Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapters Ten & Eleven
Epilogue
Chapter 1
It not every day you get a compliment like this: ‘You know, my son’s head is nice and square, just like yours.’ My friend G.K. said it to me this week when I went to the post office. He had a full bin of mail and I held the door as he went past. He said it to me casually, in an off-hand way, like he was saying he liked my shoes. I took it as the compliment it was meant to be and thanked him. It actually was my first hint about his private life after many years of talking to each other. Before that I knew he didn’t like thunderstorms and that the town uses crummy asphalt to fill potholes.
Now I knew G.K. had a son with a square head. I wondered briefly if he had a daughter and if she had a different shaped head, maybe more like her mother, maybe triangular, or oblong. My thoughts didn’t stay on a theoretical head shape very long because I had something more than junk mail in my box to consider.
Real mail in my PO Box is a rarity. I mean real mail for me. I get more mistake mail that I have to give back to Bettina, the woman at the counter, than I get real mail for me. That day I got a beautiful envelope, exquisitely hand-colored that wasn’t for me. It was suppose to be in box 845 but was put in my box, 745, instead. In the corner, where the ‘from’ address would be, there was only a bright pink outline of a state. I recognized the state as Alabama. The ‘to’ address was written in script, in a rich, deep blue. It was to Melissa. No last name, just Melissa. The drawing was of a beautiful sunrise.
I waited behind a very tall woman sending a package to Racine, Wisconsin and then gave the envelope back to Bettina. She looked at it and said ‘Wow, someone is sending some love to Melissa, aren’t they.’ I said ‘Yep, she will appreciate it I am sure’. She responded, ‘Who wouldn’t.’ It was one of the few times I saw her smile. I bought some stamps with players from the old Negro Baseball League on them and made way for the stressed out mom with 2 toddlers behind me.
Now I knew a little bit of love in the mail made Bettina smile. And I knew someone in town named Melissa was going to receive a beautiful, creative envelope. I thought about the person in Alabama who spent all that time on it and I thought about Melissa. I imagined what sort of person she might be to get something like that. I thought about what might be inside the envelope. Was it as beautiful? What was its message?
I smiled all the way through my shopping trip to Vern’s Village Mart. I had to get orange juice.
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| Sunrise, Oklahoma |
Tune in next week for Chapter Two
© 2011 Marty Coleman
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