Misdelivery for the Ministry of Letting Go

Form 12-A: Retroactive Release Authorization

To the Esteemed Recipient,

Please accept this notice as formal acknowledgment of unprocessed grief, interrupted rituals, and any unfinished narratives accrued during the fiscal quarter. While your submission was originally addressed to the Department of Closure, it has been redirected to the Ministry of Letting Go.

Per Regulation 4.3.1, your sorrow qualifies for conditional lightening. Please consider it reduced by one ounce (or two tablespoons, if metric comfort is preferred). Further remission may be requested via Form 18-K: Grief Recalibration Request.

Sincerely,

The Ministry of Letting Go

Clerical Agent (Provisional), Office 4B

Her badge read "TEMPORARY ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT." No name. Just the role, like a whisper trying not to be caught. She hadn’t applied for this job. It had arrived like a wrong number dialed on purpose. One minute she was between contracts; the next, she was sorting misfiled correspondences in a quiet corner of Internal Relations.

She suspected the badge had once belonged to a ghost on secondment.

The office was still but not silent. Fluorescents buzzed overhead. A ceiling vent breathed in and out. Sometimes she thought the building had dreams of its own. The vents hummed at 11:03 every morning, as if exhaling something it had tried to hold in.

The first letter she answered had been misdelivered. It began, "To the Department of Closure," but landed on her desk with the corner stained by what she guessed was either old tea or regret. On impulse, she replied. Typed it. Formatted it. Filed a carbon copy in a drawer labeled “Unconfirmed Tenderness.”

The next morning, there were three more letters. Each folded with care. One included a pressed leaf. One smelled faintly of cinnamon. One was blank, except for the return address: "Memory, Approx."

Form 3-F: Emotional Errata Acknowledgment

Dear Applicant,

We understand the burden of memory that won’t stay quiet. Your submission regarding the laugh that no longer feels like yours has been received. Please know that echoes, though persistent, are not proof that something must remain.

Partial release has been approved. You may keep the hum. (Please do not attempt to return the hum by mail. It will escape en route.)

Warmly,

The Ministry of Letting Go

Division of Accidental Resonance

More letters followed, addressed to places that didn't exist:

"To the One Who Knows Where I Left It"

"To Whom I Couldn’t Explain"

"To the Counter of Almosts"

Some were typed, some handwritten, one carved into a birch leaf. She answered each. Invented procedures. Drafted policy. Replied with steadiness and a strange joy. She created a filing cabinet labeled "Blessed Fabrications." No one asked her to stop. Someone once left a sandwich in there. It became a saint.

Sometimes, before replying, she would hold the letter a moment longer, close her eyes, and ask quietly, "What do you need to become?"

One arrived scrawled on a receipt. "I still think about the hallway. The silence between us felt like furniture. Can I let go of something that never arrived?"

Form 7-D: Absence Clarification Request

Dear Sender,

Your silence has been reviewed and accepted as partial presence. Furniture may be rearranged. You are permitted to forget the shape of the pause.

With care,

The Ministry of Letting Go

Sub-division of Hallway Reverberation

One envelope had no writing outside. Inside was a dried petal and a note: "I have carried this through three cities and four heartbreaks. May I be free of it now?"

Form 5-C: Sentimental Object Decoupling Permit

Dear Traveler,

The weight of the petal has been noted and released. The memory it carried may now return to the earth. (In rare cases, petals may petition for asylum. This requires Form 5-D, currently lost behind the radiator.)

Gently,

The Ministry of Letting Go

Department of Symbolic Relinquishment

Another letter opened with seventeen apologies and one question: "Is it okay that I still check for their name on receipts?"

Form 6-M: Residual Recognition Authorization

Dear Recipient,

You are permitted to look. Remembrance is not disobedience. The name may arrive softly, or not at all.

Peacefully,

The Ministry of Letting Go

Bureau of Lingering Glances

She began to wonder if the letters were multiplying from each other. If her replies had become a ritual people recognized. One envelope was addressed to "Minister of Fabricated Grace."

Inside: a child’s drawing. A small house. A figure with open arms. The crayon beneath: "Is this far enough?"

Form 2-B: Proximity Reconsideration Waiver

Dear Young Cartographer,

Yes. The house remembers. Arms are enough.

Kindly,

The Ministry of Letting Go

Cartography of Uncertainty Office

It was only after the forty-seventh letter that she wrote one for herself. The night before, she'd dreamt of her mother, standing in the kitchen, saying, "Have you seen my silence? I left it in the drawer with the receipts."

She woke weeping, hands curled into the bedsheet. She poured coffee and spilled half. The half she spilled was the most awake. She thought of calling no one. The drawer where her mother kept old receipts had once held a birthday card signed too formally: "With love, your mother."

Form 9-X: Self-Sanctioned Surrender

To Whom I Couldn’t Say Goodbye,

Your absence has been approved for quiet display. A name will not be necessary. The ache may rest in the margins.

You are not required to return. I will remember to forget you, gently.

All boxes checked.

All forms unsigned.

With breath,

The Ministry of Letting Go

(Clerical Agent, briefly)

The next day, she found a note from Facilities Maintenance. "Box by elevator? No label. People keep putting notes in it. Should we remove?"

She created a new form:

Form 1-∞: Permit for Misdelivered Feelings

Authorized.

She affixed the ministry seal—a coffee ring, a paperclip shaped like a question, and a faint smell of forgotten birthdays. Pinned it beside the box. Never checked it again.

Later that week, a new letter arrived. No return address. No greeting. Just a sentence on plain paper:

"I still don’t understand, but I’m lighter."

Her contract ended a week later. She left her badge on the desk. No name. Just the hum of imagined ministry, still echoing.

The ministry, of course, had never existed.

But the letting go still did.