Bartleby, The Scrivener by Kellie Podsednik (pocket ebook reader .txt) 📖

My first job I took with much enthusiasm. I was required to put to flame the bygone letters forgotten and lost, taking out only the valuables to submit to the mailroom, of which I saw no harm. I remember, in my innocence, I would open each envelope and divulge myself in the heart warmth of each letter to give each the reception they have ought to have received, but alas, my preference to continue began to wane.

I was particularly tired that day, and the sky was clouded with gloom; a misty sheet of grey hung low and thick over the street, flowing past my singular chimney stack. It was an ordinary chimney stack, sitting lonely outside the mailroom shop, its stone frame covered in moss and glistening with dew. It was set at the edge of the bay; which one, I cannot recall. Yet that bay still possess the paper corners of bygone letters. It would swell and cry out, splashing me with its icy hands as it swept away the remaining ashes at the closing of the day. I have come to loath that old life, for no memory is so vile as the horrible atrocities my hands performed. Yes, it was all day my hands worked, tirelessly tearing and tossing the written hearts of the merciful.

That particular day I was brooding over the dreary and biting weather when I thought, quite sternly, that I would prefer to stay indoors. The sky rolled drearily overhead, and I had stumbled into a puddle earlier in the morning; my feet were sopping with the muck and mire of the street. All day I stood in those soggy shoes, numbly tearing and tossing letters into the chimney stack, though my routine was halted every so often when a coin or any valuable article was found hidden in a letter or package. These I immediately brought into the mailroom shop to be liquidated.

As my day came to a close, the wet, cloth bag of doomed letters I perceived all but extinguished of contents, but when I began to fold the evil thing, I felt a thick parcel protesting its adjustment to the shrinking bag. Without much thought I reached inside, retrieved the letter, and quickly untied the cord which held it shut. The small package was so compact that the moment the cord was pulled away, a ring shot forth and thudded to the earthen floor; the remaining contents seemed to spew themselves into my hands so that I had to hold the delicate parchment against my chest so as not to lose them to the arms of the bay. I quickly stuffed the remaining contents into my bosom and carely stooped down to retrieve the ring. It was like nothing else I’d seen before! The band was a sparkling, hollow sphere of gold and silver, the two medals interwoven without end. Its adorning rock was diamond, so beautifully crafted that I wished to cry.

The papers! I stuffed the ring into my front pocket and pulled out the first stray parchment in my coat. It read as follows:

“Sylvia, my darling of purest joy, our love shall not die as we are parted. I have seen your gloom at a distance, for my heart feels the sadness of your soul as I remain away. This island is as death to me every moment I recall your shining face; it is like the sun risen early in the morn, without reserve, without shame, but only with the glory of a beauty birthed anew! Come to my heart, oh companion of my soul! I shall return but soon. I shall return but soon!”

I stood in silence for many moments before slowly retrieving the dozen other letters, but my heart could not maintain any joy. With every word passionately expressed, my soul grew burdened with the ladies relentless pain. Had she only received these beautiful gestures of love... Upon closing the last letter, a spark of hope was aroused within me, but when I looked to the address and the date of the final letter, my heart sank. The home to which the letter was to arrive I knew well, and it had just two years prior been blown down by a sea-side storm. And the date was but fifteen years bygone.

I could not find it in my soul to char the remnants of a love so pure.

Stuffing the letters back into my coat, I retrieved my wet, cloth bag, returned it to its post inside the mail shop, and trudged home. Later that evening, I sewed the letters inside my coat and undershirts, dropping the ring in my front coat pocket so to never forget the hard and piercing feeling I had received when first realizing the purpose of the ring. I quit my job the next day, and thenceforth prefered only to use my hands to give life to a pen.

Publication Date: 09-28-2015

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