Afternoon, friend.

Orange is all the man can see. Orange leaves on the trees and on the ground. Orange light filtering through the windows of the small town behind him. He is wearing black. He is not a part of this orange world he’s entered into, but he fits in the same way a cat fits on your pillow before you go to sleep. His black umbrella compliments the light dancing around the leaves on the path he walks on. His coat hides in its own shadow and his pants reflect the colors around him. 

He is on a mission, of sorts. The man surrounded by orange is on his way to deliver a letter. It was given to him by his daughter, a young lady who seems to need no one but herself in the world. He does not know the exact contents of this letter, but he is aware of its importance, the letter weighing heavy in his hands as he contemplates the consequences of his delivery. 

Someone approaches the man now with a nod and a polite, “Good morning.”

“It is, indeed.” The man nods back, eyes focusing to separate the stranger from the landscape. 

“Trust that it may stay that way for one of us.”

The man moves to continue on his path, but he is stopped by his own curiosity once the stranger’s words make their way into his consciousness. 

“For only one of us?”

The stranger stifles a smile, their hat tilted in such a way that the orange light cannot reach their eyes. “The world certainly has its fair share of secrets, does it not?”

“I would argue you’re becoming one of those secrets yourself, friend.”

The stranger suppresses a laugh, “I am not the secret you need to concern yourself with today, sir.”

The man stands still as a sunken ship. He does not know what this stranger means to tell him, and he tells them this. 

The stranger takes a step closer, just inside the acceptable personal bubble of one you do not know. The man notices a tint of auburn blending into the stranger’s clothing, making them appear to have stepped directly from the orange leaves that surround them. 

“The contents of that envelope you carry will make themselves known soon enough.”

With that the stranger turns on their heel and walks on, as if this was a perfectly normal conversation. It was, for the stranger, one of the most mundane encounters they had experienced in quite some time. They smile at that thought. 

Frowning, the man with the letter watches the orange light swallow the stranger as they walk away. He shrugs his shoulders and continues on, not bothering to concern himself with the agenda of a stranger, bizarre as it may be. He is already preoccupied with his own journey at the moment. 

The trees clear after a mile or so, and he sees his destination: the inn. This inn is located just outside the town where the locals shop and socialize, for the simple fact that the innkeeper did not want to bother the townsfolk with unruly tourists and their children. 

The man shifts the letter between his hands, unintentionally creasing the top left corner of the envelope. He then smoothes it back as best he can, and speeds up. 

The dirt path through the orange seems busier than usual, as a second stranger crosses his path just before he reaches the cobblestone pathway up to the inn. This stranger appears almost exactly like the first, except for the fact that they are dressed in brown. Indeed their coat looks as if it could be made straight from the trees the man has just left, were that not a ridiculous material to make a coat from.  

“Evening, sir.” They greet the man. 

The man in black nods in response. “Afternoon.”

It is important to note that it is not, in fact, evening, but the man does not point this out, so as not to seem rude. One cannot assume they understand the passage of time better than another.

“I wonder, sir,” this new stranger begins, stopping the man in black from continuing on his way, “if you are aware of the weight you carry?”

“I dare say I don’t know what you mean.”

The stranger seems disappointed by this response. “The letter.” 

“Why do you speak as if you know the contents of my belongings?”

“I believe I know the contents just as well as you might, sir.” 

The man starts to sweat. He leans on his umbrella for support. 

The stranger continues, “Remember what you claim to know now, because the knowledge you gain will only overshadow what you have yet to learn.” The stranger smiles– the same smile as the stranger before– and turns around to continue on their path. The traveler does not quite know what to make of this encounter and stands bewildered for a moment before continuing up the path. 

The entrance to the inn looms over the man as he steadies himself to enter. Before he can, the innkeeper’s wife throws open the door with a smile and a flourish. The door squeaks violently. She is a flamboyant woman, with a vibrant yellow suit and hat. Her appearance does not remotely match the dark wood of the inn. 

“How do you do, ma’am?”

She smiles. “My wife is with a guest, but she’s been looking forward to your visit. As have I. You had safe travels, I assume?”

“Yes, it’s a lovely walk from town.” He searches for more to report but can only add, “the weather is beautiful today.” 

“Then why do you carry an umbrella?” 

The man opens his mouth to respond, but has nothing to fill it with. 

The innkeeper’s wife steps aside to let the weary traveler in. Though she meets his eyes while they talk, her mind is focused on the contents of the letter. His mind wanders to the heavy theme of once-royal-now-haunted-palace the inn seems to portray. The dark fireplace, the tall rafters covered in cobwebs. The giant oak door that screams when it is used, as if no one has opened it in years. 

“I wonder if anyone has died here.”

“There was a family, actually.”

“Really.”

The two sit in silence, neither wanting more to be said on the subject. 

The innkeeper’s footsteps are heard coming down the stairs to the relief of both her wife and the man with the letter. They rise in unison to greet her, standing unnaturally still while she descends the rest of the steps. Only the sound of her heeled boots are heard as she makes her way over to her wife (and the man she used to love, but that’s a story for another day, perhaps). 

The three smile and pretend they are visiting as friends do, for no other reason than each others’ company. This dries up rather quickly, and the man snaps his fingers, commanding himself to get to business. 

He hands the letter off to the innkeeper. She smiles, and unceremoniously rips it open. This is the part of the traveler’s trip that is either the most important, or most interesting, or most disappointing. It depends on whether he’ll even see what is in the letter, the consequences of which are rather consequential, to say the least. 

Reading a letter in front of an intimate group of people is always uncomfortable, but when the news is related to one’s estranged daughter, that unease is all the more noticeable. She smiles again, effectively hiding the tears building up behind her eyes. Her wife, as spouses do, recognizes this and ushers the man out even quicker than she let him in. 

The man stands outside the heavy wooden doors for a moment, wishing to be inside, if only to hear the next few seconds of conversation that he is not invited to witness. 

He turns to face the outside air. 

It’s later now, and a shadow starts to seep into his coat where he stands. The cold seems to come from inside his bones as he wanders out in the dark. The shadows overwhelm where the path used to be, what was orange just an hour before has turned to grey and black. Even his umbrella seems to disappear into the night. 

The man in black no longer sees orange, and the letter is no longer important to him. He fades deeper into the shadows as he journeys back home and meets strangers in the night along the way. They always look startled, and they always seem to want to leave faster than they do. He asks them how they are, and who they hurt. He greets them with, “friend,” and sometimes with, “lovely night it is.” The latter tends to lead to confusion, though the man can clearly see it is quite late due to the darkness that surrounds him. 

The night goes on and on, and the longer it does, the deeper the man sinks into its cover. Why hasn’t he reached home yet?

“Lovely night it is,” he says in passing to yet another traveler. This traveler, he notices, is carrying a harshly creased letter. 

“Good afternoon,” the traveler nods wearily to the man, their fist closing tightly over the letter. 

“Be careful, friend, that letter might just be the last thing you ever deliver.” He says with a smile. 

The man means this in the friendliest possible way, despite how threatening it might sound to outside observers. He walks on, leaving this stranger to continue on their way, their orange coat illuminated despite the dark cover of the trees.