The Post Office

“Psst… can I… can I…” A woman turns her head to make sure no one is watching.

She slowly returns. “Can I mail this package?”

She whispers it like she’s mailing a rare Egyptian artifact, and not the Tupperware container her aunt accidentally forgot to take home last Wednesday.

The postal worker nods.

“No problem.”

He immediately starts clacking away at his keys, the loudest thing in the room, but then they slow.

His fingers stop.

“Wait… wait…” He leans closer. “There’s… there’s no address.”

The lady frowns.

“Yeah… I was going to tell you that part.”

He slowly shakes his head.

“You can’t do that. You need to write it down.”

The lady puts her hands on her hips.

“But isn’t me writing it down basically the same thing as telling you?”

The postal worker gives her a toothless, insincere smile and motions toward the pen chained to the back counter.

“Come on back when you’re ready.”

The vein in her forehead twitches as everyone else in line instinctively checks to make sure their own address is written down.

And then it hits you…

You know why it’s quiet.

Because if yelling were tolerated…

this place would be going postal.

The Eye Doctor

It starts normal enough.

The eye doctor asks how you’ve been, like you’re old friends, and you nod and pretend you have a relationship with him.

You don’t.

Then the lights go off.

The tiny flashlight comes on.

And the whispering begins.

“Look to the right,” he says.

A little softer now:

“Now left.”

Softer still—

“Now up.”

“Okay.”

Now you’re both suddenly speaking like you’re hiding from a ghost.

His face is four inches from yours.

You can smell the coffee he had this morning.

And still, no one explains why we’re whispering.

But the second that light comes back on…

It never happened.

 

The Elevator

Minutes ago, you were screaming at your roommate because they left the oven on.

But the second you hear that elevator door ding…

the world goes still.

You file in.

“Are you going up or down?” a polite stranger asks.

Which is a dumb question because it picked you up on the top floor.

“Down,” you say just above a whisper.

She quietly backs into the corner.

Immediately, all heads hang low, like the lot of you is being knighted.

Nobody talks.

Nobody makes eye contact.

And suddenly everyone becomes deeply interested in tile pattern.

The only sound is the buzzing of the fluorescent light.

“Ding.”

One person gets off.

Nobody says goodbye.

The doors close.

Still silence.

Then you step off…

and somehow your regular voice comes back.

 

The Museum

There you are, standing in front of the natural wonders of the old world.

Things the ancients would have seen, stopped, stared at, and yelled,

“Fuck!”

Greek sculptures.

Egyptian tombs.

Knights in full armor.

And some weird German painting of Hamlet from 1623.

These are the kinds of things that should make people gasp.

Yet…

your lips and ass are puckered.

You turn to your right.

A guy with three rings in his face slowly crosses his arms.

A woman tilts her head.

An older man nods thoughtfully at a painting for a solid thirty seconds.

You think…

Maybe I should try that too.

So you lean in.

Tilt your head.

Cross your arms.

Now you don’t just look confused…

You look like you know what you’re talking about.

Later that night, you’ll see the same people you ran into at the museum sitting in a nearby bar talking about how exciting it all was…

…in monotone voices.

 

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