By ED Nobody
Now you may have been noticing an odd stranger lingering in our city these past few weeks.
A man in a big old yellow brown truck. Yes, the truck that resembles a snail as many accounts have been quick to claim.
The man in question does not seem to be dangerous or a nuisance in any sense. But he is suspicious and strange nonetheless. He is a large man, although witnesses tend to have a difficult time deciding exactly which height he stands at. Only being able to agree on him being large in both height and width.
Actually all accounts of this mystery fellow are varied and at times contradictory. So we should start with the features that tend to stay the same in every account to start with.
The man has one eye. The color varies, but the singularity stays the same, as quoted from one witness, “he has a permanent wink.” And almost always it’s his right eye that is missing and sealed shut.
This man comes off as wise and mischievous, in a genuine way, at least that is how the majority of people have described him. Some others have said he looked like a grumpy old sea man that would make up tails of water serpents and mermaids with a twinkle in his eye.
Most accounts describe the man as older, with smile lines around his eyes and a sun worn face. Although, it should be noted that every person described him as older and not old. The difference only means something because of the variety of people we have interviewed. All of which are different ages, but even the oldest among them described the stranger as older, this came from an 96 year old, upon further questioning to specify or even give an age range, each and everyone seemed puzzled and couldn’t specify.
The best they could do was make wild guesses, usually shooting for at least 15 years older than they were.
Now this man seems to always be wearing a mail carrier’s uniform. Most recognize it from what mailmen wore in the 50s. Dark blue pants and jacket, complete with the postal hat. And it seems he fancies himself as a mail carrier because this is how he introduces himself to our witnesses, before delivering letters to each of them.
Many people have come forward with similar, yet Unique tails. Each claiming that this many gave them a letter that was not possible or that they needed or lost long ago.
There will be three accounts quoted here from three separate people that each had such an experience with this stranger.
This first account comes from Jessica Filch, a law student. Her tale starts on June 15th on her way to her first class that morning.
Walking down the sidewalk , with a coffee in one hand and her other holding her cellphone, Jessica texted her boyfriend a morning text trying to take her mind off the test she was dreading.
She had barely slept all night studying crying and studying some more. She hadn’t been paying much attention to everything around her but something made her look up.
A large man stood in front of her. He was intimidating at first, how he loomed like an immovable force, with an impenetrable gaze fixed squarely on Jessica.
Jessica yelped involuntarily, almost dropping her coffee, as she stopped suddenly, at first she admits she was scared, but only for a moment, the beast of a man smiled and all her worries and concerns melted away.
This was just a man after all. A big man, but somehow he seemed safe, like a father or even a grandfather… Wait, how old was he?
But the question remained unanswered, because she didn’t ask nor care at that moment. The big man pulled out a letter, seemingly from nowhere… Wait, no he pulled in from a brown satchel. Yes. he had a satchel.
Jessica for some reason that she could not explain took the envelope the big man held out to her. She looked down at the bright green envelope, it had pink heart stickers holding down the flap in a messy line, like a child had sealed it lovingly.
“What is this?” Jessica asked the one eyed man.
He nodded his head to the letter, causing her to look back at it as he answered in a well worn voice, “You know.”
Jessica flipped the letter over to see the address, the handwriting was that of a childs, probably a middle schoolers. Addressed to Jessica by name.
It had no address, just a scribble of a house under her name.
Jessica decided she may as well investigate, she set her coffee cup on the ground and peeled open the letter with curiosity.
The letter was folded in clumsily with bright pink paper, written in pencil was a short few sentences, but upon reading them and seeing the picture drawn out at the bottom of the paper Jessica teared up.
Looking back up at the burly man, she asked with a trembling voice again, “What is this?”
And in return he nodded, “You know.” Before turning back to his mail truck, he climbed on it, the back of the truck behind him as he grabbed the reins up in his large fists, he tipped his hat to her.
She watched the truck drive itself back on the road, driving away and disappearing into the morning traffic.
Jessica looked back down at her letter, a letter she wrote when she was ten years old. A letter she never wrote… She read it again, as a sense of relief overtook her.
Somehow this was just what she needed.
Hello!
I’m writing for future me! So I remember what I wanna do when I grow up. I want to be a lawar.
So I believe in you future me! Cuz I know I can do it! And you are me so of course you can do it! Cuz I’m super smart and can say the abcs backwards, and no one else I’ve ever met can do that.
