Dead Letter - Short Story

Every day the letters kept piling in one on top of the other. Most had no return address. Of these, the sending addresses were either incorrect or illegible due to bleeding ink or poor handwriting. Others were sent to residences that no longer existed. Since starting her new job in the dead letter office, Samantha Nugent sorted though hundreds of letters, postcards, and parcels each day that found their way to the office with no where else to go. During her first day on the job, Samantha’s supervisor, Paul Stanford, taught her the ropes of the dead letter office. “Here’s where all the newly arrived undeliverable mail piles in,” Stanford said. “After scanning the letters, anything containing legal documents, checks, or other important and timely material will be separated from the personal letters, the important material being handled first.” He swept his hands in a separating motion. “We take care of all the local mail while anything out of state is sent to one of the three national mail recovery centers depending on which state we can determine it either came from or was sent to. Now, most of the… come here.” Stanford motioned Sam to follow him to where some of the other postal employees were sorting and repackaging opened parcels. “Most of the undeliverable mail usually has some error or illegibility in the sending address. Often times someone will write ‘123 Main Street’ by accident instead of ‘123 Main Road,’ so by looking up the recipient’s name in the phonebook and finding a similar address, you can correct the mistake and send it on it’s way. You can see that we have several updated phone books, some maps, a computer… anything that will help you reroute the mail to it’s proper destination. The guys here will help you.” “Hey there,” one guy said. “Howdy,” another said, raising his hand in greeting. The third guy just nodded his head in welcome. “If you can’t determine an address just by looking at the mail, you are permitted to open it to try to find somewhere to send it. That goes for both packages and letters. This is the only department in the office where specific employees are permitted to open the mail. You were hired because your past employers commented on your diligence and integrity, so I’m trusting that no mention of the mail’s contents will leave this office. Did you fill out the confidentiality forms yet?” “Yes,” Sam said, nodding. “Good. Tom, Rick, and Steven here will help you get started. I’d show you around more myself, but I have a branch meeting I’m already late for. Any questions before you get started?” “Yeah,” Sam said, “I was just wondering what we do with all the stuff that can’t be delivered?” “We shred it.” “Shred it?” “We don’t have the space to keep years worth of letters that aren’t going anywhere,” Stanford said. “So rather than letting people’s personal business float around we just shred it. I’m sorry for leaving so soon, but I do have to get to my meeting. Again, the guys here will help you. I’ll be back later to see how you’re doing.” And with that, Stanford left. Sam turned to the guys. “Umm, hi. I’m Sam.” She waved hesitantly. They each introduced themselves in return before picking up where Stanford left off. “What about the packages?” Sam asked. “What about them?” Rick said. “What happens to the packages that can’t be delivered? Are they shredded too?” “Oh, no, no,” Tom jumped in. “Anything that can’t be delivered is sold at auction, and the stuff that can’t be sold is usually stored in a warehouse for a while until someone calls in looking for something specific that they lost in the mail.” “Like what?” Sam asked. “Well, I’m sure there are a collection of photo albums and sentimental belongings back there that people tried sending to family,” Rick said. “One time we found an urn full of ashes that was undeliverable. It took the family three months to realize that it never made it to its destination. It was kind of creepy passing it by every time one of us went to store something in the warehouse.” “You thought it was creepy,” Steven spoke up. “I thought it was one of my better finds.” Tom noticed the strange look Sam was giving them all. “Oh, we have this kind of game we play, kind of like a contest to see who kind find the strangest thing in the mail,” Tom said. “I still say that the unicycle-built-for-two I found was better.” “You’re wrong,” said Rick. “It was that jar of preserved sand sharks that belonged to the science lab. You know that was way stranger than your unicycle.” “It was built for two! When have you ever seen a two-person unicycle?” Tom asked. Sam nearly giggled at the way the two men were arguing about something so trivial. They seemed to both be in their late thirties, at least ten years or so older than her, but they were arguing like children until Steven broke into the conversation. “You’re both wrong. It was that severed ring finger that Michel found all those