Return to Sender

This is not a strange story. It has no anomalies or paradoxes. No conspiracy theories or government coverups. Just a broken laptop, a teddy bear, and the fall of modern civilisation.

Collin Pagani hates the world. The corrupt governments. The earth polluters. The anti-vaxers claiming the vaccine makes you magnetic. But as much as he wants to see it turn to ash, he can’t do it. Let’s start in the middle of our story. Beginnings are usually full of over-the-top exposition about how Collin comes from a middle-class Italian family in the outer city region; about how he is 28 years old and 162cm tall with brown hair and brown eyes and a brown birthmark on the back of his elbow that doesn’t resemble anything specific. The beginning would also tell you that Collin, our terribly single main character, and resident idiot of Baxter & Pike’s accounting division, had received a wooden box and a note that read “it’s time”. But again, who needs a beginning?

Collin ponders his conundrum and the peculiar events of the Thursday morning 17 days ago. His eyes pass between the box and his laptop screen, soon to be broken at the end of this story.

“Any luck?” Amanda asks, dropping a pair of mud-stained gloves on the kitchen counter.

“Oi! Just because I’m ending the world—”

“You mean taking down the government.”

“I’ll be taking down every government, thank you very much.” Collin furrows his brow. “But just because I’m taking down every government, doesn’t mean you can get the counter dirty with your gloves.”

“Get over it. It’s not like mum’s around to take your side anyway.” She grits her teeth, holding back a barrage of insults. “Stay focused. What do you know?”

“That my laptop is the slowest piece of technology on the planet and that it sounds like it’s about to take off.”

The whirr of the laptop cooling fan fills the air between them, rivalling the hum of the fridge.

“Useless!” Amanda yells, rolling her eyes. She storms off, leaving Collin to stare at the rainbow wheel of death spinning near the middle of his screen.

The autumn wind is like any other, rustling the dead leaves in the backyard that are still waiting to be raked. Like most things in his life, the wind and the leaves hate Collin, as did the corners of furniture, birds, and the water pressure during normally reasonable times of the day. The few clouds grow grey outside, heavy like the bottom of an hourglass.

The back door slams shut.

“Bloody hell!” Collin shouts, spinning around and clutching his chest. Regaining his composure, he picks up the box and feels its grooves and gaps, his finger bumping up and down as it runs over the symbols. They remind him of the cave paintings he used to be obsessed with growing up, powered by his dream of being an adventuring archaeologist like Indiana Jones (or at least Dora the Explorer).

Why now? Collin thinks, pinching the bridge of his fat nose in frustration. Why not before all the damage had been done? Why not before the fat cats of oil companies had polluted the earth and stripped it of its beauty?

Collin has always feared he was a tad clichéd, blending in with all the other sign holders in protests and hate comments on Twitter and Facebook. In truth, he is a cliché. He lacks complexity, depth, and true conviction. But that is exactly why I sent him the box. For what is power in the hands of someone so normal? He has no hidden talents or special skills (unless you count losing arguments a talent and getting drunk every weekend a skill).

I need to figure this out. The world needs me. I will save them from their own destruction.

The world does, in fact, not need him.

Clattering draws and rummaging hands from down the hall interrupt his train of thought. “Everything alright?” Collin calls down the hallway.

“Just… figure out that damn box and I’ll handle the hole.”

“Are you sure we need to bury—”

Amanda storms back into the kitchen and glares at Collin, holding a small tactical shovel in her hand. “Don’t doubt my Latin. I studied that shit for six years. I know what I’m talking about.”

The web page finally loads as she storms past him, displaying symbols that vaguely resemble those on the box.

“Finally!” Collin adjusts the flickering screen that lags sporadically as he scrolls down.

Between the questionable advertisements that don’t quite fit in their shadowboxes and the incorrectly formatted text, the website tells of the ancient symbols that once held the power of the Gods. To open the box, one must give up that which they moderately cherish; something that hurts to lose but one can certainly live without.

“What the hell is something moderately cherished?” Collin asks his laptop screen. The webpage answers his question as he scrolls down, suggesting a childhood toy, a love letter, or a memento from a treasured time long forgotten.

“Oh.”

Collin was never popular in school or university, nor was he good with words, so a love letter is out of the question. Collin is also a futurist, hating his past for gifting him his inner demons and apparent emotional scars. So, mementos are also off the table. There is, however, one childhood toy that Collin keeps safe, sitting next to the week-overdue library books by his shelf.