Like dad always says! Do your best and you’ll be your best
Love me or you Jessie!
P.S. Do I have a boyfriend yet?
Jessica went on to class and did her best on that test.
Jessica was happy to give us this information and seems to believe that the letter somehow came from her past self, she is not sure if she wrote the letter when she was younger or not. But either way she cannot fathom how the stranger found the letter and returned it to her.
The next account we have comes from a young man named John Brown, a local bar tender, on June 23rd after a gym workout.
Feeling sore from a hard workout, John rubbed his shoulder absently as he went through his phone checking to see if he had missed anything while he had been in the gym.
He couldn’t help but check if that girl had texted him back yet. But of course she had not. She had ghosted him over a month prior, so he hadn’t been expecting much, but still she hadn’t seemed the type.
John couldn’t say what exactly caught his attention and made him look up, but he did and that was when he made eye contact with the strange man.
John paused, he had never seen anyone look so out of place, like he was a character rather than a real human being. A hard worn face, like an old grumpy sailor.
The man looked back at him, one eye gazing through him, before a slight grin split across his hard face immediately changing John’s first impression of him. He didn’t seem grumpy, he seemed amused and alive!
“Hello, got this here, letter for ya” The mail man said, holding out a letter to John… Had he always been holding that letter out to him?
John took the letter, because that was polite and it did have his name on it. It didn’t have an address but something about the hand writing did seem familiar, but only vaguely.
“Who’s it from?” John asked.
The stranger shook his large head down at John, giving him no other course but to open the letter and see for himself.
The letter was written by her… But as he read what it had to say he couldn’t understand how this letter was written by her… not if what it said was true.
He looked back at the man in blue only to see him walking back to his snail. Or his truck. Getting on it and pulling it back to the road.
He turned his one good, glowing eyes back on John before he left a final time saying, “It’s true.” Before vanishing down that road.
John looked back at his letter, his breath catching as a newspaper article fell from the envelope, he hadn’t noticed it in there before… or had it been there?
He read them together this time, his throat tightening.
Dear John
I am so sorry for missing our date, believe me I would have shown if I had been able to. I really did like you.
Unfortunately, I had a small accident the day before our date. I was hit by a truck on my way home from work. I would say it was mostly my fault, I had over worked and hadn’t been paying attention. It’s alright though, I died pretty much right after I was hit. So I was more in shock than anything else.
No need to worry.
I thought you should know I wasn’t ignoring you or ghosting you, well actually I literally ghosted you… If you didn’t laugh we wouldn’t have made it. But it wasn’t on purpose. I actually was looking forward to chatting in a quiet cafe with you.
But anyway, thank you for how nice you always were at the bar, always enjoyed the coffees you made even if you put too much cream in them.
It’s truly too bad.
In loving memory Ravine~
John gulped hard as he read the new clipping detailing the accident and the one casualty which lined up with the letter.
He snorted and shook his head, not sure if it was better to know or not. But he was leaning toward not.
John seems perfectly convinced this letter was somehow written by the deceased woman, but we are not so sure, afterall someone could have faked it just like many others.
The final account we have for this report is from David Tyson, a hard working family man and businessman, his encounter was on July 1st on his way home.
David strode down the sidewalk with purpose, he needed to catch the bus before it left, he wasn’t late, but he liked being early to things. Actually he had to be early to destinations. Never again would David let himself arrive too late.
But as he turned the corner he found his way blocked by a man larger than life… or no, he was just large.
Somehow David knew this man was there for him. He didn’t find him foreboding or intimidating; he actually found himself drawn to the calm energy of the mailman.
He hadn’t ever seen someone so much older and yet so peaceful looking, such a contrast to his own constant turmoil and anxiety.
“Sir, may I ask you a question?” David asked before even thinking.
The one bright eye seemed to take in his entire being in that moment as if he knew everything David was and wasn’t. “This is a better answer than anything I’d say.” The man said as he held out a pale blue envelope covered in doodles.
Hesitantly David took the letter, his breath hitched and he had to consciously remember to breathe, as he stared down at the letter, the doodles painfully familiar, and the writing on the front immediately recognizable.
“This.. this is…?” David couldn’t even finish his question his voice choking as he looked up at the burly figure.