years back. That thing made it to the police and was on the news for weeks.” “Wasn’t that the guy who cut off his finger with his wedding ring still on it? The one who sent it to his wife who was having an affair?” Sam asked. “Exactly,” Steven said. “And Michel Thames found the box in this very office. He reported it to the police and they found the guy at the return address. They found him dead on the floor, a bullet in his head and only nine fingers on his hands. I think Michel got a nice promotion after that. The post office wanted to thank him for making the Albuquerque branch look good by helping the justice department.” “After that a couple of the other employees came up with some ghost story about the dead letter office,” Rick said. “They said that if a letter makes it to the dead letter office, then the sender has a good chance of dying before the letter makes it to the recipient. The story eventually made its way outside the office and became a local urban legend. Since then, strange reports starting appearing in the news. One man was wrongly sentenced to death because some crucial evidence was lost in the mail. Another time some local man died mysteriously just days after mailing a copy of his will that never made it to his lawyer. The piles of dead letters finally started going down, not because the employees were working any harder but because more people started remembering to add their return addresses to their mail.” Sam laughed out loud, barely covering her mouth in time to stifle the outburst. She remembered always beating her friends home from school because they insisted on walking the long way to avoid passing the haunted, abandoned house on Third Street. Ghost stories always made people do funny things, but as long as people remembered to add their return addresses meant less work for her. Over the course of the day, the guys showed Sam how to decipher illegible writing, interpret misnamed addresses, and determine what packaged items belonged in the warehouse. Stanford returned near the end of the day to discover that Sam had been able to redirect a good handful of letters and a package or two. By the end of the week she had redirected dozens. After only two months, Sam had been able to find homes for dead letters just as well if not better than the guys who had worked in the office for years. One of them made a crack at how she was making the rest of them look bad, but all of them were actually thankful to have another coworker who helped lighten their own load. After getting to know the guys better, Sam started playing their little game to see who could find the strangest package. During her short time in the office so far, she had only seen the usual. A birthday present here, a care package there. The first time she opened some perishables that could not be redelivered she was instructed to dispose of them. This brought about a story and a few laughs at the expensive of some guy they nicknamed “Twiggy” who had apparently used up half his sick leave after eating some cookies from an undeliverable package. “I don’t know if they were sitting back there forever or if the sender just didn’t know how to cook!” Rick laughed. Sam was planning to take her lunch break just after she finished scanning a few more parcels and separating the important documents from the cards and letters. She had just finished scanning the last personal letter when she realized it was addressed to “Whomever Cares to Write,” the sender being a Mrs. Nora Wilson. It was oddly vague, more nondescript than anything else she had run across since working there. “I wonder what this is about,” she thought. Maybe I could read it. Maybe I could write back to this woman.” And with that she stuffed the letter in her back pocket and grabbed her lunch box. While biting into her ham and Swiss on wheat, Sam stared at the letter in its yellowing envelope with its browning ink. The handwriting resembled a script style, not rushed, but rather as if the woman practiced letter writing as an art. As she noticed that the postmark dated the letter six years back, Sam became more intrigued with this new curiosity, wondering how something so dated wasn’t discovered until today. Her visual fixation on the letter ended a moment after a mayonnaise-covered tomato slice fell from her sandwich onto the envelope, which she immediately wiped up. The oil from the mayonnaise produced translucent spots in the envelope’s paper, allowing Sam to barely make out a few words here and there. Curiosity eventually got the best of her. Sam found the spoon in her lunch box and used the handle as a letter opener, carefully separating the back flap from its glue. She unfolded the gold trimmed stationary and began to read. Whomever Cares to Write, I’m in search of a pen pal to keep in touch with, as I tend to get very lonely here in the rural parts of Michigan. Most of my family lives outside the state, and many