“Regrets, Romantic and Otherwise (Delivered by Carrier Snail)”

“Regrets, Romantic and Otherwise (Delivered by Carrier Snail)” By Edward J McCoul

It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon in the town of Misfit Acres when Bernice Bumblethorpe received a letter that would alter the trajectory of her exceptionally uneventful life. Bernice, a 52-year-old beekeeper with a knack for overthinking and an irrational fear of dehydrated fruit, was inspecting her hives when the mailman, Jimmy Biggs, clattered up the gravel driveway on his rusty bicycle.

“Special delivery, Bernice!” Jimmy hollered, holding up a bedraggled envelope.

Bernice frowned, brushing a bee off her elbow. “Special? Last time you called it ‘special,’ it was just a coupon for mothballs.”

Jimmy dismounted, wobbling dangerously. “Not this time. This one’s got… a seal on it. Like, wax and everything.”

That caught Bernice’s attention. “What is this, the Middle Ages?”

She snatched the envelope, noting the faint scent of lavender and the swirling, overly flourished handwriting spelling out her name. A giant red wax seal—complete with a badly smudged monogram—secured the flap.

“Fan mail from a lunatic,” she muttered, waving Jimmy off.

Back inside her cluttered bungalow, Bernice tore open the letter while perched on her avocado-green recliner. The handwriting inside was even worse than the envelope, resembling the kind of calligraphy one might attempt after three glasses of wine.

Dearest Bernice,

I write to you with a heart full of regret and, admittedly, an odd sense of hope. This is Bertrand. Yes, Bertrand Cheesewinkle—your old flame from the summer of ‘94.

“Bertrand Cheesewinkle?” Bernice gasped, dropping the letter. Her cat, Parsnip, yawned judgmentally.

I must apologize for the abrupt and utterly inexcusable way I ended things. You deserved more than a Post-it note stuck to a melting ice cream cone.

Bernice grimaced. She’d almost forgotten the infamous breakup—a scorching day at the county fair when Bertrand had ended their whirlwind romance with a neon pink Post-it that read, “Sorry, I’m just not ‘feeling’ this. Also, I ate your funnel cake.”

She continued reading, already bracing for whatever absurdity came next.

I’ve spent years trying to summon the courage to write to you. That courage finally arrived thanks to an extensive course on emotional vulnerability I took while raising llamas on a remote Peruvian alpaca farm. (Long story.)

“I bet it is,” Bernice muttered.

You must be wondering why I’m writing now, after all these years. The truth is, Bernice, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I’ve carried the weight of my mistake like an ill-fitting pair of lederhosen: restrictive, embarrassing, and prone to pinching me at the worst times.

She snorted. That, at least, sounded like the Bertrand she remembered—dramatic and vaguely allergic to metaphors that made sense.

The letter rambled on about his “spiritual journey,” during which he’d worked as a mime in Luxembourg, a cheese sculptor in Wisconsin, and, for an unfortunate six months, a freelance ukulele tuner in New Zealand.

But enough about me, it concluded. I write now to ask: Would you consider meeting me for coffee? I will be in Misfit Acres this Thursday, and I would give anything to see you again. Yours regretfully, Bertrand Cheesewinkle.

Bernice stared at the letter for a long moment, her emotions a mix of disbelief and reluctant amusement. Parsnip jumped onto her lap, kneading her thigh with a look that seemed to say, “This is a bad idea.”

Still, she couldn’t resist. She checked the envelope for a return address—and froze. The postmark was dated August 14, 1994.

“Are you kidding me?” she yelped, startling Parsnip into a hissy retreat.

Somehow, the letter had taken nearly three decades to reach her. She glanced at the accompanying sticker on the envelope, which bore the logo of Snail Trail Express.

“That explains it,” she muttered. The notoriously unreliable courier service had once delivered her neighbor’s wedding invitations after the couple’s divorce.

Curiosity won out, and Bernice decided to investigate. The very next day, she marched down to the Misfit Acres Post Office, where an ancient clerk named Doris McSnorkle squinted at the envelope.

“Snail Trail Express, eh? They still use carrier snails for their overseas deliveries. Those suckers are slow.”

Bernice’s jaw dropped. “You’re telling me this letter was hand-delivered by an actual snail?”

Doris shrugged. “Maybe it got stuck in customs? Snails aren’t great at filling out paperwork.”

By now, Bernice was torn between indignation and hysterical laughter. The letter had come too late to rekindle any romantic feelings, but the sheer absurdity of Bertrand’s persistence—and the timing of the letter—was undeniably hilarious.

Thursday arrived, and so did Bertrand Cheesewinkle. Bernice spotted him before he spotted her, and the sight alone was almost worth the ordeal.

Bertrand had aged in a way that only Bertrand could—dramatically and somewhat unnecessarily. He was dressed in a mustard-yellow suit, a bowler hat, and a paisley ascot. His once-boyish face was now adorned with a thin, self-aware mustache that curled at the ends like punctuation marks.

“Bernice!” he exclaimed, striding toward her with the enthusiasm of a Labrador spotting bacon.

“Bertrand,” she replied, crossing her arms.

He halted, his expression somewhere between delight and trepidation. “You look… exactly the same.”

“And you look like a game show host who got lost on the way to work,” she quipped.

Bertrand laughed nervously, fiddling with his ascot. “I see your sense of humor hasn’t changed.”

“And I see your sense of timing hasn’t improved,” she shot back. “Do you know how long that letter took to reach me?”

He winced. “About that... I may have chosen the wrong courier service. But I’m here now!”

“What exactly do you expect me to do with this information?” Bernice asked, her tone equal parts amused and exasperated.

“Well,” Bertrand began, his mustache twitching, “I thought perhaps we could start fresh? A coffee, maybe?”

“Bertrand,” she said, struggling to keep a straight face, “you broke up with me using a Post-it note. That letter arrived 29 years later. And now you think a latte is going to fix this?”

He looked sheepish. “When you put it that way, it does sound rather… optimistic.”

Bernice couldn’t help but laugh. The sheer absurdity of it all—the snail-delivered letter, the ill-timed confession, the paisley ascot—was too much.

“Okay, Bertrand,” she said, finally relenting. “I’ll have coffee with you. But only because I need to hear the full story of how you ended up raising llamas in Peru.”

The two of them walked to the local café, where Bertrand regaled her with tales of his misadventures: a rogue llama named Gertrude, an accidental encounter with a Peruvian folk-dance troupe, and his brief stint as a backup kazoo player for a traveling circus.

By the time the coffee arrived, Bernice was laughing so hard that tears streamed down her face.

“Bertrand,” she said between giggles, “you are the most ridiculous human being I’ve ever met.”

He grinned, raising his mug. “To ridiculousness, then.”

And though Bernice wasn’t quite ready to forgive him—or forget the Post-it note—she had to admit: life was a lot more entertaining with Bertrand Cheesewinkle around