Little Paper Notes

The scent still transported him after all this time. It was so familiar and so singular. A blend of old brass, newspaper, dried ink, and pencil shavings. He'd grown to love the smell. It was one of the few constants in his previous life and this new chapter. 

It had been his daughter's idea to do this. Once she had stopped insisting that he move in with her, something he felt sure was done out of guilt more than anything, she had suggested he find a way to keep himself busy. He had seen an ad, the post office was looking for help, so he stopped in one day and left with a temporary name tag. "Trainee Joe."

He'd never felt so at home in a job before. Perhaps it was because he'd been coming to this stout brick building for decades, as long as he and his wife had lived in the town. Or maybe it was because, like him, it was something from a different era, an analog time. One of bins and slots rather than pixels and code. And like him, the little post office still hummed along despite having seen better days, not entirely obsolete yet.

The only evidence of the modern day was a computerized payment system that quickly became his nemesis. When he looked at the screen, his mind went all fuzzy. His co-workers would usher him out of the way, relegating him to letter sorting or something of similar banality. But he was determined to conquer it, and a solution presented itself at home one night.

His wife had left little notes around the house. She had always said, "If I take the time to write it down, it's important, and I really mean it." 

At first, they were little reminders, things she worried about when she was out. Door doesn't close well. Push hard so the food in the fridge wouldn't spoil. Remember to close the screen door, too, for the sneaky cat that never missed an opportunity to flee.

Each note was dashed off in her effortlessly neat cursive on a page torn from a little notebook, its edge a jagged line of paper teeth. Over the years, she'd added others. Equally important things to her that she meant with all her heart. 

Joe, you are my joy.

I love you so.

You make this house a home, my Joe.  

He had taken none of them down. Not when they got a new fridge or when the cat got old and gave up running away. Not when his wife had gotten sick, and the notes became a bitter reminder of better times. And not when she had died, and the house had gone quiet and empty.

Instead, he wrote his own note because this job was important to him, and he meant it. 

He couldn't bring himself to take a page from her little notebook, so he bought one of his own and wrote out everything he could remember about that blasted computer. He taped the little note up at work and added to it as he went, a roadmap for the times he got lost.

His maneuver was rewarded with a promotion of sorts. No new title or better pay, but he was deemed efficient enough to man the office on his own three afternoons a week. He worried he was taking work away from his coworkers, but they each seemed more than willing to do less. And if the number of times he received his neighbors' mail was anything to go by, he wasn't surprised. 

It was strange at first. He had remembered the post office as a bustling place, a center of the town. But now, most days were marked by long stretches of silence. Joe found himself sitting and waiting for something, anything, to happen. And when a customer did come in, it was as if he was no more a person than the blue drop boxes outside.

"Book of stamps" was a replacement for hello. "No receipt," for goodbye.

But he didn't really mind. He was happy to have something to do and somewhere to be.

One afternoon he arrived to find the usual pleasant scent replaced by something sour and rotten. A cart of mail declared "undeliverable" had been relocated to a spot by the open back door and was clearly the source of the odor.

"Something's spoiled in the dead mail." A coworker said flatly, putting on their coat to leave.

"What? Dead mail?" The name made him shudder.

"Oh, uh, yeah, the "undeliverable." We call it dead mail since it just sits here and rots. Literally this time, apparently. They're coming to dispose of it. They'll be here this afternoon. Just leave the door open, and they'll take it."

The large canvas and metal cart was nearly half full of crushed boxes, torn envelopes, and waterlogged letters. Joe hadn't given it much thought until now, but something about it all being taken away made his stomach knot.

He pictured the sadness and loneliness of birthdays and holidays when a gift or card didn't arrive. Or the person who sent the package, wondering if the recipient didn't like it and if that's why they never said a thing. 

He looked at the pile of packages, all beaten, bruised, and abandoned and before he comprehend what he was doing, scooped up two armfuls from the cart and rushed away with them like kittens he was saving from a fire. He stashed them in one of the many unused, metal cabinets that lined the walls, checking that he hadn't taken the malodorous one in his haste. He had no plan and he left them there untouched for several days.

Eventually, he took to inspecting them on his afternoons alone. At first, he had no idea what he could do. How did he think he would be able to find the address on something deemed undeliverable? Something dead? But he felt compelled to try to return at least one piece of this mail to the land of the living.

He started with a package wrapped in tattered brown paper that was falling off the box it had once enrobed. It was accordioned up in spots like the box had been pushed through a tight space. Joe gently untangled and smoothed the bits of paper, fixing them in place with clear tape. The torn edges fit together just so, this bit on top, that bit underneath, and finally an address came together. 

He felt a surge of joy. He had done it, something lost had been found. He took the package with him that night when he left work and delivered it himself, already feeling excited to take on the next challenge. 

All in all, he had grabbed about twenty pieces of mail from the dead cart and on first look, he felt he could complete the address on about half of them. Even if he could only get part of the address, he learned he could find the rest with some deduction and the delivery maps, and each time he delivered it himself. Precious cargo.

One night, after he dropped off a small cube box that had been dented into something closer to a sphere, and just moments after getting back in his car, another vehicle arrived and pulled into the house's driveway. 

He watched from across the street as a woman stepped out, checked the mail, and froze at the sight of the box. She promptly opened it there on the spot. Her face shifted through a series of emotions. Confusion, relief, disbelief, finally landing on exhilaration. 

He hadn't meant to stay and watch. He just couldn't pull himself away. He felt overcome by a sensation that he had just righted some cosmic wrong. Like he had just returned a lost pet to its owner or found a missing heirloom, something that seemed lost for good had found its way home.