of my friends have passed on, but I can’t bear to leave the house where my husband and I raised our family. Unfortunately, my dear Henry had passed on last year as well, so I would love nothing more than correspondence with a new friend. Should whomever receives this letter care to write, I imagine we may become great friends before long. Sincerely, Nora Wilson Sam stared at the note puzzled, debating whether it would do any good to respond to the letter. “It is six years old, after all,” she thought. “Maybe this woman doesn’t even remember sending it. Maybe she sent out several copies of the same letter and already has a pen pal.” Sam finished her sandwich and started on her soup, placing the letter in her lunch box before returning to work. That evening, Sam unlocked her front door and entered her house illuminated only by the small, red blinking of the message light on her phone. She threw her bag on the chair. “John! Come hear, honey!” She barely had the chance to flip the kitchen light switch before two huge Saint Bernard paws tackled her to the floor. “All right! All right! I’m home! Are you hungry? You’re hungry, aren’t cha, boy?” Sam filled Little John’s food dish with the dry clatter of chicken and beef kibble while John’s nose poked around her lunch box, teasing him with the lingering scent of ham. “No, no, no. You’re food is over there,” Sam said, placing her lunch box out of reach. The letter fell out and she picked it up before Little John could snatch the mayonnaise-scented letter. “It wouldn’t hurt to write back. I always look forward to receiving mail anyway,” she said to herself. John looked at the lunchbox and the letter, both out of reach, and sauntered over to his food dish. Sam found a piece of paper and a pen, only to replace the paper in search of a sheet of stationary as nice as the one from the envelope. “I only wish my handwriting was as nice to match,” she thought. Dear Mrs. Wilson, You may remember sending a letter about six years ago looking for a pen pal. I work in the dead letter office of the Albuquerque, New Mexico branch, and today I found your letter in the office. I wasn’t sure if you ever got a response, so I thought I’d write back myself. If you’re still looking for a friend I’d be happy to write back and forth. Sincerely, Samantha Nugent She didn’t bother to write very much. She was still unsure if Nora Wilson would ever get her letter or even care anymore. Expecting any kind of return response was none more than wishful thinking, but it still gave Sam something to look forward to. Sam sealed the envelope, placed it in her mailbox, and lifted the flag that rusted stuck. When she came back inside she remembered the blinking message light. “Hi, Sam! It’s Eric. I know you’ve been busy lately, but I hadn’t seen you in a while and thought it might be nice to get a cup of coffee or something. You can tell me all about the new job! Well, I’ll see you around. Bye.” Sam deleted the message, turned on the television, and rested on the couch. Little John crept up and nudged her hand. She scratched him behind the ears before dozing off. The following week Sam sorted letters as usual. She separated the blue, privacy-lined envelopes of bills from the colorful, sticker-covered envelopes of birthday cards. She placed the large manila envelopes filled with contracts and birth certificates in one pile while she tossed tiny postcards and thank you notes in another. Sam redirected a handful of packages, one containing what appeared to be a porcelain doll under multiple layers of bubble wrap, another packaging a family portrait. Everything was pretty standard. Not even the guys had come across any unusual parcels to boast about other than the double-sided jigsaw puzzle Rick found. No more strange letters crossed Sam’s path since the yellowed envelope, at least until the following Monday. Sam walked in that morning to the familiar squeaky cart wheels and the scents of ink, paper, and rubber bands. She punched in her timecard, hung up her jacket, and sighed, taking her usual seat in the depths of the dead letter office. “Mornin’, Sam!” Tom called out. “Have a nice weekend?” Sam shrugged. Tom turned back to Rick and Steven. “So I’ve got two tickets to the Lobo’s game next Saturday,” Tom said to the guys. “But I only need one! If only there were someone I could give one to… someone who could fill in for me on Saturday…” “But how are we supposed to use the ticket if we’re filling in?” Rick asked. Sam turned her focus back to her work. A lot of letters had piled in over the weekend. She swiped her hand over the pile, flattening all the letters across her desk. From the clutter of letters Sam noticed the familiar corner of a yellowing envelope. She grabbed it from the heap and squinted her eyes at the blurred sending address. Sam immediately ripped opened the envelope, discovering that the letter was written on the same gold trimmed stationary