Dear Self, Please Read

Tip #3 If you find yourself running through an early-succession forest, only open your eyes part way.

The reason for this, though it may be seen to be a distinct disadvantage as you move full tilt with your eyes squinted, is actually to bring you more success.

You see, early-succession forests are characterized by a certain amount of shrubs and branches, say around eye-height. And it's for this reason that, in order to keep moving as quickly as possible through the brush, you don’t have to worry about bracing your arms out in front of you to avoid being smacked around. You can therefore run faster and not be worried about poking yourself in those precious eyeballs.

As for me, I realized this fact too late.

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Tip #1: Always watch where you are walking.

I don’t consider myself an unobservant person, but when you walk out your door and immediately trip over something, the universe is clearly telling you that you are.

My coffee, perfectly cradled in my green-, gold-, and orange-leafed Fall in love with Lattes mug, abandoned my grasp and, sensing its new-found freedom, flew a couple feet before gravity granted it a quick death on the concrete sidewalk.

I recovered from my own gravity check at the small cost of losing my right shoe. It smacked loudly against a strange cardboard box which blocked my porch before it, too, abandoned me.

A whirring above my head pulled my now fully awake eyes skyward, and I saw the motorized little drone dipping around my porch roof before taking off down the street.

“Fantastic.”

My enemy stood before me, adorn in its battle colors of UPS brown and yellow, no bigger than a backpack. My name and address, E. M. Kate, 1344 NW Corner Lane, had been hastily scribbled onto the front of the package.

I bent to pick up the box, surprised that it was heavier than I would have thought for its size, and cradled it into me as I turned to look at my shattered mug.

“I’ll deal with you shortly.”

The mug couldn’t be salvaged. I winced in pain as the pieces dropped from my dustpan into the trash bin. My mother had gotten me that mug when I had left for college freshman year, and I had dutifully carried it with me from apartment to house to condo to house since.

After a grieving period, with a graveside salute of a cold brew in my Witches be Triflin’ white- and orange-striped thermos, I turned my attention to the murderer, still unwrapped on my kitchen table.

There was no return address. Odd for the postal service to accept something they wouldn’t be able to return if necessary. My name looked to be handwritten, and I pulled the corrugated strip releasing the contents of the box.

It was another box – wooden, plain, the size of my hand – and an envelope.

Opening the envelope I found a card enclosed, like the kind you would receive as an invitation to a wedding or graduation, its cardstock bordered with imprinted designs and its middle pressed with a large embossed seal. I flipped the card over and saw a series of numbers written on the back:

3327; 7353; 8476; 9631

There was no signature, no other writing, no indication what the numbers meant. I reached across the table to retrieve the packaging, searching fruitlessly for a return address. There was none. Actually, there was no indication that the package had been sent at all. Sent, as in, made its way through a postal service station and had been marked with the usual stamp of said station. No written or printed information at all, just my handwritten name and address.

“Well, Emma,” I said aloud to myself, “that's not weird.”

I turned my attention to the wooden box. Its corners, smoothed and polished, reminded me of those puzzle boxes Bits and Pieces Magazine carried. As I picked it up, it rattled, but there was no hinge or latch to see.

I fumbled with it for a couple minutes, but something outside soon took my attention away from everything.

A car alarm. Actually, it sounded like forty car alarms. The blaring made me drop the box as I jumped what had to be several feet in the air.

I grabbed my keys, absently retrieving the box from the floor and placing it in the deep pockets of my robe, and headed outside.

Every car, truck, and SUV along Corner Lane had their lights flashing. I pressed the keys in the direction of my red civic, the lights double flashing before it went silent. I looked down the street.

“What on earth is going on?”

I had heard that sometimes if a jumbo jet flew too low to the ground, parked cars would have their alarms set off. But there wasn’t an airport anywhere near where I lived, and I would have heard a plane going over if it was that low.

I nonetheless turned around to look past my neighbors’ houses to search for any indication of a plane. As my gaze followed the road, it fell on something that made my keys, like my mug that morning, slip from my grasp.

