Postcard Stories

"Thomas and Cora"

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 22:19:19 -0700

Very happy to announce that in early May, a much-revised version of one of my early postcard stories, “Springfield, Massachusetts,” - now titled “Thomas and Cora” - was published through the Baltimore based online journal “Everyday Genius.”

Read it here:

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2012/05/david-queen.html

Be sure to check out their site as well, as they publish some really stellar work…

- David

Where did you go? You have the best short stories... and you should continue :)

Thu, 03 May 2012 15:29:05 -0700

Thank you so much! That really means a lot to me…

To answer your question, I have been taking a break recently and have been going back and revising my stories, while also submitting a number of them to publications and journals. I am still collecting postcards however, and hope to start up again with new original stories very soon.

Lake George, New York

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 09:09:00 -0800

Olivia stayed up all night to watch the Royal Wedding on TV. She hadn’t done anything like it in a while, and now felt strange.

When the wedding was over, she brewed a pot of coffee and took a mug out onto the porch to sit and look out over the lake. Everything was dewy, and misty; the steam from the surface of her coffee mimicked the fog on the lake. Olivia took a sip of the warm liquid and let it sit in her mouth. She got lost in her thoughts.

She thought back to the time she was twenty-two and had driven out from school to spend a weekend at this lake house – her parents’ – and she and her friends had stayed up all night drinking, and laughing, and playing guitars along the docks. She thought of marshmallows, on sticks from the woods, over a fire pit. She thought of feeling light and young. She thought of leaping into the cold water by night. The sudden crack of water on a bare stomach. She could almost feel her feet, once more, sinking into the muddy bottom of the lake. She thought of how wonderful it felt to have mud molding up through, and around her toes.

Olivia remembered her fear of lake creatures lurking under the dark surface. Ray was there – he’d come with her friend’s Leah and Mark. They were all just kids.

She couldn’t tell if it was due to her fatigue, but she thought about canceling her mail, and selling the lake house. She needed something to change. If she had more money, she could buy a plane ticket somewhere - like New Zealand, or Thailand. Maybe it was time to get a dog, or to learn to shoot a gun. She thought about moving back to the city and trying to interfere with Ray’s new life, his comparative literature class, his wife. Maybe she could finally take up smoking? That’s it. Smoking. Something classy though, like cigars or a pipe.

She blamed the Royal Wedding for putting these thoughts in her mind, but she felt anxious – she could sense her potential had spread thin. And thinking of the Royal Wedding made her think of London. Thinking of London, made her think of Ray – why hadn’t she met Ray in London, as they were supposed to? Why had she left him waiting? Why had she, at the last minute, told her cab driver to turn around at the airport, and head back to her apartment in the city? He never did forgive her for it.

She finished her coffee and went inside. The screen door snapped behind her like an elastic waistband on a belly. She called on a substitute to take over her class for the day. The woman agreed, and the day was clear.

She washed her face and took a book onto the couch – a mystery – on the couch.

In the afternoon, she woke to a strong breeze shaking the leaves out of the trees above the cabin. Olivia rubbed the salt out of her eyes and yawned. She felt heavy and old. And she was surprised, but the first thing she thought to herself wasn’t about the Royal Wedding, her youth, her job, or Ray – if she was being completely honest – it was that she hoped it wasn’t too late to become an astronaut.

Postcard: Found at JUNK in Brooklyn, NY in May 2010.

Kenyon Review

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:38:11 -0800

Apologies for the absence. I’ve spent the past few days revising a short story I’ve written for the Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest. Hope to be back with new postcard stories in the next few days!

If you’re interested in the contest there are still a few more days to enter. Find info here.

- David

Steelton, Pennsylvania (Part 3 of 3)

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:30:00 -0800

Now Zella saw things. She saw ghosts everywhere. She saw visions of her husband from the window of her room, out in the mist and snow – or sometimes, in the pitch dark of her bedroom she’d swear to have seen the outline of a man standing over her bed.

She had long abandoned caring for herself; her hair was a tangled mess now and she rarely bathed. She couldn’t stand to look at herself in the mirror. She looked tired and sickly. She felt she was repulsive and guilty. She began to blame herself for the disappearance of the ship. If only she’d prayed more often, if only she had asked him to stay. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore Most of all she felt so empty. And the nervous anxious feeling multiplied every day that Andrew did not return.

At night she would lie awake in her head, tracing her hand along the back of her spine - the way Andrew used to do to comfort her - but each night she could feel the outline of her bones growing more prominent. She was malnourished and needed help. She began to miss her support meetings altogether, sometimes spending days at a time in bed. She’d forget to eat. She’d forget how long she’d been in her room.

“Are you okay? Zella, honey, are you alright?” The words were thick, gelatinous, run through the mud.

Zella opened her eyes to the rosy cheeked face of Anna Redgrave above her. A man, dressed in black, with a leather briefcase against his side stood next to her.

“I’m fine. I’m okay,” said Zella. “You can go now.”

“Zella honey, you’re sick. This man is a doctor, he’s going to take a look at you.” The man opened his bag, removed a stethoscope.

“If it’s okay of course,” he said.

“I’m fine!” she said, rolling over away from them. “Leave me alone!” She closed her eyes, and clenched her fists. The man put his hand on her shoulder and she began to thrash and shriek. Anna leaned over, putting her arms around her, whispering into her ear. “Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

When she finally opened her eyes again, the room was empty. It was dark. Zella was confused. How long had they been standing there? Had she been sleeping? Everything was fuzzy, mismatched, and out of place. Her sense of time was distorted, and all wrong.

One morning she woke. It was a morning like any other; indistinguishable, and most ordinary. Her room was cold. She couldn’t tell how long she’d been in bed, or how long she’d slept. The window was frosted over. She couldn’t see out.

She dressed and hobbled down the stairs. There was a strange buzzing from somewhere in the house. She made her way into the kitchen, to a cloud of flies encircling the bag of groceries on the kitchen table. The buzzing was unbearable. She gagged at the sight and moved in, feebly, swatting away the flies. She carefully tipped the bag to look inside, and wretched at the contents. Rotten fruits, and vegetables, spoiled and rancid meats.

And then a thought struck her.

She ran out into the cold, her nightgown flowing. It was snowing. Thick, wet, flakes fell from the sky landing in her hair, on her shoulders. Her bare feet crunched across the grass as she moved.

The doors of the stable burst open, and Zella pushed inside, panting. It was dark and quiet. A horrifying stench sat heavy in the stale air. She put her hand over her face, and slid across the straw on the ground. She rounded the corner. She lost her balance and fell to her knees.

All four of her horses lay in a motionless heap in the corner of the stable. They were quiet, almost serene. No muttering, or neighing. They were dead.

Zella swiftly vomited onto the cold dirt floor. It was a grayish yellow color, mostly bile. Her breath was heavy, and stifled. She felt as though someone were pressing down hard on her lungs with a boot. She couldn’t pick herself up. She closed her eyes. She screamed. She vomited once more, traces of blood this time. She sobbed and pulled her knees into her chest trying hard not to vomit a third time.

