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Going Postal
Kyle Flubacker
Somewhere,
someone has mastered the timeless and tedious art of
penning
postcards, the thankless task of the twenty-something
international vagabond
too poor to phone loved ones and too nostalgic to forget
them. (Note the
latter as the most fiscally sound option.) Right now
I'm in Oahu, buried
beneath a stack of the obvious types -- palm tree cluttered
sunsets,
skyscrapers kissing shorelines, battleship medleys of
Pearl Harbor --
attempting to discern which gloss seems the least painfully
reflective. It's
no mystery that there isn't a winner, and had I not
invested so much
acquiring them ($2 USD), I'd line them along the floor
and
birthday-suit-style slip n' slide from one end to the
other, exploiting
their non-existent coefficient of kinetic friction.
Only
a taciturn misanthrope or quadriplegic could find the
allotted writing
space abundant, and I, currently neither, can't decide
if it'll hold the tip
of my pen. (Should it fit, it's still safe to assume
that a period is pretty
useless without an accompanying sentence.) About this
I'm a bit of a
soldier, and won't concede until I've impetuously crammed
a thought or two
into the war zone.
Garrett,
my traveling companion, sits at the other end of the
table,
gleefully churning out buoyant postcards while incredulously
listening to my
mantra about the ergonomic impossibility of this endeavor.
It seems he's
perfectly correlated the number of cards he <should>
and <will> send with
the number he <desires> to send, in the same vein
as those venerable and
tireless saints who encounter the face of God in trivialities
such as
headaches and bowel movements. Exacerbating my pain,
his handwriting is so
painstakingly immaculate that Times New Roman is seeking
therapy. Immersed
in his abrasive ear-to-ear smile, I wouldn't consider
this much of a
surprise.
On
a more technical note, strategically linking photograph,
recipient, and
content creates a successful brevity and adds an artistic
touch, though a
single-word salutation followed by an ellipses, and
no more, guarantees that
you aren't misunderstood -- the inevitability of all
multi-sentence
inscriptions. Give nothing, fear no distortion. After
all, when you're
traveling a second-world circuit, it's proof of life
most are after;
fire-side storytelling can wait until you safely return
and survive the
gamut of civilized doctors.
I'm
ashamed to admit I contemplated the proverbial play-by-play
postcard --
that solipsistic beast that outlines every never-heard-of-before
coordinate
the author visits while he parades around the world.
With trepidation (and
in the style of confession) I give you my first draft:
<Dear
Ree Flexion,
Today
I hung out in Schulenburger Bay. Then I drove to Lanikai,
where Fred's
second cousin Bartoka and his wife, Zenith, live. They're
nice. After dinner
we plan to snorkel in Herzagonevistra before swimming
in Makapuu and then
stoking a fire at Dachmanson Point. Maybe I'll visit
Waikikinsternville.
Wish you were here!
Sincerely,
Blinders
P.S.
How's life?>
In
the end, though, you shouldn't feel insulted if you
receive (from me or
anyone else) this card or another just like it --what
could possibly be more
empathetic and benevolent than friendships channeled
through
mass-production? And besides, isn't the beauty of the
lost-in-the-trenches
commentary that it never panders to the reader? Do you
really understand the
consequences of receiving a postmarked soap opera?
Come
to think of it, that microscopic white box evokes a
very pleasant
meditative trance. Why fix what isn't broken?
Kyle
Flubacker
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