Strange Post

Strange Post: An Unexpected Delivery

by David Austria

I sat staring at it. The kind of staring in which the eyes lose focus and glaze over. People look at me and become concerned, they begin waving one hand, a flesh metronome in front of my unseeing eyes--tic-tic, tic-tic, tic-tic. Then after a few seconds of no response, they begin waving both hands, arms criss-crossing like out-of-synch windshield wipers. Sometimes I don’t even realize a person is trying to get my attention for a few minutes--I think my record is three minutes and some change.

I just sat and stared. I couldn’t figure it out. I hadn’t received any real mail in weeks, or was it months? I was so used to finding all the usual daily junk, mostly ads printed on newsprint making my fingertips feel like they were covered with dust and dried, white glue. I used to love peeling the glue-skin off during art time in elementary school. Now I can’t stand that dry, fuzzy sensation at all. I always have to wash my hands after handling all that newsprint.

Today’s mail call was very different. This time there were no annoying newsprint ads, just a Thai restaurant’s take-out menu and one other item, a medium-sized, manila envelope. The menu was about as interesting to me as the newsprint ads, since Thai food is too spicy for my delicate stomach. But I had to give an approving nod to the restaurant’s advertising director for printing it on long, narrow, glossy cardstock. I tossed it in the bin next to the out-going mail drop.

As I strolled back to my apartment at the far end of the complex, I flipped the envelope twice. I don’t know why because one flip was plenty for me to notice there was no return address. My address was centered, as if carefully measured--to the millimeter--from the edges of the envelope in large, dark, beautiful calligraphy. I ran my fingers over the lettering to check for the edge of a pre-made sticker invisible to my naked eye. No sticker. Someone had taken the time to write this by hand. I was impressed. I remember trying out calligraphy sometime in my high school years. I got quite good at it, but never really mastered it. Whoever embossed this envelope was definitely talented, maybe a professional calligraphy artist.

Once back in my place I tossed my keys in the empty fishbowl that has resided on my dining room table since Franky the Fish died a little over two years ago. I could never bring myself to throw out Franky’s house. I gave him a proper burial in the garden outside my apartment. I hope he’s comfortably at rest between the small African Sumac and quartet of irises.

I gazed at the manila envelope admiring the calligraphy one more time before grabbing my knife from the right-back pocket of my jeans.

I deftly flicked the blade open with my thumb, and carefully sliced the seam of the sealed opening flap. I turned the envelope upside down and out slid a small black notebook.

It wasn’t like the “little black book” of 1980s fame which a young, single guy might carry around with him in hopes of jotting down a few phone numbers of potential dating prospects. This book was a bit larger than that--probably the same surface area of a 5 by 7 index card. The cover was slightly tattered like it had been slid into and out of a tightly packed tote bag over and over again for several years. The varied diagonal and vertical scuffs indicated the book was well-used, and most likely, really loved. Although there was a raised rectangular outline centered near the top--a space for a title or an owner’s name--there was no title, nor owner. I pictured a young beatnik college student settling down under a leafy oak tree, taking out this very notebook, daintily opening it, and beginning to scribble poetry ideas for the next major open-mic night at the corner café.

The spine was in good shape, but the page edges were worn and the corners dog-eared. I opened the cover and a satisfying crackling serenaded my ears as stale glue and crisp paper separated. Some of the pages went with the cover, so I pushed them back down and smoothed the crease where the cover met the first page.

The writing on the first page was the complete opposite of the calligraphy on the envelope. At first glance, I couldn’t decipher any of it as words, or even letters. I thought I was looking at a hastefully scribed code spat from a static-distorted message over a shortwave radio. I squinted my eyes and alternated between elevating the book closer to, then lowering it away from, my face. I tried my hardest to figure out the array of points, dashes, dots, loops, curves, zig-zags, and wiggles. When that didn’t work, I let my vision go out of focus thinking maybe it was similar to one of those 3-D pictures that reveals itself after the out-of-focus eyes have stared at it long enough. No luck. I turned the page. More of the same senseless chicken-scratch. I heard my grandfather’s guttural shouting to rewrite my homework because The teacher will never accept that awful chicken-scratch! Thumb-flipping through the pages forward and backward like a child marveling at the animation of his very first mini flipbook, I could only see flashes of more illegible squiggling. I sluggishly shook my head and rubbed my bearded cheek with my fingertips, a nervous reflex I never noticed until my ex-girlfriend--I’m convinced she’s the reason I developed it--pointed it out one day during an argument.

Frustration set in and I tossed the book onto the dining table. It hit Franky’s fishbowl and my keys clinked inside. I went about my evening routine, ordered delivery from my favorite sandwich spot, showered while I waited for my food to arrive, then settled into my man-cave-worthy recliner, compliments of my late grandfather. I consider this beast of a chair well-broken-in with a level of comfort no one but my grandfather and I could enjoy.

I was perfectly nestled in Grandpa’s chair and just finishing my first beer when a loud knock disturbed my TV-beer Zen.

The delivery woman was attractive and friendly, so I handed her a 20 and told her to keep the change. I headed back to the living area, but that little black book caught my peripheral vision, so I set my dinner on the dining table and picked up the book.

I leafed through the pages again, carefully examining the scribble-scrabble within. I tucked it under my arm, fetched another beer from the fridge, grabbed my dinner bag from the table, and went back to my cozy seat.

I ate my sandwich and drank 2 more beers while sort of watching the evening news. I kept sneaking short peeks at the book sitting there ominus, taunting me, intriguing me. I clicked off the TV and snatched up the book from the side table. I opened it randomly and some of the pages fluttered back against the cover seeming to deliberately open itself about a third of the way in.

I squinted at the page on the left, carefully scanning every detail of every line and every dot of ink. I was able to translate a few words off that one page, at least I think I translated them: “plus” was the first one I decoded near the center of the page. Then I saw “intent” a few lines down from “plus”. The third word, the very last scribble on the page, was “dead”.

I went back to the dining table to examine the envelope again. I hadn’t noticed it before, but only my address was there. My name wasn’t. Nobody’s name was there. I wondered if this book had been meant for a previous tenant, some poor forgotten someone whom another poor forgotten someone was hoping to reach.

I sat down with the book for at least another hour, this time with a scotch nightcap. I solemnly inspected each page from where the book had decided to open. I continued with each consecutive page, deciphering and writing down each word I thought I had figured out. When my eyelids became sluggish and my mind became foggy, I used my list of 22 transcribed words as a bookmark. I closed the little black book and put it on the side table. Before I retired to my bedroom, I gave the book a reassuring caress and a comforting pat and turned off the lights.

Ka hopena.