Purest Fiction: Post Office
The woman raked her dripping bangs out of her face and forced herself to her feet. She picked up the suitcase with her left hand. The wheels had broken off long ago, but it still held the things she valued. The galleys of the last novel for her publisher’s contract, packed in a box at the bottom, weighed the case down.
At the end of the off-ramp stood a road sign. She wiped her water-spotted lenses on her damp jacket sleeve and peered at the lettering. “Welcome to Donegal. How appropriate! I hope my agent gets the joke.”
The woman leaned to her left and slogged down the incline. “Donegal should have a post office,” she muttered. “I’m weary of lugging this around.”
She wanted to march into the Best Western motel, but it was risky. Motel lobbies were too busy, and the last thing she wanted was recognition.
Besides, motels had Internet access, and that was most dangerous of all.
The woman scrambled around the blade of a bulldozer and stepped up on a crumbling curb. She passed gas stations, and strip malls with pizza shops. Lunch could wait; her publisher’s deadline was more important.
A mail truck rolled past, and she followed it. During her childhood, there were neighborhood mailboxes, but things had changed. She would lug the manuscript until she reached the post office.
“I’m a bag lady after all,” she sighed and sagged onto a park bench in front of the building. She opened the main section of the suitcase and dug her fingers under the weighty box. A woman and child stepped outside, and she braced herself for childish curiosity.
“Mommy, why does she have her suitcase open?”
“Not so loud. If you have to ask questions like that, wait until we’re in the car. You can’t be too careful with people like her.”
The author shivered. She didn’t want attention, not anymore.
Somewhere in this small town she could find mundane work no one noticed. Would her solution come in time? Glancing about for other passersby, she dug deeper, and lifted the box onto the bench. From her waist pack came the last small bills, exactly enough for postage. She didn’t want to wait for change.
She felt free, if a bit unbalanced. With the galley proofs gone, her suitcase seemed feather-light, and she moved at a swifter pace toward the older parts of town. Ahead stood a Laundromat, and a mom-and-pop restaurant; if she found lodging, Donegal might be home, for a while.
Purest Fiction is a short story with twelve installments. Stay tuned for Purest Fiction: No Pickle No Chips.
Read more of my published short stories here.
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