Then something began building in her stomach, it worked its way up through her chest and out her mouth. A scream. She released it up at the ceiling, letting it echo through the stables, out the door, and disappear into the snowfall outside.

It was getting dark by the time she was able and strong enough to pick herself up and leave.

She walked out into the dark snow. She felt strangely calmer now, and the cold didn’t seem to bother her. She felt impervious to pain, to physical suffering. She felt vacant and hollow, but with a newfound feeling of purpose.

She moved beyond the house, and pushed off into the woods.

Clint clutched a glass of rum at the bar across from the factory that night. It was late, and he sat with other several other sailors, debating and sharing stories.

The room was packed, and hot. A fireplace spit flames out across the floor. The windows had fogged, and were beading with condensation. It smelled of sweat and booze-tinged breath. Several inebriated men kicked out rhythms on the floor with their boots, to the guitar and accordion songs from the corner of the place.

At one point, Clint and his men finished their drinks and flung their coats around their shoulders and bid each other farewell. They stepped out into the cold, lighting cigarettes and readjusting their hats and scarves. Clint was feeling good and drunk. His mind swirled, stimulated from the friendly debates with the other men. It was late, but he wasn’t tired. Even though it was cold, he decided to get started on some work down at the docks. He had the energy and loved the quiet of the town at night, in the winter. He loved the way the snow danced in waves around him, and everything glistened with ice.

Clint cleared through the alley, and tossed his cigarette into a mound of snow. He took sight of the docks and pushed forward.

As he got closer, he saw something, something not right; Zella. Clint picked up his step. She was in her a nightgown. Something wasn’t right. Snow had piled up around her, and her head was leaned against a tree.

Clint ran now, his boots slipping along the wet cobblestones. He saw her seated peacefully on the bench, her chin pointed out toward the docks, the river, beyond. Clint gasped at the sight of her. He swallowed hard, and coughed. He didn’t know what to do. He looked around for help, but everything was quiet and still. He placed his fingers against her frozen neck, but he already knew.

She was gone. Her skin was blue-ish gray, and there was a layer of frost frozen into her hair, her eyebrows. Her lips were purple. She looked alien and sad. Her hands were placed in her lap, as if she’d been waiting patiently.

When he gained his composure, Clint took off back into town, shouting for help. He slipped, and slid, across the cold ground, until he’d disappeared behind a building.

After that, everything was still again. Everything was still, and quiet, and longing.

Postcard: Found at Stagecoach Antiques in Akron, OH in November 2011.

Steelton, Pennsylvania (Part 2 of 3)

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:33:00 -0800

What made it unbearable for Zella for the next month was the colossal lack of anything. There was nothing. No letter, no body, no answers, no explanation, no updates, no story.

Every morning was the same. She’d take care of what needed to be done around the house, and make her way down to the docks and sit and wait until nightfall. Each evening she would see the same mustached sailor, whom she later found out was named Clint. He would shrug his shoulders and urge her to keep her hopes up. Each time she saw him her desperation increased. Clint could see it in her tired eyes, and he wished himself to be more of a comfort to her, but there was little he could do.

She hadn’t slept much in weeks. She had trouble eating. She was constantly distracted. She was consumed by questions with no answers.

How could a ship just vanish?

They had been on course for the coast of Ireland, delivering something – Zella had always been shaky on what Andrew’s ship actually contained. She liked to imagine that it was something fun and exotic; bananas, giraffes, carpets from the Orient. But she knew that in actuality, it was probably more utilitarian like oils, or metals. Had they crashed? Had they rerouted to some distant destination, adding months to their return?

In her dreams, when she was able to sleep, she saw Andrew’s body trapped in a ship, thousands of feet below in a watery abyss. In these dreams she would swim down, in her best clothes, and rescue his body, trapped on deck underneath a series of ropes and pulleys, and free him and together they would ascend toward the light above, they would rocket up toward the sunlight, the promise of return, the promise of life returning to normal.

But Zella would wake up choking, coughing, gasping. She began to sleep in later and later. She couldn’t afford sleeping in before, for there was too much to do around the house. The horses were growing angry and distant towards her. She would lie in bed, fearful that they were plotting against her because of this, but it wasn’t enough to get her. She felt safe under her covers, lost in her dreams. Her bed was the only place she felt any sort of escape.

Sometimes in the morning, she would walk across the cool wooden floor of their bedroom, barefoot, her gown flowing, toward the window and look out into the misty cool fog that was still covering the area. She would place her hand on the cold glass of the window and feel her body shiver, her spine rattle. She would realize she didn’t have the strength to face the day, and return to bed.

The missing ship hadn’t just affected Zella, the whole town was in limbo now as the winter months set in. There had been other women sleeplessly waiting, in the hills, on cold farms, or alone in the dark of their houses. Children around town were now asking innocent questions about the whereabouts of their fathers and were confronted with the vacant stares of women with no closure and no idea of what to tell them.

It had been a month now, and there was less known than ever.

Zella would meet with some of these women and they formed a support group which met twice a week, in a circle next to the fire in Anna Redgrave’s living room. In these meetings they would knit and cry and eat and share stories about the men they were missing.

They would remember the little details:

“I miss the way my husband would wake me in the morning, by grabbing my toes and pulling them one by one until I got out of bed,” said one.

“I miss the way he would get mad at me, then always catch himself, calm himself, and balloon out his face in a silly way and call me kiddo,” said another. “And we would both start to laugh.”

“I miss the way my husband smelled after returning. He had this smoky, oily, smell – it’s almost hard to fully describe – but I loved it,” said another. Zella nodded, she missed that about Andrew too.

“I miss the way he was around the children,” one woman said, causing several stifled sobs to open up around them. “I miss his patience, and the excitement in their eyes when he was around. I miss the gifts he would bring from distant lands. I miss the stories he would tell them as they fell asleep in their bed. I never know what to tell them now. I make up adventure stories about dragons and sea-monsters, but one day they’re going to get too old and I don’t know if I have the courage to tell them.”

It was a weird event. Not mournful, because none of them believed their husbands to be dead – that was the thing about tragedies like this – but sad. It was as if the men were still at home, still living in each of their houses, just always in the next room over, always constantly out of reach. As if Zella would go to bed each night, and Andrew would return in in the middle of the night, slip into their bed, hold her in his arms, and then sneak out in the dark of the morning, back out into the fog, before she woke. The worst moments, they all agreed, were those of waking up groggy and half asleep, of stretching their arm over to hold the warm chest of their spouse and being startled awake by the sudden cold of bed sheets.

These were the moments that each of the woman – eight in all – shared together by the fireplace.

Zella hated leaving these gatherings. She was always one of the last to leave, and would find reasons to stay until the host had practically shooed her out the door.

Zella could feel herself beginning to unravel and it scared her.

(To Be Continued…)

Postcard: Found at Stagecoach Antiques in Akron, OH in November 2011.

Steelton, Pennsylvania (Part 1 of 3)

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:44:00 -0800

October was harsh on Steelton that year. It had been raining for weeks, it seemed, and a heavy fog had settled in. Everything was covered in a sheen of moisture, and it never seemed to go away, especially, for Zella.

