LOST LETTERS 

Letters rarely get lost, but those who do are in for a real odyssey.

What follows is a true story: a letter addressed to a Mr. Heck Golden Coriander was put in a mailbox on October 9, 1964. The sender was identified as Laura (no last name) from some place out of town.

As the letter fell into the mailbox, it apologized to a large brown envelope it had landed on, and greeted the remaining correspondence. Not a word, except for a shush here and there, as it was quite late at night.

Next morning someone unlocked the box to remove the mail, and the letter woke up with the sunshine coming in. Since it had been the last letter deposited in that box before collection, it was right at the top of the pile. So as it was being transported to the truck, it slid from the tray and landed on the sidewalk.

And there it stayed for days. It was stepped on a few times, sniffed by dogs, rained on, had its corners nibbled by rats, and finally noticed by another mailman, who picked it up and took it to be sorted and delivered.

However, after being exposed to the elements, the address on the envelope wasn’t too clear and it ended up in the wrong house. The family who lived there, the Olsons, was on vacation. The letter sat in their dark mailbox and waited. It wasn’t alone, though: a small spider had made the mailbox its home, and kept running back and forth over the letter who, up to that moment, hadn’t realized how ticklish it was.

The torture lasted two weeks, when the Olsons returned. Fortunately, Mr. Coriander was a neighbor and they knew where he lived.

That same day, Mr. Olson took the letter to Mr. Coriander’s house, where he learned that the man had passed away. Mr. Olson sent the letter back to Laura, with a note attached, explaining what had happened.

The letter never got there. Its fate is unknown. It may have gotten lost again, or thrown itself into a furnace in desperation. Nobody will ever know its contents, what the relationship was between Laura and Coriander, or if Laura even existed.