My mouth went instantly dry. My eyes were stuck forward, as my palms itched slightly from the sudden stop of movement. There were others outside, hoping to quiet their cars in their driveways and now staring, as I was, down the road.

A dark, wet-looking fog was drifting down from the sky at the nearest intersection of Corner Lane. It was like the sky had been slit and the weird, black space-stuff behind it was oozing out in front of everyone. I shivered. It drifted down, slowly but steadily towards the houses down my road.

Mr. Myers a few houses down was still trying to quiet his Pontiac when the fog hit him.

Watching movies, I always blamed the special effects teams for overdoing explosive scenes. They would put in countless hours of editing to get the perfect fireball for a single shot. Things didn’t explode with that much force naturally, I’d always thought. But Ernie Myers did just that, seeming to catch from the inside and explode outward with a single, short “Argh!”

Tip #2: When you see someone explode in front of you by making contact with an unknown dark substance, run away immediately.

I should have. I didn’t. I stood there blinking, my hand moving inside the pocket of my robe to get the box. I pulled it out and looked at it. Why? I have no idea. But it was somehow the major thought in my brain. I shook it lightly, listening to it rattle, and then looked up again at the explosive, black, oozy fog. It had stopped moving.

Two things then happened very quickly:

One, my eye spotted a small notch in the upper left corner of the box, clean like it had been chipped by a wood file. “Is this how you open?”

And Two, the black mass consolidated into a small army of black, sticky, oozy monster men. They started to run at me – and only me.

Then, I finally ran.

Tip #3: If you find yourself running through an early-succession forest, only open your eyes part way.

I was now paying the price.

I had sprinted towards the tree line past my house, the first wave of branches catching my robe and trying to tear it off of me. I obliged, slipping out of the fabric and continuing to run through the bushes. The box was still in my hand, the rattling a constant reminder as I moved as quickly as I could. I’d like to say I wasn’t one of the stereotypical women you see in movies, constantly checking behind them to see how close the ‘big bad guys’ are to catching up. But I can’t say that. I was managing to avoid tripping over roots and fallen branches until one glance backward. At first, it sent a tiny ounce of relief through me, as I was still ahead of my pursuers. But then, it turned to sudden shots of pain as my eye, face, and the whole right side of my body, along with the box, collided into an oak.

The box broke apart, splitting neatly in two. Its contents spilled onto the ground.

“...Marbles?”

There were ten or so white orbs scattered around the ground, rustling the leaves ever so slightly as they fell. A part of me – let’s call it the sane part – wanted to abandon the marbles and box and leave as fast as I could so that the monsters couldn’t catch up to me. The other part of me – maybe the part knocked delirious by the tree – just stood and watched.

They were…buzzing. Or maybe humming was a better word for it. All the marbles had started vibrating, slowly moving back towards the box.

“What?”

They moved closer and closer until they formed a small, shaking circle around where the box lay, broken in two. Then, as they began to hover a couple inches off the ground, everything went black.

Tip #1: Always watch where you are walking.

I tripped over the box, losing my coffee and shoe as my face barely missed hitting the banister of my porch. The very girly scream leaving me attracted more than one set of eyes from my neighbors. I righted myself, giving the universal two-hands-up “I’m okay!” sign to assuage any potential worry and then headed inside with the culprit, face beet red, my broken mug abandoned on the porch.

I set the package down, seeing no return address, and internally cried as I picked up and threw away the broken pieces of my favorite mug. I then sat and opened the box, retrieving a note card and smaller box inside.

The card had numbers on it: 3327; 7353; 8476; 9631. But nothing else was written and I tossed it away without a second glance. There was a smaller box inside the package. It was a light-colored wood, sanded and polished. There was a notch in the corner. I shook it.

I’ve only had déjà vu once that I can remember. I was eight and had been writing birthday invitations for a party my parents had agreed to throw for me. They said they would rent a moon bounce for the afternoon, but I had to make sure I invited at least 15 people. I had invented the last two people to reach the total.