Early in the morning she had been out behind her house, running through her daily chores. She carried an excitement in her step as she moved about. She’d grown to hate, but secretly love, this feeling over the years – during those tedious hours before Andrew’s return. She could feel the familiar excitement building in her stomach, the anxiousness. For there was always the worry that everything would be different, that his experiences would change him. The worry that his ship would roll in and he would step off onto shore, and look through and beyond her seated at the bench, under the trees, by the docks. And there was the worry that the first kiss would be a disappointment. Yet, her worries were always dispelled when that first moment of eye contact came, that first embrace, that first kiss buried into his beard, the first night spent together with their legs twisted in knots under the warmth of their blankets. The way his smell returned to her, the smell of tobacco twists and perspiration. She’d breath it in heavily from his shoulders. That was all part of the excitement she felt. Zella wanted to feel the extremes, she wanted to have her emotions shaken, and then vindicated. It was a purge, in a way. It made her feel alive.

He’d been out to sea for two months now.

She walked along through the path in the garden, out toward the stables. It was beginning to rain. She wiped the water from her cheeks, dried her hands on her layered skirt, and pressed on. She pulled a woolen blanket up over her shoulders, like a shawl. She watched the plumes of factory smoke rising above the trees. It was getting colder now and Zella moved swiftly to stay warm.

She listened to the polite patter of rain on the stable roof once she was inside. She loved the quiet of the stables in the morning; the calm of resting horses, the darkness of the space.

She walked over to the supply room and hoisted up a burlap sack of grains, and began dragging it across the dusty, straw laden, ground of the stables. The sack became lighter as she pulled, and Zella looked over to see a trail of grain along the ground.

“Oh god,” she whispered as she saw it. The largest of the horses, Leona, was awake now and muttering in her dark corner of the room. She hurried back along, with a bucket, scooping up the spilled grains in her hands. She began to sweat. On any other day, she would have been annoyed, but today she was too distracted to care.

Eventually, she fed the horses and stood in the doorway of the stable, looking out over the property. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, brushing loose blond hair away from her face, tucking it back underneath the blanket that covered her head. The rain was heavier now, and creating little pools of water in the grass. Something was changing. There was a feeling in the air. Birds took cover in the thick of trees. A small rabbit scampered for cover in the garden. Winter.

She let the cool air brush her face. She felt good and refreshed.

In the afternoon she bathed. She applied her make-up and perfume. She changed into her best clothes, and began the walk down toward the river.

The rain assaulted her umbrella. She had to cling to it in the wind. Each step was taken with precaution, for the mud was sucking at her shoes from underneath. She winded her way through a path in the woods. Leaves swirled around her, moist tree branches rattled and scraped above her. There was a peculiar smell of wood smoke and honey in the air. The clouds were impossibly dense, overhead. It was as dark as night.

She fought her way through the woods and emerged at the edge of town. Uncomfortably, but assuredly, she walked along the soggy streets. Townsfolk darted in and out of buildings, trying to keep out of the rain. She heard the yell of whistles signaling the end of the work day. She took a short-cut back through the alley behind a large square brick factory building. Men were ducking, slipping, out of the back doors of the factory, and across the muddy ground and seek refuge inside the crowded bar across the alley. The door swung open as she passed. She heard a guitar and an accordion over the thick wall of excited voices inside. The bar seemed to swell in the rain, expanding, bloating. Seeing the frivolity of working men made her miss Andrew all the more, and she couldn’t help the excitement she felt to see him again.

At the end of the alley, she spotted the docks in the distance. It was pouring rain now. Zella looked down to see the ends of her skirt were soaked and muddied. She didn’t care, however and took off running, splashing through puddles, squealing with glee, as she reached the bench under the tree and sat to wait.

Soon, she heard the hollow ring of a church clock tower nearby. She sat under her umbrella and waited for the ship to pull in.

She waited and waited into the night.

At one point she got up, and walked over to some sailors unloading crates off a barge. She approached a mustached man, with a cigarette resting on his bottom lip.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “They were supposed to get in this afternoon. Guessing the weather might have thrown them off schedule.”

“What am I supposed to do then?” she asked. She wasn’t so much worried, but disappointed rather. There would be no respite from her anxiousness that night. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep.

“Come back tomorrow. I’m guessing someone will know something.” The man tossed his cigarette into a puddle. It sizzled for a split-second, and began to float. She saw Andrew floating alone, face first in the salty water, in the dark; nothing but empty ocean for hundreds of miles in any direction.

She shuddered away the thought.

Zella looked the man over. She wanted more than this. There had to be something more.

“You’re Andrew’s wife ain’t you?” he said, breaking the silence, and reaching into his coat pocket to retrieve another cigarette. “I’ve seen you around here before. He’s a good man. A strong man. I wouldn’t worry.”

“Yes he is,” said Zella.

“I believe their ship was equipped with a wireless. If they got off course, we should know by morning. My guess is with the weather being like it is, they probably docked somewhere along the Chesapeake.”

Zella thanked him, and walked back into the cold, dark, night. She was unfulfilled and anxious, but still hopeful.

She made her way back up to the house. And she was right, that night she couldn’t sleep.

(To Be Continued…)

Postcard: Found at Stagecoach Antiques in Akron, OH in November 2011.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:16:00 -0800

“I don’t believe that even you could catch me,” he said.

“Why do you say that,” she asked, twisting the telephone cord around her index finger.

“Because how do you catch a ghost?” he said.

She thought to herself.

”You catch it in the dark,” she said, after a pause. “You catch it off guard, in the corner of a room. You shine a flashlight in its direction,” she said. “You hear it shriek. You watch it be dispelled.”

“Well come on then,” he said. “Come and catch me.”

She set the phone down onto the kitchen table. She walked away, into the next room as the voice on the other line grew faint, and thin - like a whisper into the hollow of a tree.

She needed space to think.

She left through the screen door, out into the field behind her house. The moon was full, and bright. It was warm. She smelled the husky fire-smoke from a cottage off in the woods. She heard the muted thud of an axe on a log.

“Where-o-where could he be?” she sung.

It was getting darker. Fireflies began to wink in the grass; heat lightning ran along the night sky like cracked glass.

She climbed the hill and sat. She put her arms around her knees. She thought deeply, intensely. She could feel the tectonic plates moving, interacting, below her. She felt serene, and meditative.

She laid back and went into a heavy sleep, and dreamed of a city.

When she woke it was morning. The hill was bathed in dew, and insects buzzed and sighed around her in the grass. She rolled to her side, into the crystalline lattice of a wet spiderweb against her cheek. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She stood.

She walked back down, and into the house. Inside, she took up the phone.

“I know where to find you,” she said.

“I still don’t think you do,” he said.

“For a ghost, you’re quite confident.”

“There’s nothing wrong with confidence, when you’re a ghost.”

“You’re in a city with no people, and no cars.”

There was a pause over the line.

“How do you know for sure,” he asked.

“Because of a dream,” she said.

“What dream?”