as the strange letter she replied to that previous week. Apparently Mrs. Wilson was still interested in writing back and forth. Dear Samantha, I’m so pleased that someone responded to my letter! I would love to have a new friend to write to every now and then. So how is New Mexico this time of year? I’ve never been out west, but I hear its lovely. So you work at the dead letter department of the post office then? I imagine you must see all kinds of peculiar items dispatched every day. I had a friend who worked as a clerk up here in Delta back when stamps were 11 cents. He was always telling stories about some of the people he met there. There was this one time when a mother was mailing a package to her sister, and her son asked if he could mail his dog to his best friend who moved to Wisconsin because he didn’t have any brothers or sisters to play with and he hadn’t met any new friends yet. It was the darnedest story I’d ever heard! Children can be so silly sometimes. My children have already grown up and moved on. My son, Eric, works at a power plant, and my daughter, Jessica, is a realtor. Do you have any children? I hope you’re doing well and are enjoying the lovely spring weather. Your friend, Nora P.S. I’ve moved since writing that first letter, so your last letter was forwarded to 562 Bumble Drive, Oscoda, Michigan 48750. You can reach me here from now on. Shocked at receiving a response, Sam figured that she had a new friend now. However, she was still confused as to how the letter arrived at her work. She then remembered mentioning the branch she worked at in the letter she wrote. Nora addressed the letter to the dead letter office instead of Sam’s house, which was clearly posted as the return address on the envelope, but Sam didn’t mind because it gave her something to read on her lunch break. After work, Sam stopped by the front office where she knew she could find a small selection of cards and stationary sets. She bought a nice set of light blue marbled stationary paper with envelopes to match for writing to her new friend in Michigan. Tom saw her carry the envelopes and paper on the way out and couldn’t help himself but say, “Taking your work home with you, eh?” Sam smirked at his joke. Sam and Nora kept in touch for many months, and Nora continued to address her letters straight to the dead letter office. They talked about everything from the environment and politics to work and hobbies. Sam told Nora about what the dead letter office did with undeliverable packages and some of the odd things that went to auction. She mentioned how they guys she worked with played a game to find the strangest packages and how many of the letters never find homes, only to be shredded later on. “I sometimes feel bad for all those people who write letters that will never be read, and those who never receive their mail to read, but there’s no way we can return all of it, so we only focus on the important stuff like legal documents,” Sam wrote. “But still, I can’t help but think of the importance of the personal letters to some people. Some of them do make it back, but not many. Our boss calls it a matter of priority. It’s more important for bills to make it home than casual letters of well wishing.” With the thought of her boss’s priority speech came the memory of the time she ran over a turtle on the road. If she would have swerved she might have hit the car in the other lane head on while stopping would get her rear-ended by the car behind her. Sometimes there is no win-win situation and something must suffer. Sam grimaced at the memory of thud of the right front and back tires made and how the turtle never did make it home that night. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, many of Nora’s neighbors had family visit them, but hers still lived too far away to make the journey up to Michigan for a visit. She reminded Sam how thankful she was to have someone to talk to, especially around this time of year. Sam told Nora about how the dead letter office was flooded with letters to Santa by now, but instead of shredding them like they used to, the letters were now all redirected to a place where volunteers would answer them. By this time Sam was just finishing up the last of her Christmas cards, and she made sure to add Nora to her annual list. She sealed the last envelope of the last card, put the stack inside her mailbox, and raised the little flag. Later that week, an elderly preacher opened the mailbox at 562 Bumble Drive to discover a festive card addressed to Nora Williams. He walked passed the nativity scene, back behind the church where he could find Nora. “Nora!” he called. “It looks like you’ve got another letter! It’s a shame that your family and friends live too far to visit, but it sure is nice that they take the time to write.” And with that he laid the Christmas card upon a stack of unopened letters piled at the foot of Nora’s headstone.