Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Key

The old man knelt by a window, waiting for the postwoman to deliver. He had nothing better to do. Sifting through envelopes was the highlight of his day.

It was a faded afternoon outside Salem, Oregon. The old man did not go to church anymore. He limped around his house and allowed his many possessions to gather dust.

The postwoman was late today, so the old man fixed himself a breakfast sandwich and ate one bite. He noticed an orange flower below him, near the porch. He rose and took a step or two down the stairs, his gnarled hands fixated upon the shabby whitewashed railing. When he was close to the flower he plucked it from the ground. In the middle of the flower was a round, iridescent creature, about the size of his pinky nail. He squinted and pushed the rim of his glasses up on his nose. It’s a beetle, he thought, a jewel beetle or a June bug. Strange, because he didn’t usually see them around this part of Salem. And then it spoke to him, the words clear and unmistakable. It said: “Today’s the day!”

The old man had experienced many extraordinary things in his long life, but never had a beetle spoken those words to him. He was so dumbfounded he dropped the flower. When he picked it up, the beetle was gone.

Aw, shucks, he thought, now I won’t be able to ask what kind of day he meant!

The old man went back up the two stairs. Then he slumped onto a plastic porch chair and gazed toward the road.The postwoman eventually arrived, and the old man breathed a sigh of relief. She was a middle-aged, stocky woman with dark hair and a toothy grin. He knew her by name.

“Marci!” he said. The same name as his late wife.

“How are ya!” she exclaimed, delivering a pile of mail by hand. A flutter of letters settled in the man’s lap.

“Oh, you know” he sighed “I’m alright!”

“How’s the afternoon treating you?”

“Is it afternoon already? I found a little flower in my garden…” he trailed off, wanting to talk about the beetle without really knowing how.

“Yeah well you just hang in there!” she frowned a little, then grinned and said “you have a good one, now!” and carried off.

The old man was left alone on his porch. But he did not feel alone. There were many exciting things to see.

First there was a catalogue of auto parts. There was an envelope containing a brochure about an upscale retirement home. There was a magazine containing fragrance samples and glossy photographs of smoldering thirty-somethings. There were three catalogues of fishing and hunting gear. There was a small Salem newsletter. And there was a postcard from his sister in law, Gerda, with a drawing of a palm tree and photograph of a palm tree. The old man wondered if Gerda knew that palm trees were in fact not native to the Hawaiian Islands, but were brought by Polynesian immigrants. Fully satisfied with the day’s postage, the old man settled back in his chair.

Something brushed his bare foot. The old man looked down and was astonished to see a small brown paper package, sealed unevenly with duct tape. He bent and scooped it up; it fit easily in his hand. On the front was the address, and on the back it said, “to my love” in the unmistakable handwriting of his late wife, Marci.

The old man had not thought about Marci in a long, long time. Her room was kept the same as before she died, but he hadn’t entered it for ages. When she died, he felt nothing except a restriction around his throat. It was the same feeling he had felt as a child when he ate a piece of sausage that was too big. The sensation of being unable to take a regular breath, and so trying in vain to take a bigger breath, and panic hitting the body before the mind. In the first case the old man had been grabbed by his baby powdered, overweight nanny and forcefully pounded in the stomach until the sausage flew out. The second time he choked, there was no sausage or nanny to speak of, only a crowd of tearful mourners who flooded the cemetery and moved around the old man like water. Instead of punching himself in the stomach, which he wanted to do, the old man swallowed the bulge and felt it slide slowly down his esophagus and stick to his left stomach wall. Because it was so big, the old man felt it every single time he took an in-breath.

Anyway, the old man did not breathe for a full sixty seconds as he opened the parcel. Inside it was a key, and a note. He read the first line: Dear hunny bunny.