“In my dream I saw an empty city. A city with empty buildings, and long car-less avenues; deserted trains running along on tracks, winding in and out through tunnels, around buildings. And in this city there are ladders left leaned against buildings, and empty ships tethered to the docks of the harbor. And this city is so uneasily quiet you could only hear the wind and the clicking of cockroaches, up and out through the sewer grates. The creaking of wet rope in the harbor. Or the player pianos, from the lounges of buildings - haunting the empty alleyways. And identical patterns of empty houses - on the outskirts of the city - that would breath cool air in the afternoon, through their ventilated respiratory systems, and warm air at night. And mysterious letters would arrive in their post-boxes each day, and they would be unstamped, and un-postmarked, and if you were to open these letters, you would discover a tri-folded piece of blank paper. This is a city populated by ghosts. A ghost city. That is where you are.”

He laughed. “Even still, I don’t believe you’ll catch me,” he said.

“I don’t have to catch you.”

“And why is that?”

“I realized it last night, upon setting down the phone - I can ignore you. I can pretend you don’t exist. I can pretend you don’t exist to the point of believing that you don’t exist. I won’t believe in you anymore. In this way, I can outsmart you. I can catch you.”

“But if I don’t exist, then there’s nothing to outsmart.”

“And your point is?”

“If this all so, then why did you call me back? Why did you call me, when you could have ignored me and moved on with your life?”

“I like the sound of your voice. I like the comfort of antagonism. I like the riddle, the idea of the game.”

“But you will never catch me.”

“I don’t have to. You never were, you never have, you never will be.”

“This will be the last time we speak, you realize.”

“I don’t believe so,” she said, twisting the cord around her finger, like so. “Now that I’ve caught you, you’re going to have to catch me.”

Postcard: Found at the Antique Warehouse Mall in Memphis, TN in October 2011.

fuckyeahmanuscripts: Postcard from Roberto Bolaño to Enrique...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 10:15:15 -0800

fuckyeahmanuscripts:

Postcard from Roberto Bolaño to Enrique Lihn, 1983

I’m a big fan of Roberto Bolaño. This is so cool!

Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:03:06 -0800

Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest:

Just a heads up to any writers out there, the Kenyon Review is currently accepting submissions for their annual short fiction contest. Deadline: Feb 29th.

Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:22:00 -0800

I was at the bottom of the swimming pool, somewhere in Wisconsin, looking up at everything. The sun looked like a runny yolk, rippling, distorted from where I sat, cross-legged in the deep end. I released pressure from my ears. I felt the pinch of my sinus’, like a thumb pressed against my face. I watched the bubbles in front of me. I held my breath, and closed my eyes, and waited. I counted to ten and on. It wasn’t until the last split of a second that I uncrossed my legs and rocketed from the bottom of the pool, cresting the surface, splashing water all over, and gasped for air. I rubbed the water out of my eyes - the chlorine burning slightly - and looked to the edge of the pool where Phoebe stood with her palms on the sides of her wide hips.

“You wore your watch into the pool,” she said.

I looked down at my wrist, and then back at Phoebe.

“Yeah,” I said.

“You must be freezing,” she said.

“The pool’s heated.”

I dipped my head back under the surface and soon got out and walked back to the hotel room. I showered, changed, and soon we left.

I turned forty-eight on the cab ride to the restaurant, while passing a water park. We took a cab so we could drink. I looked out at the ventricles of enclosed water slides, winding in and out of a square building. The parking lot was closed off.

“We shouldn’t have come during the off season,” I said, finally, toward Phoebe.

And the strange squirmy empty feeling returned. It had been building for a long time now – since the accident – and yet it was a strange sort of thing, that snuck up on you when you least expected, while sitting in the back of the cab, dressed in a suit, looking at the giant plastic volcano of a putt-putt course, as a cold front moved in toward us.

I wanted to tell Phoebe how I felt, but I wasn’t sure how. I wanted to confide in her. Everything felt so wrong and difficult now.

I looked at my watch, but the inside was fogged over. I wished I were back in the pool, looking up into the sky.

We sat down at the table. There were three places set at the table, three menus. I saw Phoebe’s lip tremble.

“There’s only two of us,” I said to the hostess as she turned to leave. “One of us couldn’t make it.”

We ordered and ate dinner quietly. Phoebe and I both ordered wine.

“We can go back home if you want,” I said. “We don’t have to be here.”

Phoebe went to speak, but at that moment a Mariachi band paraded out from the kitchen, serpentine, winding around the tables to the amusement of the crowded restaurant floor. Hands everywhere began to smack together to the beat. Everyone was cheering, clapping, whistling.

“Feliz Cumpleaños!” they sang to the knuckled strums of guitar, squeezes of accordion, and shouts of trumpet. I looked back over at Phoebe, and nodded.

“Happy birthday,” she mouthed from across the table.

We finished our meal.

The next morning, we woke early and drove around the Dells. We listened to the radio, and found a nice quiet buffet style restaurant near the hotel. After we ate, paid and left, I pulled off at a mini-golf course and Phoebe, looked back over toward me from the passenger seat. After some coaxing, she agreed to play.

We approached the front box office at the entrance. A disinterested bearded man, without looking up from his cell-phone, took our money through a small window.

He handed over several small clubs. Too small. “Child’s clubs,” he said.

“We don’t –” I started. It was going to be the first time I’d said it in nineteen years, and I just couldn’t. “We don’t.”

“You don’t what?” said the bearded man through the glass.

“Nothing. We need different clubs.”

“We’re all out of adult clubs,” he said. “Being cleaned. Off season.”

“So what should we do?” I said.

“I don’t know bro,” he said.

I wanted to punch him. I’m not a violent person, but I wanted to reach through the glass and punch him right in the nose. I wanted to feel his blood on my knuckles.

“Do you want our business?” said Phoebe, stepping up to the glass.

“Look, we’ve only got the child’s clubs right now. That’s all we have,” he said. “You picked a weird time of year to come out here that’s all.”

We took the clubs, and went onto the empty course.

It was cold, and gray out now. A strong breeze rippled our windbreakers. It was a cheap place with dirty, frayed, carpeting. On top of that, the course lacked a consistent theme; dinosaurs posed awkwardly next to the “Yellow Brick Road,” spaceships next to pirates. It was a mess.

We kept score and played through the majority of the course.

We were tied, neck and neck, going into the final hole. For some reason, I felt a delirious pull from within me somewhere – I had to be the one to win.

On the last hole, I leaned over the small club, placed my feet on the carpet. The hole was deceptively simple, a straight shot through a windmill, and up a small incline behind it. Several plastic dinosaurs leaned lifelessly from the sidelines.

I lined up my shot, and hit it confidently, straight through the windmill in a cave – a little too hard however. The ball rolled up the incline, cracked the backboard, and rolled back down.

“Mulligan,” I said, and grabbed the ball. Phoebe stepped up.

“What?” she said.

“I haven’t taken a mulligan.”

“The hell’s a mulligan?”

“It’s a do-over.”

“We didn’t agree to that.”

