Prompt 4: The mail is always bad this time of year, but it seems like something's gone a little extra wrong. An old letter arrives with no return address, no name on it; it's impossible to tell who it is from or how it got there, given that it might have arrived in your mailbox, your front door, or maybe it even just showed up inside your house. If you open it, the letter is dated from decades ago and contains some surprising information; it is a letter lost to time and contains some secret. The content of the letter are up to the player; it might contain a confession of love, an admission of guilt, the secret of some crime--no matter what the letter contains, it leaves you with news to reflect on. Do you try to seek out anyone mentioned in the letter? Do you investigate or try to hand the letter over to someone else? Does the content of the letter reflect your life in some way? ...Do you have to worry about someone breaking into your house to leave strangely coded messages?
"Mama, I got the mail!" Ellian shouted as he kicked off his shoes in the mudroom, swinging the door shut behind him with a loud clatter. She didn't answer, but he hadn't expected her to, either. While he couldn't be bothered with the chore on most days, unsurprisingly, Christmas was the time when the best mail arrived.
Sometimes he'd catch glimpses of stray packages that his parents had ordered. All his father's siblings sent them cards with family pictures, well-wishes, and of course, checks. Even his mother's parents, who didn't actually celebrate the Christian holiday, themselves, but still respected that it was a tradition their grandchildren had been raised with, sent letters rife with monetary Christmas gifts.
He moved into the kitchen, hurriedly flipping through grocery store ads, large envelopes proclaiming that their credit was approved, and smaller personal letters as Ellian looked for anything with his name on it.
Kinda looked like a bust today, though.
He flopped the stack of mail down on the counter without feeling too disappointed to be leaving empty-handed. There was always tomorrow. He turned to grab a can of vanilla Pepsi from the fridge, and when he turned back around it was to see that a perfectly blank envelop was situated atop the rest of the mail. Had he missed it during his first flip-through? He reached for the letter, turning it over in his hands as he inspected it for any kind of sender or address or anything, but it was simply a slightly-yellowed, blank envelope.
Well, if it wasn't meant for anyone in particular, it might as well be Ellian that got the first look. He picked at the corner of the letter before hooking in a finger, and shredding it right across the top.
There was a single, folded slip of paper inside, and as Ellian brought it out to read it, an old Polaroid picture slipped from between the creases and fluttered to the ground. "Oh, whoops." Even as he bent to pick it up, Ellian didn't think he recognized anyone in the picture. It was pretty aged and a little hazy, but he could definitely make out a tanned woman wearing a bikini on the beach, leaning over to smoosh her cheek to a pudgy kid with gleaming sunny eyes and an afro of dark, mauvy hair.
Could be his dad's relatives, Ellian supposed, but it definitely wasn't anyone he'd met in person- that he could remember.
He turned his attention back to the letter and immediately wondered if there was supposed to be a first page somewhere, because this note sounded like it picked up right in the middle of a conversation.
'21/8/89
He's getting so big, and he's SO EXCITED for anything and everything he sees. He loves the beach. You should see him trundle off after the birds. He don't stand a chance of getting them a course, and they make those sounds like they're laughing at him, and he just screams back.
He has no idea that anything is even missing from his life, not a single clue. But I do. I wish you could see him. I wish he could know you.
Guess that's just not what happened for us, eh? Maybe in another life, things would be different, but since we're stuck in this one, I'll keep you posted. It'd be easier if the mail weren't so damn slow or if you were closer or if I was closer.
Anyway,
Miss you.
PS: You could stand to write back, you cocksucking c**t.'
And suddenly Ellian wasn't sure who the recipient of this letter was supposed to be, but he certainly hoped it wasn't anyone in his family. He hoped none of his father's relatives would talk to him like that, and he knew for a fact none of his mother's would.
But it definitely, definitely seemed like, at one point thirty years ago, his father had had a paramour. A woman who lived by the beach, who had a child- and that child may or may not be related to him.
Ellian crammed the note and photo back in the envelope. There was no hiding that he'd opened it, but it somehow seemed worse to be found with it in his hands. He wasn't sure if he was or specifically wasn't supposed to know about this, though the note was decades old, at this point... He tucked it into the middle of the mail pile and skittered from the kitchen.
WC: 750
