Curiosity

A crumpled paper slips through the rusting mail slot.

Out of habit, my hand reaches for it. The paper is yellowed and the edges are wrinkled, folding over on themselves like dirty sheets ready to be washed. I don’t open it. I never do. I pick it up and place it in a bag with other crumpled letters, some stained with tears, some with ink, and others with blood.

I hesitate before reaching out to the letter again. My fingers trace its corner, just waiting to be read, just waiting to be seen and known and loved.

I put it back.

I don’t read the letter.

I never do.

Hours of tapping my feet, watching letters slip through the door, and placing them in the bag. When the sun dips below the horizon, I hoist the bag over my shoulder and open the door.

Before I step out, I see a girl skipping to me, slowing when she sees the bag.

She steps back, rubbing one leg against the other.

“I have another one.”

I cock my head to find a letter lined with creases in her sweaty palm. Nodding, I pluck it from her fingers and drop it into the bag.

She runs away.

I walk into the apple orchard, the one with the drooping leaves and the dew-painted apples that ripen in the fall. A small house stands beneath the tallest tree, the porch drowning in apples from falls before. The house was abandoned, and no one ever knew why.

All anyone knew was that the tree beside it is the home of the people.

Not really, no.

But anyone who ever wants to talk to someone they can't is able to do so here.

Prohibited people, dead people, lost people, all the same.

The people write their letters and I tie them to the tree.

I release my grip on the bag, stretching my arms under the tree. The branches stretch with me, welcoming my arrival. I’ve always felt the tree could talk. It can smile and laugh and cry. That’s why the people share their joys and sorrows with it. The tree smiles and laughs and cries, but it does not judge.

It never has and it never will. Just like how I don’t read the letters.

I pick up the first one.

To Lisa

I don’t need to know who Lisa is. If she's dead or alive. If her hair is brown or blonde or red or black or some other strange color. If this letter was written for sorrow or for joy.

But I do.

I think I really do.

I clutch the letter in one hand and reel out a thread spool with the other.

Curiosity mauls at my heart, it strangles my thoughts.

But I keep it in.

I always do.

I never read the letters.

Wrapping the string from a branch, tying it to the letter, letting it sway with the others on the tree.

The usual routine.

I keep wrapping and tying and the tree keeps swaying.

Soon, the moon replaces the sun’s position in the sky, and I continue my work with the moonlight as my guide.

The tree does not sleep when night washes us over.

It keeps me company on the darkest of nights, on the brightest of mornings.

My mother used to tie the people’s letters to the tree. When she became ill, I took her job, replacing her as the moon replaces the sun. When she laid on her deathbed, she pulled me close and whispered in my ear, “Watch the tree for me. It’s the only confidant anyone needs.” And with one cough, two coughs, she fell into the blankets, her dull eyes smiling at the sky.

I look up and grin at the clouds now; she’s watching me tend the tree from heaven, I’m sure.

I hang the last of the letters and step back to admire my handiwork.

Apples and Letters.

Apples and Dreams.

Each letter is arranged in its own position, each having its own dance as the wind blew through.

I begin my own dance beside the tree. It’s silly and strange, but it's fun. The tree does not judge. The tree can always lift the worst of grief, putting bliss in its place. Ecstasy.

As I spin my arm to the dance, I notice a glint under the tree. I narrow my eyes and step forward for an inspection, feeling out the tree’s roots in the dark light of the moon.

Until I come upon a cube.

A package.

I stagger back, the dance abruptly ending.

The tree holds letters; paper.

Paper — thin or thick, long or short, white or not — paper is flat.

Paper is not a cube, and the tree does not hold cubes.

I hold the package in my hands.

Samantha

Maybe I do care who Samantha is. Perhaps I am curious.

Only letters are to be left unopened at the tree, but this is a package.

So I tear it open and seize the book nudged inside. I flip through, but the pages are empty. Except for the last one.

Crow Song:

One for sorrow

Two for mirth

Three for a wedding

Four for a birth

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret never to be told

The monster of curiosity within me grows still more restless, gnawing away at my heart, and leaving wounds.

I sit underneath the tree and read over the rhyme again.

What secret is to be left untold?

Who is Samantha?

I feel the tree's disappointing gaze reading over my shoulder. A package is still a letter.

I never read letters.

I rip out the book's last page and fold it in half, tying it with string among the other letters. Curiosity will have to wait, for I never read letters.

I haul the empty bag down the orchard’s trail as I go back to my house.

On the doorstep, a letter is placed gently.

Please Read

Who is it addressed to? Me?

Who sent it? The little girl?

What's inside?

What's inside?

What's inside?

And though the curiosity is making me bleed, and though the letter is right there, and though no one would ever know, I don’t read it.

I pick it up and put it in the bag.