With the most kindness the mailman nodded and handed David a letter opener, “It’s what you need, so don’t hesitate.”
David flinched at his words, but cut open the letter gingerly, his caution and fear palatable as he pulled the sheet of paper from the envelope and opened the folded paper.
And, well, it was what he needed. It was exactly what he needed. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he looked back up at the mailman to say thank you. To ask how and who and where. But all he saw was the mailman getting on his snail… or his truck and ushering it back on the road, sparing David one small gentle encouraging smile before vanishing into the after work rush.
David looked back down at the letter from his dead son, letting the tears fall freely, the smallest of smiles pulling at his lips.
Dear dad
Wow that sounds corny to write.
I’m not good at writing or talking or really anything like this, but I know you need this. And I want you to stop blaming yourself dad. I made my own choices, against your will, I thought I’d be fine.
I didn’t mean to die, but I was stupid and looking for something, anything to feel good. I’m sorry you found me. I’m sorry you were too late to help.
I know that it took a toll on you.
I didn’t know. It was an accident, I just miscalculated how much I could take, I didn’t mean to take myself.
And neither did you.
Dad, forgive yourself. You didn’t know coming home late would prevent you from saving me.
It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.
Please stop punishing yourself everyday, by forcing yourself to be early and pushing yourself to hurry when you don’t have to.
You were the best dad I could have ever had and I’m sorry I never said that, Again I’m bad at words, but now I’ll say the words I should have when I was alive.
I love you dad, and I am so sorry.
Love your son, Darren
David took in a deep breath, in an attempt to calm himself before he broke down in agonizing sobs. He didn’t know if he could ever stop being anxious about time again.
But this was a gift and he’d try.
And that is the last of our witness statements for now. But there are many stories like that one. More people claiming to have gotten letters from dead relatives, past selves, or even lost letters that were burned in house fires or lost in transit.
All reports are fascinating and seem to only grow.
A man walked into a butcher shop on a hot July morning. He was a very large man, so large that the butcher wasn’t sure how he even got into his little corner shop.
The large man was wearing a matching blue outfit, like he was a mail man from the 50s. The butcher didn’t question his outfit or the fact that he only had one eye. It wasn’t the first time he had seen a man with one eye after all.
The strange man looked down at the lobster tank, his one eyes scrutinizing each and every lobster, as if he were looking for a very specific lobster.
Because he was looking for a very specific lobster.
And he found it. He reached into the water tank with his bare hand, frightening the butcher who made a shocked yell like sound.
But the stranger didn’t bat an eye, or bat his eye? He pulled a large lobster from the tank, unhurt.
Then he set the lobster on his open palm, something you shouldn’t want to do if you wanted to keep all your fingers. But to the butchers astonishment the lobster sat perfectly still in the large hand.
Maybe it wasn’t aware it was in a hand? Maybe it was too scared to move? Maybe it was as confused as the butcher.
What the lobster was thinking did not matter, what mattered is that the large man had approached the butcher, his eye seeing right through the man. “How much?” He asked, holding the lobster close to his body. As if cradling it.
“That one… Uh thirty will do.” Said the butcher, normally he would have pulled the lobster out himself and weighed, but apparently not this time.
The large man nodded, but his eye showed a distant confusion, but he pulled out a wallet… from somewhere, the butcher just hadn’t been paying attention to where.
He pulled out several green bills, setting them down on the counter between the two men. The butcher picked up the small stack of cash and flipped through it, growing more and more baffled as he counted.
“This is 319 dollars sir.” He said looking up, only to find the stranger had disappeared. He blinked, looked back down at the money, then ran to the door, looking around the busy street.
But somehow, even though it couldn’t have been very long, there was no sign of the man.
How could he miss such a giant?
The stranger walked gently, cautiously down the beach toward the ocean, the salty air blowing into his face as he approached cradling the lobster close to his chest.
He had set the snail back into the bushes, it had done its job well, taking him to each person on his list with no complaints, actually he was pretty sure it had enjoyed being the size of a truck.
Now this lobster seemed just as eager to do the same job, just through the ocean this. He just hoped the ocean would not mind his intrusion.
He set the lobster down, just into the shallows, his eye taking in the gentle yet powerful waves as far as he could see. And he could see very far.
He dipped his head to it before stepping after the already growing lobster to his next country, for his next job.
There were more letters to deliver.
Octopencil 