LETTERS

The letters he had written to himself from prison were strewn piled in front of him on the kitchen table.

There were about fifty.
He had served seven years.

He hadn't seen them for quite some time. He had no family left so he had paid a friend to recieve them and collect them unopened. The friend had come through and had kept an eye on his mail for all that time - squirreling the letters away in shoeboxes as they came in.

Dear Me,

you're the only one who I can think of who might one day want to read what I'm going to write down. I don't know what exactly what it is going to be yet - but I know most of it is likely to be strange. I've arrived where I am today because of a lot of reasons. Some of these are pretty normal - many of them are strange. Overall the strange things, I think, outweigh the normal ones. But you'll be able to decide when you, er, I um...we get out, I guess.

When he had been released, the friend's house had been one of his first and least ceremonious stops. He had walked from where the Greyhound dropped him off, through sleepy, suburban neighborhoods, across the scraggly lawn and up to his friend's door - to knock loudly on the metal security grate.

After a time, he heard footsteps in the house. Then the door opened wide enough for one eye to peer out.

"S' you're out, huh?" was all he got by way of greeting. He expected nothing less.

" 'Peers so, I guess."

"Good! Uh,..good for you. (pause....pause some more...a breeze ruffles the trees.) "Reckin' y'all want what ah've been a-keeping for ya'."

"You reckon right."

Footsteps shuffle away and in a few minutes return.

"Here they are. Last one I got was last week. Should I be lookin' for any more?"

"Nah, that should be the last - for now, thank you again."

"Don't mention it...but we're done, yeah?"

"Yeah...uh....thanks?"

"I said don't mention it."

A package door opened in the security grate and three shoeboxes were fed out quickly. The door behind never opened more than just wide enough for the boxes to fit out. They were out almost before he could get his hands under to catch them. And by the time he had them stacked in his hands to carry, the door was shut ... and the eye and the arm that fed them out were gone.

The street was quiet. He began the walk back to where the Greyhounds stopped.
Friends like these....