Monday, August 23, 2010

Post-Postal Apocalypse

While every letter I wrote for the Extravaganza was different I thought I'd give you a little peek into one of them. The following is the opening to letter #33. While most of the letters weren't quite so literary, every once in awhile I'd go on a kick. Overall they didn't turn out too bad, which is surprising because I did it on the fly and in pen.

        “The city looked bleak. At least that's what people said. The sun would brave a quick peek from its blanket of smog and dust, illuminating the wreckage of relics that made up the former metropolis. People would gaze upon the landscape as if the light were showing it to them for the first time and they'd sigh. Then the sun would disappear, the gloom would return, and the people would mutter, to no one in particular, “what a bleak city”. Sonja did not see it that way.
        To say the city was “bleak” would be inviting the mistaken interpretation that the city was bare. Certainly there was less of it after the years of bombing, but even rubble takes up space. Sonja preferred to say that the city was doleful. Doleful. A proper definition wrapped in a bright and colorful set of syllables; the product of a rose-colored dictionary. If you can't find enjoyment in the little things you might as well lay down and try to catch an explosion on your tongue.
        These are just a handful of the thoughts running through her mind as she walked home. Miraculously her apartment building had survived, thus far. Sure the roof was gone, and sure the toilet's pipes weren't connected to anything anymore, but it was familiar and that was nice. She began to walk up her front steps when she noticed her mailbox was broken. Its lid had come right off. Not that it mattered in this post-postal world, but she picked it up and was just about to return it to its proper place when she noticed something. There was a letter in her box. She picked it out of the tattered mailbox and looked at it. As the realization of what it was hit her, she laughed.
        'Well,' she said while still chuckling, 'I guess it's better late than never.'

     Hiya Sonja! This letter is super late, but not so late as to be sent in some post-apocalyptic, war-torn future. So, in the grand scheme of things, it isn't very late at all.”

2 comments:

  1. awww... i want a cool letter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sadly the response to the Letter Extravaganza was not good enough to warrant a second one.

    However, a different postal project is on the horizon so be on the lookout for that.

    ReplyDelete