“Yeah, but it says here on the score card that each player is allowed to give their opponent one mulligan. One do over.”

“I don’t care what it says,” she said. “We didn’t agree on it beforehand.”

“But it’s here in the goddamn rules, Phoebe.”

“I would have done over a number of my shots if I’d known that!”

“You should have looked over the rules.”

“You can’t just spring this on me now.”

“It’s just a game,” I shouted. “It’s just a goddamn game.”

She looked over at me.

“Dennis, you’re acting like a horse’s ass,” she said.

The course was empty, and our voices were echoing out through the entrance of the cheap plastic cave. She didn’t say anything more, picked up her ball, and walked off.

“I’m finishing the game,” I yelled out, as she exited the cave. I lined up my shot and missed again. I walked over, grabbed my ball, and dropped it into the hole.

I reached to retrieve it, to try the hole all over again, but realized – since it was the 18th – that the ball had disappeared into some network of tubing underneath the course. It was probably already back in the hands of that bearded nitwit in the box.

I stood in the cave as a thunder sound effect rumbled over my head.

I was furious. I will never understand why, but something snapped then. I took the putter and began smacking it into a large plastic rock along the side-wall of the cave. I swung hard and fast. A hollow thudding echoed through the cave. I whipped it down again, and again. Like chopping wood. Over and over. The club punctured a hole in the cheap imitation rock, and I continued hitting it until the club was bent and there was a gaping two foot hole in front of me.

Back in the car, I sat sweaty and silent. Phoebe looked off across the empty parking lot.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She nodded, looking away. And then I saw her gasp. Her eyes caught a pile of discarded, damaged, go-karts in a heap against the fence of the mini-golf course. Little miniature cars smashed in, disfigured. Nothing needed to be said; we both thought of Cody.

I reached over, and held her hand.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We drove around aimlessly, looking for something, anything, to keep us occupied. Everything around us was closed. Whole hotels sat empty, parking lots were vast and empty. Restaurants offered outrageous discounts.

The entire area was hibernating, waiting for spring.

It was getting dark now and Phoebe reached into the glove box and retrieved two tickets from an envelope.

“I don’t feel well. We don’t have to go to this thing,” she said.

But we went, and the sun set over the Dells. It was a Native American show. Phoebe’s parents had gotten the tickets. We walked into the small, nearly empty, stadium, surrounded on all sides by towering pine trees.

It was dark now, and cold. We could see our breath in front of us. There were a handful of thickly dressed couples seated on a set of wooden bleachers.

An announcer introduced the show, and a series of fully dressed Indians began circling out, pounding drums, chanting. Several men in full body length headdresses began hopping and dancing to the beat, extending their arms out to the sides. The dirt ground at their feet kicked up.

Several other Indians, wearing nothing but tan loincloths - they must have been freezing, I thought - moved into the center with large wooden torches, and laid them across the fire pit. The flames rose quickly, up into the air.

I looked over at Phoebe, I could see the fire reflecting off her face. She put her arm inside my coat and rested her head against my shoulder.

There were thirty, forty of them now, in full regalia – all dancing, chanting, below to the hypnotic beat of drums. Several multi-colored spot lights shone down from above the bleachers, illuminating different parts of the performance space; reds, blues, greens and yellows.

I felt a moisture against my shoulder. I felt Phoebe’s body silently convulsing against mine. At first, I thought it might have been shivering – a response to the deceptively cold night – but I looked down at her and saw her eyes were red, and her cheeks were damp.

“I miss him so much,” she said, looking down at the “S” shaped line of Indians moving around the space. “I think about him every moment of every day.”

“I know,” I said, with a catch in my throat.

“It’s not fair,” she whispered. “It’s not fair.”

My chin began to twitch, and I could feel the salty buds in the corner of my eyes. My nose had begun to run. “I know. It’s not fair.”

I kissed her bangs, and pulled her closer. Together we kept each other warm, and safe, and forced ourselves through to the end of the performance.

“How are we supposed to keep going?” Phoebe asked me, in the dark of the hotel room later that night. I held her thin body against mine, I could feel each pump of her heart against my chest, the warmth of her skin. She felt so delicate and fragile. I could still hear the incessant chants of native drums in my head. “How do you find the strength to keep on?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But we have to. How can we just stop?”

We remained silent for a while.

“I busted a rock in that cave this afternoon,” I said.

“You did what?” said Phoebe, looking up at me with her wide dark eyes.

“After you walked off, I started hitting one of the fake rocks with my club and I ruined it. I punctured a big hole in it.”

Phoebe kept quiet, and then I felt a heat in my armpit. Phoebe had buried her face in it. She snorted, and was laughing.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she said.

“I know, I can’t believe I did either.”

Sometime soon after, we fell asleep.

In the morning, I sat in bed as Phoebe showered in the other room. I flipped through endless channels on the television, and ate a muffin with my back against the headboard.

I wanted to be back in the pool.

I stood up, and walked over to the curtains. I opened them to the great gray of late fall which hung over everything. In a few hours we would leave, and by nightfall we’d be back home in Illinois.

I walked over to my suitcase, and changed into my swimsuit and flip-flops. I tossed a towel over my shoulder and walked out into the cold morning air, toward the pool in the center of the motel.

When I reached the edge of the pool, without stopping, I dropped right in, letting myself sink to the bottom of the heated water.

I closed my eyes and counted, and sat cross-legged. When I opened them once more, I looked up through the ripples of the surface, up at the sky. I counted to ten. The sun was gone.

Postcard: Found at Antiques of Old Wilmington in Wilmington, North Carolina in January 2012.

Nay, France

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:16:00 -0800

Who knew that they would find me here?

In the morning, I woke early enough that the sun was just a budding glow over the rooftops, and I dressed in silent darkness in the corner of my room. It was a plain room, with a desk and a cot and no pictures on the walls. I laced up the front of my boots, threw on my jacket, and began to tip-toe ever so quietly down the wooden stairs, careful not to wake Constance and George – who were exceptionally light sleepers.

I slipped out the front door, and into the small front garden.

The light was beginning to poke through the hedges and there was a chilled fog layered above everything like a mosquito net. The grass was fresh, soggy, and glistening under my boots. I reached into my front pocket and retrieved the pouch of tobacco, and sat on the lip of the small stone fountain, rolling a cigarette, watching the sun crest the hedging.

Once rolled, I placed the cigarette on my lip, held a match tip to the front, and lit it. I took a large cloud of tobacco into my lungs and blew upward, outward. I heard a familiar rustle from inside the house, and took out through the wooden front gate, onto the street.

It was a fine morning. I smoked and walked along the cobblestone sidewalks, under the trees, heading toward the center of town. It was still early, and everything was damp and cool from the previous night’s rain. I could see the brilliant white snow capping the mountains off in the distance, above the town. The neighborhood was beginning to bustle. Cars backed out of driveways. Packs of students zipped by on bicycles, shouting, laughing.

I bounded around puddles, grabbing drags on my cigarette. I felt good and energetic and ready for the day.

