2016 – Day 8

Start writing a story that...

Step 1: takes place: in a post office

Step 2: includes a dialogue that begins with: I got fired

Step 3: add this word: drown

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Eliot stood in line at the post office. All he wanted was a book of stamps, but the ones offered in the automated machine in the vestibule didn't have the right design. He wanted something to go with his letter, a stamp that was special enough to convince the woman on the receiving end that this was a letter worth opening.

There were only three other people ahead of him in line, but the man at the front of the line now talking with the postal worker seemed to have a complicated request. The clerk had given him forms and asked him to step aside to complete them, but the man's numerous questions kept him coming back to the front. The woman behind him had tried twice to take her turn, but appeared to have given up after the last interruption and now stood back to wait. Eliot took in the man's thickly lined rain jacket and rumpled pants, both of which seemed to deny the 80-degree weather outside, and didn't blame the woman for giving him a wide berth.

"I got fired!" the man said, holding the form up and pointing to a line in the middle. "I need this to show exactly when I sent this so I have proof of my legal action. Do I fill that out here? Shouldn't it be some automatic stamp?"

"Sir, you have to fill out all of the light gray sections," the clerk responded. "I can't fill any of that out for you."

"That's not how it worked last time," the man said. "Do you know what you're doing?"

Eliot tried not to stare at the exchange happening and instead focused on the illustration of available stamps hanging above the counter. There were flags and flowers and famous landmarks. All the same options he could get at the machine. But he was putting in the time to wait for two special stamps. The first was the Ingrid Bergman stamp. The sepia photograph showed hints of color, blue for Bergman's eyes and red for her lips, which curved in just a hint of a smile as she looked off to her right. Eliot hoped the stamp would remind Lila of the first time they watched Gaslight together, each in their own homes but talking nonstop over IMs. That was before they had started dating officially and long before their relationship had dissolved into fights that he often started and she always ended. The final fight, which she ended by throwing his shirts into the entryway, was worthy of a Hollywood movie. But the dramatic end belied the agonizing quiet that was to follow.

She blocked him from every means of electronic communication. Emails were never returned, and he was certain her gmail was set to automatically filter out his emails so she never had to see them. All of her social media accounts disappeared from his view. Friends were instructed not to relay messages. The walls were up at every turn.

The solution came to him as he drank his sorrows and drowned in old movies that reminded him of her. What if he sent her a letter? They were romantic. They were personal. And they arrived whether you wanted them to or not. Of course she could always throw the letter away without reading it. But first she would see the stamp. Maybe it would remind her of that night. And of some of the other good nights. Maybe she'd open the letter and read it. And, if it touched her enough to keep her reading to the end, she would find on the very last page a Jimmy Stewart stamp taped to the bottom. That would remind her of the time they watched The Shop Around the Corner, in which a man and woman fall in love through letters, though they fight all the time in person. And then, maybe, hopefully, she'd use the stamp. He was ready to wait a long time to get that stamp back. But first, he would wait in line at the post office.