (the future nowadays is always immediate), some nerd in Silicon Valley will invent a tiny device or a program to track down lost computers. And I will buy me one immediately. I will then show up at your doorsteps with my homeboys, costumed as one of my most scary performance personas: "El Mexterminator," the super-immigrant hero defender of migrant worker rights and archenemy of racist politicians ... and now of computer thieves. We'll rough you up, believe me.
­ Los Angeles, August of '98