I saw a woman, with thin wrists and straight black hair, seated at a bus-stop with a book in her lap. She wore an oversized woolen sweater. As I walked by her, we shared a glance. I continued on, a half-block or so, and then looped back around and approached her. She looked up from her book, and I asked, in French, for directions to the nearest cafe. I was certain she recognized my agenda – I’d spent the majority of the spring in this town and knew it thoroughly – but she was polite, and we continued to talk. She recommended a quiet spot along the river, that was good for smoking, and reading.

The bus arrived. And it was then that I saw the man clutching the bus pole, a duffel bag at his feet. He had buzzed hair and his neck was solid, and rigid. He looked out of place. I was distracted with the woman and thanked her and parted. I had every intention of waking this early again soon, and hoped to meet her on this bench once more.

There would be time, I thought.

Town was busy when I arrived. Street sweepers rumbled by, as people hurried this way and that.

I found my usual cafe and sat alongside the curb, in the ever-warming morning sunlight. I wrote for an hour, only briefly looking up to order and drink through a staggering number of espressos.

I dipped my head back into my notebook, and began to roll another cigarette.

“I know who you are and what you’re doing here,” said the man, as he sat across the table from me. I jolted back, startled by his sudden intrusion and his clear native English.

I recognized him immediately; the buzzed hair, the duffel bag.

“What the hell?”

“I said, I know who you are and also what you are doing here,” he said. “I know why you are here and I know everything about you.”

I closed my notebook, and eyed him carefully. He was thin and muscular, with an intense blue-eyed stare. He sat perfectly straight, on the edge of his seat, as if he had a yard-stick down his shirt. He never once broke his eye contact.

“I don’t know what the hell you think –”

“- May I?” he said, removing a pack of cigarettes deliberately from his bag. On the side of the tough fabric bag, read United States Army.

I seized up, and nodded.

“By all means, go ahead,” I said.

“Do you have a light?”

“Sure,” I said. I reached and grabbed the matchbook on the table. My hands shook, and I tried my best to stabilize them.

He took the matchbook, struck the match hard and blew the smoke in my direction.

“You know what this means, don’t you,” he said.

“Yes. I do.”

“Good, because I’m exhausted and I’m not in the mood to have to explain myself.” He sat back a bit, easing into the chair, and shook his head. “May I just ask why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d you do it? Why’d you leave?”

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“This is off record.”

“Sure it is.”

“Believe what you want.”

He took a long puff of his cigarette, and flicked the butt onto the sidewalk.

“I don’t know why I bother,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t even inhale anyway,” he said. “A waste.”

“I didn’t believe in the cause.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. Do you fancy yourself as a sort of conscientious objector?”

“I don’t fancy myself as anything, sir.”

“I hope you don’t think this is personal, Mr. Berjaut. Personally, I don’t care what you think. I was sent to bring you back, and that’s what I’m here to do.”

“I don’t regret my decision. I know what I believe in and what I don’t believe in.”

“And will you respond, if you don’t mind me asking, to the accusations?”

“There are other ways to learn and grow, besides learning to kill.”

He leaned in and, his expression remained stolid.

“Son, if it were up to me I’d put a bullet right through the bridge of your nose.”

I remained silent. He stood, and pushed in his chair.

I looked up at him, as he took in the area. “So what’s going to happen?” I asked, placing my notebook into my backpack. My eyes darted around, for an escape route.

“Pretty place this is,” he said after a pause. “Mountains, a river running through. Very nice. You could have done worse.”

“This is bullshit.”

“And yet it’s only fair.”

“How’d you know? How’d you find me?”

“You were reported,” he said. “Someone went out of their way to lead us to you.”

I pictured what was to come. How he would agree to let me collect my things, and we would walk toward my Aunt’s house on the outskirt of the town. We would walk side by side, like old friends.

And I would be scared. I wouldn’t know what was going to happen when I returned home. As we would pass each alley, each street would jut off in a different direction, I would see the lights of my independence flickering out with each one.

We would turn the corner. I would see the square hedging that obscures my Aunt’s house. I would hear a rumble and turn to see a bus roll by. Inside would be the woman from the bus-stop. She’d raise her hand, and smile and I’d fail to wave back.

“It was my brother,” I said, interrupting the silence, leaning back in my chair.

“Your brother, what?” he said.

“I’m sure he was the one. He always had a cold sense of duty.”

“I’m not at liberty.”

“I’m sure.”

“It hasn’t been too long. You may still be able to plead your case,” he said.

It was warming now, and sunnier. The morning mist had lifted. The mid-day was certain to be hot, and uncomfortable. I was sweating through the collar of my shirt, and around the ankles under my socks.

I imagined the man would already know the way through the neighborhood – and then turn to me as he would push through the wooden door into the garden.

He would nod toward the house and lead me inside.

He would close the door behind us, and I would look up to see my Constance and George standing in the doorway with their heads lowered, toward the ground.

I would be surrounded by walls on all sides, in the growing heat, and scared.

At the table, I began to roll another cigarette. I sprinkled the loose tobacco across the thin paper. I licked it closed, lit it at the tip, and took a small puff. I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want it to burn out.

Postcard: Received through an anonymous donor in Canton, OH in January 2012.

Portland, Oregon

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:55:00 -0800

Missed Connections - Portland, OR

Kingston Club / F —> M / Saturday Night Dub (2/4)

Date: 2012-02-08, 5:13PM PST

Reply to: svuy-295748590@missed.gregslist.org

I’ve never done this before. I’m new to town. Just accepted a teaching job here in the city, and moved out from Alabama early last month. But anyway, I saw you at the Kingston Club last Saturday (2/4) during their weekly dub night (it was my first time there) and I really wanted to introduce myself, but I was too nervous to walk over and talk to you.

You were wearing a blue and white striped shirt, and tan pants (maybe chinos?). You had short dark hair and were standing – sometimes dancing – with a group of friends over toward the DJ booth.

I walked in with my friend around midnight. It was dark, and the smoke machines were running at that time, but I saw you look over in our direction at one point as we sipped mojitos on the couches in the far right corner of the room. I had hoped that maybe it was me you were looking for.

Full disclosure, I had butterflies the whole rest of the night.

Anyway, please don’t think this is weird, but I made you a mix of some of the songs from that night. My hope is that maybe, if you don’t exactly remember me, one of these songs will trigger your memory.

(I have an app on my phone that can identify what songs are playing…)

Dub Specialist - Dub It Easy
Scientist - Cry of the Werewolf
Augustus Pablo - Jah Light Version
Lee “Scratch” Perry - Black Panta
King Tubby - King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown
Sly Dunbar - Dirty Harry
Prince Far I - A Message
Tommy McCook - Bigger Things
Big Youth - Skylarking
Augustus Pablo - Natural Way
Roots Underground - Black Brigade
Bobby Ellis & The Crystalites - Alfred Hitchcock
Dub Specialist - Love of a Dub (Love of a Woman)
Mad Professor - Bengali Skank
The Clash - Justice Tonight/Kick It Over
Skin, Flesh & Bones - Bammie Fe Fish
Tapper Zukie & Brethren - Rub a Dub Weh Them Want
Soul Syndicate – Riot

I know how unlikely this is. I wish I could be more assertive, but it’s difficult for me. I don’t know your situation – maybe you have a girlfriend already? If so, ignore me and I’m really sorry for all this.

