Grex Writing Conference

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Grex Writing Item 36: Negative mail
Entered by reach on Sat Apr 18 09:34:13 UTC 1992:

        I went to the mailbox yesterday, and found I had negative mail.
        Rather than a letter in my post box, or a group of letters, or a
catalog, or a bill, or a flier, or a dead person, or a spider, waiting for
me to reach deep inside, so he could sting and sting, so that I would never
wish to receive mail again in my lifetime, rather than an angry note from
the man in the apartment downstairs, asking for the thirty-second time, 
could I *please* stop using the floor as a practice surface for developing
a "power stroke" with the hammer, or as a nuclear testing ground, or 
*whatever* it was I was doing that was waking him up at all hours of the 
night (including, in the past, hours during which I was away from home, 
which led me into an intense round of questioning my plants to see if they
were somehow behind this, but they weren't, or, if they were, they kept up
a *very* good front, to the point of passing two rounds of polygraph tests
under threat of cessation of water rights), rather than Ed McMahon grinning
stupidly at me from a colered envelope that fairly shouted to the word how
much money I may have won (thank you, Ed, for making me the target of any
deranged individual who sees my mail and decides I must be rich, and the
perfect person from which to steal, beg, or borrow whatever monies are 
needed to support whatever habits he or she may have), rather than a small
card featuring the pictures (grainy, and circa 1977) of people I have 
certainly never seen, whether or not they are missing, rather than a nice
box of cookies from some kind soul (you know know who you are, and you 
know that you've been negligent in this department), rather than nothing...

        Rather than nothing?

        I looked into the box, and it seemed empty. As I turned away, I
caught something out of the corner of my eye, in the back of the box. 
        When i looked back, there was nothing. 
        When I turned my head and squinted one eye, I could sort of almost
perhaps see a shimmering in the box. A distortion, if you will.
        Direct viewing showed an empty mailbox.
        How odd, thought I.
        With some trepidation, I reached into the box. 
        And into the box.
        My post box (rather, the post box I use, as the Postal service reminds
me) is roughly one foot deep. It resembles a simple side-of-the-road mailbox,
a flat bottom, flat ends, and a rounded top.
        It has a red flag that one flips up as notification that one is 
fulfilling her duty as responsible postal customer.
        One of the ends opens downward, and it was into this opening that
my arm had gone, gone up to the shulder, in fact, while reaching for the 
shimmering at the rear of the box.
        My arms are of normal length; my post box is one foot.
        This bears further investigation, I thought.

        One hour later, I had used a broom handle, a length of rust-covered
chain, and several unwilling and fearful crumpled-newspaper volunteers to
determine that my post box was larger indeed than I had thought.
        I had not found any physical backside to the post box, from the
inside. From the outside, it appeared as normal. The broom handle did not 
protrude, though I pushed it in so that I nearly lost it.
        For the space inside the mailbox expanded in all directions past
the point where the back was to have been.
        I sat on the step and pondered for a bit.
        There was no good explanation.
        It being evening, i could not call the postal service.
        
        Today, I waited for the postman to come. I parked on the step and
waited to point out the spatial incongruety, and see what explanation he had.
(first, of course, I verified that the box was in the same condition it had
been the previous day)
        The postman's normal time came and went, but he did not. There was, 
however, a sound from the box.
        I opened the door, quite slowly, to find it brimming with mail.
        Now *that* is interesting, thought I, as I browsed through the stack.
        Perhaps some new method of mail delivery?

        Perhaps; but I doubt it, now. 
        The first item was a catalog, from a place selling something I could
not identify, in many colors. I don't know how much they wanted for whatever
it was, as the catalog was written in some alphabet I did not recognize. 
        There were bills, nicely itemized, for amounts in the tens of 
thousands of *somethings*. There was a hand (hand?) written note that 
somehow seemed angry in tone, but I couldn't be sure. 
        There were other letters, but nothing I could make sense of.
        On the bottom, however, was the most interesting of all: 
        A brightly-colored envelope, with huge, bold print, and a picture
on it, of what I can only imagine is some otherworldly counterpart to 
Ed Mcmahon, complete with a stupid grin from what I sincerely hope are his
mouths, though he doesn't have teeth, and what look like glasses.

        I wonder if I am a winner.

4 responses total.

#1 of 4 by jdg on Sat Apr 18 13:06:05 1992:

I had trouble with your second sentence.  Perhaps you could have broken that
long sentence into an expository paragraph?  Also, you might have started
the story with action (broom handle, etc.) instead of the expositional
sentence? 
 
Anyway, I like how the story ended.  Poor Ed.  Could you imagine having
everyone in the country sending him a letter with their pictures by the
return address?

#2 of 4 by ecl on Sun Apr 19 06:21:49 1992:

Ah, so you are the one who got my mail !

#3 of 4 by reach on Mon Apr 20 05:15:55 1992:

Indeed, the second sentence is a work of ugliness; the item flowed 
directly from my brain to my fingers and then, to Grex; were I to edit it,
it would be cleaner.
My apologies.

#4 of 4 by polygon on Fri May 15 19:34:29 1992:

I liked it.

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