The Mail, The Dog, And The Long
Walk
by
Will Mayo
Still
before Facebook, email and Twitter, there was always the postal service as a
means of keeping touch. Planes, trains and men went about the land and letters
did their magic for those who had no other means of keeping touch. And myself,
I was a devotee of this service long before I tapped my fingers upon my first
computing machine. It worked wonders upon my brain in ways that are not readily
explained save that I poured my heart's solace upon the page and it in turn
gave back to me.
So it was
about 20 or so years ago when I was off on one of my afternoon walks to the
mailbox, I spied a long line of cars, one after another, dashing about in the
street in front of the box in which I longed to place a letter to a penpal now
long since forgotten and growing, impatient, I saw a gap, yes, a very small gap
between those dashing cars and, so, ran forward to send my note on its way
forward. Well, I just made it past the car as its bumper whispered by my hip
and you'd think by then everything would be assured. But, unfortunately, I
ended up tripping on the curb and landing in a swan dive on the walkway. Hell,
I thought. I eased my bruised and battered body into a standing position and
after checking all vitals (yep, balls still intact), eased determinedly forward
down the last block to the letterbox in question.
You'd
think, by then, it'd be a shoo-in, no questions asked, just open the door and
drop the letter down the chute to head across the miles. And so it seemed, that
distant blue shape with the symbol of our country's postal agency written on
the side looming ahead in the distance like a desert mirage. Slowly, I shuffled
my battered body forward, past one house and then past another.
And then I
was but two houses from my destination when I passed a house with a family of
two parents and two young children playing in the front yard with their big
brown puppy of a dog, tossing a little red ball back and forth between them and
laughing with joy as the dog bounded to and fro barking furiously. I smiled and
waved, ambled on the sidewalk, my legs making awkward steps as they walked on,
my eyes steady on that blue door in which to toss my letter on its final leap
across the miles. Seemingly unaware as a young boy's ball crossed the sidewalk
before me, the dog chasing it, and then, suddenly, that great mastiff (still a
puppy, mind you) leaping up into the air and tearing a chunk of flesh out of my
shoulder.
The family
was in shock. I was too. All this, the cars, the spinning walkways seeming for
nothing as the dog with blood on its lips climbed off of me and headed back to
its masters. Beside me, I could hear the young mother say, “ My God. He bit
you, didn't he? He bit you!”
Then
finally I had, at last, had enough. Above the whimpering, the crying, and the
ceaseless barking, I shouted, “Will you wait just one minute? One cotton
picking minute?!”
At this,
they all said, “Sure. Whatever you say.”
I walked
over the mailbox, dropped my letter in (I had never ceased to hold onto it
throughout the ordeal) and heard a satisfying, “Clunk!” as my mail dropped into
the bottom of the chute.
Then I
turned towards home. Always the long walk forward.
“Mister?” , “Mister?” I could
hear behind me. “Are you all right?
“Damned people,” I muttered under
my breath.
Ahead the
miles beckoned. Same as always.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Give Or Take A Couple
by
Will Mayo
So we had a
couple of a couple of minutes to spare before the show. How to fill in the
missing minutes? It was a problem.
"Sex?"
I suggested.
"Mmmm.
Cool," she said. "But what do we do with the other couple of
minutes?"
It was a
problem, yes. We talked out the possibilities. That took several minutes in
itself. Finally, we settled on Parcheesi. That seemed best.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transformed
by
Will Mayo
And when I
am gone from the land of the living I will likely enter into a different kind
of consciousness; the consciousness of trees and grass and flowers and ants and
burrowing things. The consciousness, too, of human beings walking the ground
above which my remains lie. It shall be a splendid transformation.
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