If you do remember me, just know that it’s been several days now and I’m still thinking of you.

Postcard: Found at the Melrose Trading Post in Los Angeles, CA in October 2011.

Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:47:00 -0800

We go in. It’s dark and everything echoes. I hear voices all around me, sometimes, even, forgetting which are mine. The ceiling and ground are teeth. The walls are candle wax. I think of a different planet. I think of a drained fish tank. I’m nervous. And scared. And confused. And confined. We go deeper. It’s darker. Shadows close in on us. My eyes have trouble adjusting. The walls narrow. The ceiling lowers. I worry about things like dehydration and bats. And spiders. And I wonder. Is this place, to them, like the ocean is for fish? Do the creatures in here know of - or believe in - the world above? Can they hear us up above them, walking around? Can they hear us building cities into the sky? Can they dream? We go further. Cameras strobe. Voices hush. I forget what it smells like outside. I lose track of time. I start to miss the sun. And home. And TV. And my parents. I wish for a drill. I want to drill. Through the rock. Up and out. I want to emerge like a geyser. Back onto the surface. Where we can breath. And change. And love. And soon we ascend. We go out.

Postcard: Found at Antiques of Old Wilmington in Wilmington, North Carolina in January 2012.

your blog is really great. Such an original Idea. :)

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:19:56 -0800

Thank you so much!

Amman, Jordan

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:09:00 -0800

I woke up in a fish bowl.

Or, I should clarify, with the upper half of my body against a curved airport window shaped like one. An airplane took flight above me, warping and distorting, until disappearing into the clouds. I could see the transparent, finger-nail colored, moon.

I had thirteen hours, and already slept for two. I wore a suit and tie. My armpits were damp, my hair greasy.

I’d been away for two weeks for business. I wanted to ride a camel by the Dead Sea because when I returned to New York, everything would be different.

Next to me was a series of sleeping, shoeless men, bridged across the terminal seats. Their skin was dark and each wore an identical body length white robe and a thick black mustache. I remembered them from my connecting flight. I was trapped against the window and, not wanting to disturb their sleep, army crawled underneath the three of them, until I emerged on the other side.

I walked along the terminal, still glazed in a jet-lagged, half-dream.

A shuttle drove me from the airport, across the desert. An hour or so later, I arrived at the Dead Sea beachfront.

Vendors hawked bottles of water, snacks, and ancient collectible coins. A camel and guide cost me 10 JD. My guide was named Khaled and he was young and full of confident energy, springing with each step as he moved around me. He had on a black Michael Jordan t-shirt.

“Jordan,” he pointed. “Jordan,” he gestured outward. “Understand?”

He began to laugh. I nodded and laughed and wondered how many times he’d told that joke before. I felt good and refreshed and hoisted myself up onto the camel. It’s hair was tough, short, thick. It was uncomfortable as hell.

Soon we began to move, slowly and assuredly.

Khaled walked alongside the camel, shouting up at me from the ground. I swayed like a reed on top, absorbing each uncomfortable stride, as the sun was beginning to set across the water. I thought of Israel was on the other side, and home - New York, and Elena - somewhere further beyond.

I got off the camel, carefully, and hopped down into the sand. After consulting Khaled, I made my way over to the water. There were salt crystals lining the shores; globular, white martian cysts. I unlaced my shoes and put my feet into the water. The water lapped against my ankles. I felt calm and optimistic.

I cupped my hand in the water and held it up to my face. Khaled walked up, waving his hand across his chest in a scissor motion.

“No, boss. It’s too salty. Bad for you.”

I felt a sudden inclination for moisture, a yearning to be in the water. Without disrobing, I walked out until I was waist deep. Khaled called for me to come back, but I pushed on into the bath-warm water.

I laid back into the water, the density of the salt holding me up, like I was swaying quietly in a ghostly hammock. I lowered my head back into the water and looked up into the sky.

The stars were more visible now. I began to see new patterns.

I heard a sudden, omnipotent, baritone voice. “What does this mean?” it said. I looked around for the origin of the voice, for anyone, but there was nobody around me.

I was fifty or so yards out now, adrift in my suit and tie. The sun had fully dipped beyond the horizon to the West and, on the other shore, Khaled was waving and jumping and shouting. My camel milled about behind him.

I looked back up to the stars. A shape was now forming, a face.

“A face,” I felt compelled to say. “I see a face.”

“Are you sure? Can you be more specific?” said the voice.

I looked more intensely now, I could see a nose and eyes, and lips and mouth.

“A face?” I said. “I just see a face?”

The sky was turning darker by the second. My clothes felt heavy, and soggy, and too big on my body. Do clothes expand in salt? I wondered. Was I shrinking? I thought of being young; six years old and trying on my father’s clothes in the back of his closet. I thought of those little rubber dinosaurs that expand in the bathtub.

I was back in the room, the day before I’d left for my trip. My eyes darted nervously across it. I saw the diplomas, the family photos, the clipboard. A skeleton with sunglasses looked blandly in my direction from the corner of the room. I was facing the bearded man across the desk. He held a drawing, or a photo - I couldn’t quite tell - in front of himself, in the shape of the stars. There was a miniature stuffed elephant wrapped around the tube of his stethoscope.

“What is it that you see?” he asked calmly, raking his fingers through his facial hair. “What is it that you see?”

Soft-jazz saxophone channeled out from a small circular speaker above him, figure skating around us before dissipating into the stale quiet of the room.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m looking at?” I said to him. “What is it?”

“I have something special to tell you,” said the man, as a smile wrestled through his beard, in our direction.

I looked over at Elena, who was seated next to me. She sat upright in the wooden chair, anxiously chewing on her blond, shoulder length, hair. She reached over and took my hand with hers. She squeezed, hard. She placed her other hand delicately on her stomach; her eyes looking down, like she was about to fall.

She cried instead.

I was out a ways in the water. I had a plane to catch in a few hours, but there I was, floating aimless, excited and unsure, looking up at the stars.

Postcard: Found at the Melrose Trading Post in Los Angeles, CA in October 2011.

This must be the best blog idea I've ever seen!

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:38:37 -0800

Thank you!

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:46:00 -0800

I met a man in the nearly empty lobby of my hotel. He was a young man, lively, energetic. He wore a bandanna, and snuck drinks off a metal flask. When I first saw him he was sprawled out over a pile of luggage. I was waiting for my wife, who was late in returning from the art museum. I had some time to spare.

I introduced myself to him.

We got to talking and he explained to me that he’d just come from Japan, and was looking to meet a friend of his who worked in Rotterdam. He hadn’t been to Japan for business, but had been backpacking for several months.

He told me about his travels through the country, and I listened to keep myself preoccupied.

“The traditional greeting in Japan is to bow,” he explained to me at one point. I had already known this information, but I was bored and pretended not to know. He stood up and clasped his hands to the sides of his legs. “You see, you bend at the waist, keeping your back straight, and lower yourself like this.”

