Agoraphobia

Day 800 (Caltrops)

The farm's first two winters had been mild. So few of our chickens and hogs had died from cold. However, our agricultural experts warned we'd been pushing our luck. We would eventually needed a heated enclosure for the animals. Great Uncle Ellis, Donna, and Jack volunteered to build one. We transplanted them to the barn and provided the materials they needed to build a huge chicken coop and wood-burning stove inside.

Midway through the project, Uncle Peter and I were having lunch with Jack, Donna and Ellis in the barn. The subject of Uncle Peter's cartoons came up.

"The peak hit at an extremely inconvenient time for my career," admitted Uncle Peter. "A major cartoon syndicate was considering me. If chosen, my cartoons would have been seen by millions. The day before the peak, the cartoon syndicate's representative left a cryptic voicemail saying: 'The directors have made a decision, and a notice should be in the mail today or tomorrow.'." Uncle Peter sighed. "But, thanks to the peak, the letter was never delivered. Now I'll never know if I was chosen. That uncertainty haunts me."

"Perhaps the letter is at the post office," speculated Jack.

Uncle Peter's eyes grew wide. "That hadn't occurred to me."

I cleared my throat. "You know, we COULD take a scavenging trip to New Athens," I suggested. "Maybe stop by the post office while there?"

An hour later, Uncle Peter, Bryce, and I pulled into a parking spot of the New Athens Post Office. A cube-like, one-story, brick building representing the utilitarian approach to municipal architecture. Its once manicured lawn and trimmed bushes had two years of unchecked growth.

We sent Bryce in to "case the joint", then followed.

A postal worker's corpse was slumped over the front counter. So badly decomposed was it, we could identify neither race nor gender. It was little more than dry skin stretched taut over brittle bones. Its empty eye sockets stared grimly out the window. Where the nose had rotted away was left behind a dark, craggy pit.

Next to the body was a note. I shook off the dust and read it:

"To whomever finds this letter... I've been without food and water for three days and can't survive much longer. If I'm found dead, please contact my son, Joseph Salvador, 1009 Carpenter Lane. Apt. 909, New York, NY. 1(757)484-9987. Please tell him I now know he had done nothing wrong. I deeply regret driving him away and squandering so much time over something so trivial. Also, tell Joseph I love him. ...Thank you in advance for delivering this message. Yours truly, Pat Salvador."

I put the note back where I found it. Uncle Peter and I had stumbled across so many corpses while scavenging, we'd become largely desensitized. But the ones who left messages behind were uncomfortable reminders that corpses were once real people with real lives cut tragically short. I had a knot in my stomach. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an attempt to untie it.

I turned to Uncle Peter and sighed, "Let's find YOUR letter."

We moved around the counter to the sorting area. The air was stale. There were several bins in the center filled with unsorted mail. Everything was coated with dust. Along the walls were a dozen cubicle work stations with hundreds of adjustable slots each. We searched the cubicles and eventually found "Overland St.". There, in slot #303, were two yellow envelopes addressed to "Peter Kardon".

"Both are from the syndicate," observed Uncle Peter. "I wonder why they sent two?"

"Maybe one is the congratulatory letter, and the other is the contract," I speculated hopefully.

Uncle Peter opened the first envelope and read the enclosed letter out loud:

"Dear Contributor, you were among the three cartoonists whose work we presented to a focus group. We also conducted a background check and examined your previous work. After careful consideration, we have determined your cartoons to be of high quality. However, the controversial and inflammatory nature of some of your work is inconsistent with our company's policy of tolerance. Therefore, I must regrettably inform you we will not be syndicating your feature and have permanently removed you from future consideration."