The letter you never dared send

She was dredging through her old letters, shuffling through the envelopes, paper flying across the floor and slowly landing backside up on the scruffy wooden floor.

All around her towered massive mountains of letters, letters of love and devotion, letters of sympathy and understanding, letters filled with humour and comfort and letters of hate and anger. But she couldn't find that excact letter, the letter she had been digging after for two days straight. Her throat felt soar and dry in the crispy-papered air. Everywhere old stamps were fading underneath layers of dust, same as with the adress written on the envelopes. The adress these letters had all been sent to.

To Mason
The Letter I never Dared to Send
Shallow Dump 18
67 578 Forgeson

She had started the program across the internet, a website that was there for peoples own pain only. People posted long, complicated situations from their lives, they met comfort and unleashed their pain to the world. After just seven months her bandwidth had exploded, there was no way she could pay for more, as her job painting fences of the nearby old houses didn't pay off very well.
So she changed the website.

This website has been closed down, The Painful Program has been changed to a manual channel, which means you have to send your thoughts through old-fashioned mail. Yes, letters.
So, as a dare, send me the letters you never dared to send to get the pain off your chest.

The message was followed by Masons adress, for a while it was silent. She would stroll up the crooked street, peek down into the mailbox, pick up the occasional bill, or the letters that had been delivered to her by mistake.
Else than that, there was nothing, nothing for three weeks. It had been an especially hot summer, painting fences gave her neck and the lower of her back an excellent tan, but the rest of her was basically soaked in sweat and paint. So she spent the days away from the internet, listening to the birds sing, sitting in the frying sun, enjoying the light summer silence.

Peeking down her mailbox randomly one of these boiling days, her eyes fell upon a tiny, red envelope.

She picked it up and carefully read the address, she read it twice. Then one more time. It was indeed adressed for her and her house. She looked up at her red brick house and checked the number on her door, just to be sure, even though she knew her address well. She then read the description on the envelope one more time. Yes, it was for her.

Glowing with anticipation and with a heart thumping with excitement, Mason forgot all about paint, sweat, birds and the sun. The door slammed behind her, she let herself slide down the back of her door until she was sitting on the cool hallway floor leaning against the door. Her fingers ripped the envelope open and a neatly folded letter slipped out.

Her fingers were shaking and struggling to unfold it, resulting in curling it further. She licked her lips, they tasted salty with sweat and sweet with paint-remove chemicals.

She could remember that emotion so well, the feelings flowing through her as the first letter arrived.

Mason flung the shovel up into the air and shrieked with happiness. On the floor, just digged out, lay a tiny red envelope.

//Mason