Tuesday

Some paint had splattered onto my face. It must have been three days old. Some had fallen off in bed, wrapped up in five sheets to make up for the missing comforter. The box with all the other bedding was in the other truck. Which was with the new roommate crossing one of the Dakotas. I deleted the message before the details were processed. The gist stayed on my shoulders for weeks.

I've painted the mailbox three times already. In third grade I heard an Indian girl talk about how the color of your mailbox related to the type of mail you would receive. Past due notices and invitations to salvation piled up. I changed the color and they kept coming. But Yellow brought a garden catalog. And Blue a book about map collecting. I left the notices to pile on the ground and stacked the invitations on the wiper of my cars windshield. After the garden was planted, and the pictures of maps used to label the flowers and vegetables I painted the mailbox gold.