hello, mail

He scanned the expanse that was the desert. All around him was golden sand and clear blameless sky. As if it was supposed to sound that nice. The air was harshly dry and seemed to suck moisture from his breath. Still, it was beautiful.

All he had for now was his guitar, companion and sometimes friend, which even now was cracking in the heat of the sun. The desert was not kind to those made of wood grown from luxuriant forests. And the mailbox as well, its bright red paint nary faded from the sun but nonetheless peeling. Somehow the letter he sent from the wasteland was coming back. He looked onward over the dunes, trying to spy the nimbus beyond the horizon.

He tried to strum a few lines from an interstate love song, singing to the desert how some hickboy was hitchhiking on a train southward bound, explaining how some lies had made him decide to see the world from a carriage window. The chords rang thinly through the hot air, straining to reach past the dunes and gave up. Nothing made past the desert’s wide empty spaces for long, and it was a straining effort to even go past the few dunes circling the lonely knoll he was on. The song was soon ditched along with the guitar when he forgot what the rest of the lyrics were. The desert didn’t seem that concerned about hickboy’s ride on the train anyway. Maybe he made it to where he was going, found a job and settled down. Maybe he continued on the train until he was discovered by the conductor and thrown onto the rail. Maybe he got raped by a hobo. Dosen’t really matter, does it?

He stroked the neck of the guitar lying by his side. As if on cue, the top string finally broke in the heat of the sun. He stared at the now errant string ailing on the sand. Oh well. Just have to make do with five strings. Its just that the solos might not be that good anymore. Still, no worries.

Pink is a color. It is also how a letter being popped into a mailbox sounds like. He got up in a hurry, kicking hard alkali dust onto the guitar. The other strings were following suit, finally giving up and snapping one after another, slapping the body of the guitar in one final cry. The guitar itself was also beginning to crack, whiten and shrink. Like hickboy, the guitar was reaching its end of the road at the clearing. It was a shame, a sad thing, but it didn’t matter to him anymore. He stared at the mailbox and walked towards it.

He opened the cover, and darkness fled further into the recesses of the mailbox.

Hello, mail.