Draft 2
What if an envelope arrived to your name and address, but inside was a letter written to someone else thirty years ago?
This second draft is still unfinished. But now the story is taking shape.
She enjoyed eating cereal for dinner. It was simple, after a long day, nutritious, and excitingly cold. She loved cold foods, especially cold beverages. In her pantry were ten boxes of cereal, and thirteen types of tea from which she could brew iced tea. She would mix the teas--though not all would mix well, such as pumpkin and jasmine--and so have, for her purposes, an infinite variety.
She mixed the cereals, too. Tonight, it was Cap'n Crunch and Alpha-bits. A dessert cereal.
She had measured the portions from the captain's box, and from the box of glyphs, in her traditional two-to-one ratio. Outside, she heard steps, glanced at the clock, waited for the metallic scratch then slam.
Six oh five. She secretly believed that the postman could deliver her mail in early afternoon, but instead brought it at this time in hopes of meeting her. He was cute, but she never went outside when he arrived.
She did, however, get the mail soon after it was delivered, wondering if he was somewhere nearby, watching. Creepy? Or nice? She imagined him sighing, then getting into the right hand side of his little truck and driving home, unable to easily stop at a drive through for dinner. She hoped he would instead go to a coffee shop, order a caramel latte and a scone. She saw him cautiously sipping and nibbling, and worrying about the days when she received no letters.
Hot beverages belonged to others, in her view. She placed the milk in the freezer, set the microwave timer for ten minutes, and went outside to get her delivery.
There was one letter, posted to her five days ago, with no return address. She'd have taken it for junk mail, except that it was hand addressed. The most accursed thing she'd seen in the last seven years were junk letters printed to look as if they were hand addressed, and worse, hand written.
Five days ago would be from somewhere on the coast. Or, maybe it got lost.
Or maybe the postman held it back a couple of days ago, when she really had two letters. Kept it aside so that, if an upcoming day was empty, he could still deliver to her.
She opened the envelope with a table knife, and slipped out the paper. The microwave numbers showed eight more minutes. The paper was brownish, and wide ruled. There were four sheets. She could smell the paper, too, and it smelled as if it had been too near a welder's work. She saw, briefly, two iron bars in clamps, and that tight sun fusing them together.
The paper seemed brittle, too, but not so much that it would fall apart. She unfolded carefully. The writing was big, funny looking.
Childish, that was it. The front page said, "Dear Grandma".
In older books, and some movies, they talk about the breath catching in the throat. A "sudden intake", as if the person were blowing a balloon and quickly relaxed and let the air reenter the lungs. Not quite the opposite of a cough, or a sigh, but some blending of the two. Perhaps the opposite of a gasp. And yet, the two, one explosive the other vacuumed, have the same gripping connotation. Surprise, shock, dismay, the startling realization that something is wrong, but you can't be sure what it is.
Her breath did this. Then she released it quietly through her open lips. Not a whistle. An airy gesture of wonder.
In a few minutes her milk would be ready. She could read the letter before then.
Dear Grandma,
Today was my birthday, and I wish you were here, but Mom says I can write you all about it, so here it goes.
You know we're at the Grand Canyon, because Mom and Dad told you using their new phone before we left. I like that phone, but I wish it was sky blue, that would be a cooler color than brown. Anyway, we're at the Grand Canyon, and we hiked for hours. Dad yelled at me for walking so slow, but I was tired and Mom said so. Later he said he was just hot and bothered. He said I did really well, especially since I was wearing my own backpack! Guess who gave me that! Thank you, that was a big surprise! I love the colors and everything, especially the extra pockets on the side, and the hidden pocket inside the main one. I'm using it to put my pictures in.
The canyon is huge. It doesn't look real, standing near the edge. Mom wouldn't let me get too close, and I got scared because Dad stepped over the rope to take a better picture. Mom was scared, too, but he came back and laughed. I hope it was a good picture. Maybe he'll enlarge it, like he did of Taffy for my room. I hope she's okay, and that the kennel is taking good care of her.
Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be telling you about my birthday. I didn't have a fancy party, but we did go to a Pizza Hut and I got to choose which pizza I wanted, which was peperoni and hamburger. Dad made them put hamburger just on one half, and Mom said that was a good idea. I tried both ways, but liked it with hamburger better. That's the way I had it last summer at your house, remember?
After pizza, we went back to the hotel and I got all my presents, and the card from you with the money! I'll buy you a postcard, and maybe a book with the rest. I got a shirt from Grandma Casey with a drawing of Snoopy on it, and I'm wearing it right now. Mom and Dad gave me a box of colored pencils and paper, a new wind breaker, and a book on space. The space book is really cool. I didn't know there were so many kinds of stars!
Mom is telling me I need to get ready for bed. I hope you can read all this. I tried to print it all except this part that I'm doing in cursive. Can you read that OK? I hope so.
Anyway, I hope the flowers are blooming okay, even without me there to weed the garden (hee hee). Maybe next summer. . . . . .
I love you,
Jeremy
June 21, 1976
The microwave dinged while she was rereading the letter. She took it and the envelope to the kitchen table and layed them down, then set a book on them. She didn't want them to blow off, or have something spilled on them.
In ten minutes, milk becomes, not ice cold, but just enough colder that it can send shivers through your mouth at the first bite of cereal. White liquid mixed with tan, hardened grain powder. Immediately, the words began swirling around the captain's little gold nuggets, and the white ocean slowly metamorphosed to the color of a sandy beach.
Each spoonful brought the same questions. Who had sent the letter to her? Why? Who was the little boy?
Five minutes later, she caught up the bowl in both hands and finished off the remaining milk draught. She had another question that would be answered tomorrow.
Would the postman help her?
Draft 1 |
Draft 3