He bent at the waist and lowered himself as such.

“I see,” I said. “That’s very interesting indeed.”

He nodded, excitedly. “And the longer and deeper the bow, the more respect is given to the other person.” He sat back down atop his luggage.

“What’s wild is that there’ve been cases of people who’ve died,” he said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand?” I said.

“I was told a number of times, while traveling in Japan, that there have been a disturbing amount of bowing related injuries and deaths.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“I’m not,” he said.

“But how could that be?” I asked.

“It occurs when a person bows with such vigor, such intensity, that they crack their head together with the person they are bowing with and fracture their skull, and, in cases, die.”

“But surely, they couldn’t have bowed so hard to do such a thing?” I said, disturbed by the information he’d presented me with. “Nobody could bow with the kind of force it would take to kill a person.”

“If I could say otherwise I would, my friend.” He took another nip off his flask, and offered it to me, but I declined. “I heard similar stories all over. In Tokyo, in Osaka, in Kyoto and Fukuoka, and Hiroshima, and Hokkaido.”

“Unbelievable,” I said and a reflective silence fell over us. “Simply unbelievable.”

His ride came and he left, dragging a large internal frame backpack and several bags with him out of the door. I saw him enter a taxi-cab and then was gone.

A little later my wife arrived. I felt more self-conscious now, keeping a closer eye on my movements – fearful that the must routine action could lead to injury or death. For that night, I was cautious. I orbited my wife, careful to make any sudden moves. I monitored my reflexes. I felt entirely aware of my limbs in a way I’d never bothered to know before. It was a stifling, yet strange exhilaration, knowing that any moment could be my last.

We went out together and had dinner at a sashimi restaurant on the south end of Edo Machi. I chewed my food carefully and thoroughly.

“I heard from my sister today,” she said, at one point.

“Oh yeah?”

“She took Ty to Mammoth Cave this afternoon.”

“How did he do? Did he behave himself?”

“Yes, he was great,” she said. “I think he liked it.”

“Isn’t it absolutely insane?” I said, later on, during desert. “How oblivious we tend to be? That we’re able to function at all?”

“Whatever do you mean?” asked my wife. I tried my best to explain what I’d been told by the backpacker earlier that night. I’m not sure she quite understood what I was getting at, though I’m not entirely sure that I did either.

We woke early the following morning, and spent the majority of the day walking around Rotterdam. I’d forgotten about what the backpacker had said, how strange I’d felt the night before.

We left the city the next day, flew back home to Louisville, and life continued on as before. I hadn’t thought of the encounter again until now.

Postcard: Found at the Melrose Trading Post in Los Angeles, CA in October 2011.

Thank You!

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:23:51 -0800

I recently added an “Ask” button and, ever since, I’ve been getting a slew of positive comments for my blog. I thought I’d take a moment and thank everyone who has been reading.

I started “Postcard Stories” as an outlet for experimenting with short story writing and, hopefully, to develop as a writer myself. Four months later, it has grown far beyond my initial expectations and I can’t believe how incredibly fun and rewarding the whole project has been so far. Not to mention the wonderful response I’ve received from readers.

So THANK YOU! There’s a ton of great writing/content on Tumblr these days, and I’m grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read my work. It really means so much to me.

Keep checking in for all new stories!

David

Moran, Wyoming

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:58:00 -0800

Two cowboys are seated at a nearly empty bar in Moran. Both wear bolo ties, ten-gallon hats, leather boots. They’re the real deal.

Cowboy A turns to Cowboy B and asks him what his greatest fear in life is.

Cowboy B pauses and takes a pull on his bottle of sarsaparilla. He nods. He takes a long while. His mind visibly spins. Cowboy A soon loses interest and begins to chat up a blonde woman next to him.

Several songs cycle through on the jukebox in the corner of the darkened room. Ten minutes, at the very least, go by.

“I’ve got it!” says Cowboy B as he slams the drink back down onto the bar.

“Got what?” says Cowboy A, who’s already forgotten about the question.

“My greatest fear in life. Let’s say I’m working as a magician. And not just any regular magician either, but a magician on a cruise ship. A cruise magician. And I do a daily performance out on the deck of the boat. As part of my act I have my assistant, a lovely woman - dressed in tights, sparkling red high heels and a top hat - roll a large wooden chest out onto the stage. A crowd has gathered around and I announce that I am going to lock myself into the chest with a series of chains and dead-bolt locks and then my assistant is to throw the only key off the side of the ship, and then I am free myself from the chest. A drum roll begins to play and everyone is cheering and clapping and whistling and I first secure a straight-jacket around my body and my assistant pulls the straps real tight until I can hardly breath. Next she handcuffs my hands behind my back, and I’m led by my assistant down into this wooden chest – almost like a treasure chest – and I oversell my goodbyes to the audience and then the top is closed and I am enclosed into the chest and I can hear the muffled cries of the audience and the faint metallic sounds of the chest being wrapped with chains and then everything goes silent and I begin to sweat and I’m in the complete darkness. I’m not worried however, because I’ve done this trick time and time again as I’ve worked on the cruise ship for a while now. However, this time something seems off. I hear a sound, like a loud thundering horn, and I begin to panic because I feel the box begin to move, like I’m sliding and there’s a feeling in my stomach that flips and churns and I know I’m sliding now and I can feel the monstrous boat underneath me as it begins to tip and then I scream and scream into the darkness that surrounds me, but I can’t do anything. My breathe is short and heavy and I’m completely helpless and weightless and the box rockets down the tilted deck like a toboggan. I can hear the faint, muted, screams of desperation from outside. I smack and crash into objects and each one thrashes me around in the box. I hit my head hard, and my vision goes blurry. I can feel a trickle of blood down the back of my head, seeping into the collar of the straight-jacket. My mind, in its panic, begins to convince myself that it’s not a box that I am in - maybe it never was - but a smooth wooden coffin. Suddenly, I feel a brief moment of weightlessness as I propel off the deck - I assume - and shoot out over the endless tropical ocean. I hear a humongous suctioned thump of a splash outside me and I realize now that I’m sinking into the ocean, hundreds of feet per second, past the damaged sinking remains of the cruise ship, and the pressure is unbearable and each breath is a struggle now and my eyes begin to suction up into my head and my eardrums are bursting, my organs jostling around inside of my chest, and I can’t scream, can’t feel anything anymore, and I realize then that I’m thousands of feet below the surface, tumbling off of coral shelves, deep down into some unexplored oceanic trench, and that there’s no way I can escape now, even if I did everything I usually do to break free and so I lie there motionless and try and think about everything I possibly can - try and return to every wonderful moment in my life - because I know that my time is up and then everything sort of becomes cloudy and fades away into the darkness.”

Cowboy B takes another sip of sarsaparilla, and turns to Cowboy A. “How about you pardner? What’s your greatest fear?” asks Cowboy B.

“Snakes,” says Cowboy A.

Postcard: Found at the Antique Warehouse Mall in Memphis, TN in October 2011.