The next day he assembled a whole kit to take with him to work. Different size blades and tweezers. Solvents and several kinds of tape. He had a new resolve, a new purpose. 

He worked his way through what was left of the pile, resurrecting the poor lost souls and delivering them home, until he reached the final package. The one he had left for the end because it both seemed the hardest to repair and the most important.

It was no bigger than a paperback book but much, much lighter. It had been torn more than crushed and was almost completely rewrapped in white, postal tape. Whatever was inside didn't rattle or shake, so it didn't seem broken. 

The box was wrapped in paper, and what still showed was covered in crayon drawings of balloons, party hats, smiley faces, and hearts. The address would have been somewhere on that paper but under several layers of tape. He knew getting to it would be nearly impossible, but he began the slow work of peeling off layer upon layer of tape. Making delicate slices as if strip mining bit by bit, closer and closer to the paper below.

As he got to the last layer of tape, he could faintly see an address scrawled in a child's handwriting. If he could remove this piece delicately enough to not tear the paper, he could read it.

He loosened the edge with a blade. The tape left the paper smoothly and seemed clean on the back. He peeled it back a bit more, and it was still good. He felt a sudden burst of luck and pulled the piece off in one go. The ripping sound alerted him instantly to his mistake. The paper had gone with the tape, along with the address.

He felt sick to his stomach. How had he been so reckless? His hands shook a little as he tried to peel the paper away from the tape with a sharp pointed blade. He stuck himself in the thumb then, and blood quickly seeped into the paper. 

His face flushed with frustration and failure. He wanted to pound his fists on the table, to curse and yell, but then he noticed something. The spot where he had bled seeped through to the paper and made the tape nearly transparent. He grabbed some tissues, bundled them around his wound, and took the tape to the employees' bathroom.

He turned the water on and stopped. Was he about to make another rash error? He dabbed a bit of water on an unharmed finger and then on the paper. A letter became visible. It worked. He ran the whole piece under the water, and the address appeared written in waxy crayon, stubbornly set. 

He drove a bit too fast to the house that night and deposited the package in the mailbox. He wasn't sure when or how he decided to wait and see it be collected, but he found himself doing just that.

Minutes became hours. Neighbors passed the car walking their dogs, and slowed when they saw a figure behind the wheel. But after getting a closer a look at him, they moved on, unbothered. He supposed there were certain advantages to his age, it made him invisible.

He was about to give up hope and leave when a car came down the road. He held his breath and watched as it approached. It turned into the driveway. He leaned forward to watch. 

A woman got out with her two kids. A boy and a girl. She checked the mail and pulled out the box. She tilted her head in surprise and called over the boy, handing it off to him. His eyes opened wide, and he hopped up and down.

From in the car, Joe could practically feel the electricity. His heart raced a little.

The boy opened the package and tilted it this way and that. Then his body slumped, and his head fell. The box dropped to the ground. His mom picked it up looked inside. She shook the empty box fruitlessly as the boy’s chest heaved and he began to cry. 

He leaned into his mother. She held his head and looked stricken as if some terrible prank had been played on her son, and she had sanctioned it. She looked again in the box to be sure it was empty and then stowed it away in her purse. 

From his seat in the car, Joe felt himself go flush. Heat rose in his face, and his chest burned. For a moment, he feared he was having a heart attack. Instead, a sob choked out of his mouth.

He felt a crushing emptiness just then. Darkness encircling him. Had someone stolen that gift? Or did it just fall out and no one cared? Some handmade token of love, left on a sidewalk, trampled, everyone walking past it like it didn't exist, like no one anywhere cared about it. Like this boy's sadness had no worth, no consideration in the world. Like grief and loss were something to be ignored and crushed. Erased.

Tears burned in his eyes, and his breathing became ragged. He felt foolish and lost and completely untethered. He drove home, barely containing his sadness and struggling to stay on the road.

The house smelled musty and dirty when he entered, like old dust. It seemed startlingly quiet. His ears rang in the nothingness. The notes from his wife tacked up throughout, looked sad and stained now. Nothing but dried flowers. Faded, dead reminders of the life they once held. He reached out to rip one down but couldn't bring himself to do it.

What was this life? This existence? Was it even life? Was he just here waiting to not be here?

Someone knocked on the front door so gently that he almost didn't hear it. He thought he should clean himself up before answering, but he couldn't bring himself to care. It was his neighbor, Sharon. She had a dish of food. 

Sharon saw his red, puffy eyes. "You okay, Joe?" She asked, averting her gaze in a way that signaled she didn't actually want to know.

For a moment, he thought he could tell her. Share all the pain with her, not be so alone in this suffering. But she had stopped knocking months ago and had just taken to dropping food off on the porch. Still the considerate neighbor but at arm's length.

He couldn't blame her. Grief and death aren't easy to look at in the eye. 

"I'm fine. Thanks, Sharon. And thanks so much for the food. I'll bring your plate back when I'm done."

She looked as if she wanted to say something more but stopped herself. Instead, she fished something out of her coat. "This was delivered to our place. They can't even deliver correctly to one of their own, huh?"

It was a bright blue envelope with colorful stickers in the corner. Joe took it inside with the food, staring at the handwriting. It was so similar but different. He'd never noticed how much his daughter wrote like her mother. 

He opened the card. The inside was adorned with piecemeal letters and drawings, the work of his two granddaughters, the older learning to write, the younger just starting to draw. 

Something had fallen from the envelope with the card. He picked it up off the table. It was a little note with a rough, torn edge. The handwriting curled softly and said, "I love you, Dad. I miss you. I wish you'd come and stay."

And at the bottom, she'd written a little more shakily, "I mean it."