Short Fiction - Post It

A little short fiction for you today. It's been a while. 

Day 1,826

As soon as I wake up, I can tell that the mist has cleared. Alone in my bed, in the gloom behind my curtains, I can immediately sense the quality of my unaccustomed focus. My vision is clear, my hearing acutely tuned to the solitary blackbird outside. I stare at the ceiling and wonder. This kind of thing never happens of its own accord anymore. Something must be driving my new-found clarity.

But what?

It comes to me. Easter Thursday. Money Day.

The laptop on the kitchen table is always on. That makes it sluggish and inefficient but who am I to judge? Even in its unfit state, it will still bring up my bank account in a matter of minutes. As the hard disk chunders I run a simple sum in my head. One thousand, that was a given, and then another three hundred for the mishaps of the past calendar year. Not much, but not bad for a ten-year-retired guy whose pension had not done anything close to what it had said it would do.

The bank screen coalesces in front of me. There is no new payment. That is annoying, for sure, but it is slightly worrying too. Stationery Joe is like clockwork. He never misses Money Day, and he never works the payment out wrong.

The post box outside my front door is empty. It is quite normal that there was no post. But there is always something, isn’t there? Almost always. Today there is nothing at all and that too is annoying but slightly worrying.

I check around inside my head. The mist remains very thin on the ground. Clarity is good. But how long has it been since this was the case? How many days has it been since I clearly acknowledged what was, or was not, inside my letterbox? Had it been a day, a month, a week for Christ’s sake?

It is time for me to go and find out.

Day 1

Stationery Joe was standing motionless out on the street side of my hedge. I could see him there as I clipped away on the garden side. He was in profile and his big roman nose made him look like De Gaulle in crosshairs, like in the film. I clipped a little more and hoped he would just walk on.

“Morning.”

I stopped clipping. Stationery Joe might have been my next-door neighbour but that had never made him my friend. When we had living wives, we were always standoffish with each other at best. An occasional nod if there was no other way around it. We were never fully at war but there had certainly been disagreements. The overhanging tree, the scattered bin. Now it was just him and me, me and him. I had gone to his wife’s funeral the week before, as he had come to mine some years ago. We had both stood at our respective gravesides and we had both turned up afterward to eat each other’s hotel soup. Then we went home to our respective houses and said no more about it.

“Morning,” he said again. “Can I come around?”

He walked around the hedge and onto my property. He stood there on my grass in his purple cardigan. He looked old. I guessed I looked the same.

“I’ll cut to it,” he said, “I want you to do something for me.”

I had come this far without saying a word and didn’t see any need to change the arrangement now.

“Can I get some kind of a response? Just so I know that you’re in there.”

“I’m in here.”

“I have a mortal fear,” he said, and then he said nothing else.

I waited. Nothing.

“We all have those,” I said.

“I have a mortal fear that I will die inside my house, and nobody will find me until it’s too late.”

“You’ll be dead. How will it be too late?”

“My fear is that I won’t be found before corruption has taken me.”

This was one of the reasons he annoyed me so deeply. I mean, who says things like, “until corruption has taken me”?

“I won’t look in on you, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said. “I’m not taking on any new commitments.”

“I don’t want that,” he said, almost scoffing, “Fuckin’ last thing I’d want.”

“What do you want then? This hedge won’t clip itself.”

It was the kind of a conversation that had to have a little speech somewhere in it. Stationery Joe delivered it then, on my grass, the dew moistening his shoes.

“After I closed the shop, I brought a lot of office stuff home with me. I have thousands of those yellow sticky note things in a box.”

“Post-its.”

“I know what they’re called.”

“Good for you."

“What I want to do is to post one of those yellow sticky things into your post box there every morning. Early, before you even get up.”

“And?”

“And, if there’s ever a day I don’t post one, you come and knock on my door and if I don’t come out, you call the police.”

“That’s it?”

“Will you do it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I have enough on my plate.”

“You have nothing on your plate, and you know it.”

“Why should I do it? One good reason.”

“Today is Holy Thursday.”

“And?”

“If you do this, next Holy Thursday, I will lodge one thousand euro in your bank account, you can send me the number.”

“It’s not much.”

“It’s literally money for nothing and it will let me sleep at night.”

“And you’ll leave me alone and not be coming round standing in my hedge.”

“I’ll leave you alone.”

Day 2

Not much in the post. A new offer for high-speed broadband. A bill from the Gas Company. A futile chase for a TV license.

And one yellow post it sticky note. I roll it up and put it in the bin.

Day 686

It took him all of five minutes to open the door, but I knew he wasn’t dead as soon as I had rung the bell. I could hear him inside, shuffling and coughing. I could see his silhouette inching up the hall. He fumbled with the latch and finally hauled it open.

“You’re not dead then.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t get round with the thing. I have a really- “

“I’m not doing this anymore. I‘m out.”

“I miss one day…”

“I can’t be your nanny.”

“One hundred euro.”

“What?”

“For every one day I miss, I’ll add one hundred euro to the pot.”

I thought about it.

“All right then,” I said, “but don’t miss too many.”

“I won’t.”

Day 1,826

The police officer is young. There’s an older one too but he’s standing back, letting the young one control the scene. It’s cold at Stationery Joe’s front door, it catches the wind. He put the door on the wrong wall. I could have told him that when he was building but we were never on those kinds of terms.

The kid policeman has his phone out and he’s taking notes with it. Hardly Morse.

“So, you haven’t seen Mr.… Joe in several days?”

“I haven’t seen him in months, but I knew he was all right until…”

“Until?”

“A little while ago. I’m not sure exactly. I’ve been unwell.”

The kid detective turns to the older guy.

“Do we get a warrant?”

“Just open it up.”

I thought they’d have some kind of master key, some lock-picking tools. Not the case. The younger guy stands back and plants his boot hard, as high on the door jamb as he can go. One shot, the door flies open, the lock housing all splintered to hell.

Nobody runs out to see what all the commotion is. Nobody crawls.

The older guard nods to the open door.

“Go on in,” he says to his young partner, “See what’s what. We’ll wait out here.”

It is a blooding. All three of us can tell. The young guard looks hesitant.

“Should I-?”

“Just go in. It’ll be fine.”

He goes in. Suddenly brave and unflinching. An act. He comes out again, forty seconds later, expectedly pale.

“He’s in his bed.”

“And?”

“He’s dead.”

“Are you sure?” The senior guy says. “did you check a pulse?”

The younger guy almost laughs. “He’s dead all right.”

“Make the call so.”

The young guard eases past me. It’s not my business but I can’t help but ask.

“In there?”

“Yes?”

“Does he seem… peaceful?”

The young guy stares at me.

“I wouldn’t like to say,” he says, then he adds, “Funny thing.”

“What?”

“Blank post it notes.”

“What about them?”

“He has four of them, stuck to his face.”