I had been writing the last card, when it hit me. That weird, warm feeling in your brain that at some point you’ve already done all this.

I now had it again. A warm but uncomfortable sensation in my fingers that they had held this box before. But a blaring sound outside took my attention away, and I left the box on the table to go investigate.

Outside was pandemonium. Car alarms everywhere were screaming like they had narrowly missed being hit by a train, the lights flashing continuously down Corner Lane. I had forgotten my keys inside and turned around, trotting back to get them from a bowl on the kitchen table. I looked at the box for a moment, and picked it up too.

I would have gracefully returned outside to quiet my civic, but screams and…explosions?... from down the street sent me rushing back outside. I tripped again, this time on the threshold of my door frame, and sent my keys and the box flying out in front of me as I, not so silently, cursed the shoes I was wearing.

The box had split in two, spilling what looked like marbles in the street. But I didn't really care because it looked like the sky was spilling a waterfall of black oobleck onto the street in front of me. There were screams as my neighbors were running away. My head hurt from the fall, a buzzing starting in my ears. Then, everything went black.

I was eight, handing the invitations to my mother so she could mail them. I had turned away to walk back up the stairs when she had stopped me.

“Emma, this one is addressed to yourself. You just put a different street address.”

My face reddened.

Tip #1: Always watch where you-

The drone bumped into my window as it tried to escape from under the eaves of my porch. I chuckled before going out to retrieve the box, tripping over my own feet as I bent for it.

“Wait.”

I had tripped before this. I turned my head, looking over at my mug resting on the arm of the sofa chair.

“I broke you.”

I looked at the package left on my front porch. A box with my name and address handwritten, nothing else. I opened it, the card falling onto the ground as I pulled the box out.

“I know this.”

My finger found the notch at the top, rubbing the only uneven part of the box. There was a loud bang and I jumped, screaming as the car alarms went off down my street.

The sky was ripping apart in front of me.

My breathing quickened, my mouth soundlessly forming the words: What is happening?

The blackness was pouring towards me and I only had one thought. Run.

I turned and collided with my neighbor, sending the box from my hand to the ground. It broke open.

“The marbles,” I whispered, watching them move and buzz as I lay on the ground. Everything went black.

Tip #1: Always watch –

I jumped off the couch, beating the drone to my door and practically catching the package as it deposited it. I ripped open the cardboard, pulling out the box and card, looking intently now at the string of numbers it gave me.

3327; 7353; 8476; 9631

“What are you?”

I turned the card over and over, looking for something else to give me a clue.

“Stupid, weird, dumb, code language–”

I froze.

“--Hang on. You’re a code?”

I looked at the numbers again. Why would anyone send a coded letter? On any other day of the week, I might’ve said that I liked codes, but this was just indecent.

“I wouldn’t send this to my worst enemy.”

The warm-brain feeling was back. I was eight again, writing my fake invitation to myself, giving myself another address so my mom wouldn’t notice it.

“Wait, wait.” I chuckled slightly. “I would send this.”

There was a loud bang outside and I jumped. The darkness was back. I made to open the box, but stopped myself for some unknown, apparently crazy reason and looked back at the card. My brain felt like it had just lit a match in the middle of the night.

“Could it be that simple?”

3327; 7353; 8476; 9631. 3-DEF, 3-DEF, 2-ABC, 7-PQRS.

D-E-A-R.

Ooze was creeping up my porch and I ripped open the box, pouring the marbles out.

Tip #1: Always watch.

3327; 7353; 8476; 9631. I wrote each option with a pencil under the numbers, combining different letters to try and form words.

My mug had fallen as I had jumped off the couch, breaking against the wooden floor. The coffee now started to seep into the floorboards.

My pencil was circling and erasing combinations as I moved through the numbers until:

“D-E-A-R; S-E-L-F; T-H-R-O; W-M-E-!”

I set the card down. I picked up the wooden box from the table and opened it. I walked outside to the middle of Corner Lane, marbles in hand, and waited.