The toy is a small, navy blue teddy bear that he had creatively named “Bear” at the ripe age of eight. He slept with it until he was 23, though he claims otherwise.

“Oh,” he says again, much sadder this time realising he may cherish Bear far more than he is willing to admit out loud.

“Alright,” Amanda says, peaking her head around the door. “Ready to go. You figure it out?”

“Yeah.” He hands her the box and shuts his laptop. “Just need to grab something. I won’t be long.”

“Well hurry your ass up. The sun is almost in position.”

Collin runs off to his room down the hall, passing Target-bought wall art and a mysterious rough patch that’s not quite eggshell white. Entering the doorway, he locks eyes with his childhood best friend, one of the few things he kept from his parents’ house when he moved out. Taking it gently in his hands, he caresses Bear’s head, rubbing the warn-out ear that looks to be one tug away from coming off.

“I’m sorry, Bear,” he says. “I wish there was another way, but this needs to be done. For the greater good.”

Bear looks at him with emotionless, beaded black eyes.

Is taking down the government worth all this trouble? Is Bear a price he is willing to pay?

Contemplating his decision, he dawdles his way to the backyard, grabbing his laptop on the way. Amanda is standing just shy of a sizable two-foot-deep hole in the middle of the lawn, where inside rests the wooden box. A pile of dirt and grass sits beside it, baking in the overhead sun like the rest of the garden.

“Did you seriously need to do it right there?” Collin asks, gently placing the laptop on a rusted garden table. The table teeters, unbalanced with two legs shorter than the other. He clutches Bear in his left hand, hoping he’ll find the strength to let go in the moment.

“Right, what do we need to do?” Amanda asks, tensing her jaw and ignoring his question.

“It says,” Collin squints at his dirty laptop screen, the smudges distorting the webpage, “I need to pay tribute to some sort of being who will grant me power. I need to— what’s with the sugar?”

Amanda surrounds the hole with a thick line of sugar, pouring it straight from the bag. “I remember something about a ring of salt protecting people from bad magic, but we don’t have enough, so sugar is the next best thing.” She rolls her eyes at Collin as if it’s obvious. “We need to do this now. The sun is directly overhead.”

“Right.” Collin brings out Bear and holds him over the hole, hoping to say a few words before letting go.

“What’s that for?”

“I need to give up something that hurts to lose but that I can live without.”

“What are you waiting for then?” Amanda goes to grab Bear, but Collin moves it away. “Seriously?”

“It has sentimental value,” he whines, clutching the stuffed animal to his chest.

“Get over it. Give me the stupid bear.” She reaches for it again, but Collin turns away.

“I’ll… I’ll find something else. Like… like—”

“Ugh, we don’t have time.” Amanda grabs his laptop and throws it into the hole, shattering it against the wooden box. A resounding crunch emanates from its corpse.

“What the hell!” Collin yells at Amanda. “That’s my work laptop!”

Before his shouts can blossom into a proper argument, a beam of light bursts out from the wooden box. The two of fall back, knocked over by the blast of the light. The beam is intense and sharp, burning a small ring of grass around it.

Amanda stands to her feet, keeping her eyes on the ground. Collin quickly follows, though his stance is far wobblier than hers. He looks up then quickly away, the light stinging his retinas.

The dirt slowly settles to the ground as a voice resonates from the light. “Why have you summoned me, mortals?”

Amanda steps forward, eyes still drawn low. “I seek power. The power to rule the world.”

“What are you doing?” Collin sneers, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to regain his sight.

“What you’re too weak to do,” she snaps back. She pleas with the ball of light. “I seek the power to bring the world to its knees and make people listen. I beg you.”

Silence pushes between them. Amanda has never spoken to Collin like that.

“There can only be one,” the voice declares.

The two of them look to each other, noticing the tactical shovel discarded closer to Collin than Amanda.

Maybe they can work together and sort out their painfully obvious differences hiding beneath the fragile surface. Siblings are stronger together than apart. But alas, they do not.

And so, they turn on each other. Like I knew they would. Like many before them, they squander the little power they are offered. One is too greedy. The other lacks drive.

I know you want a good ending. You’re wondering what happens next (if you’ve made it this far). Does the victor use their power well? Is this all a mere trick? What happened to Bear? You want to read an epic fight scene, a thrilling twist of fate, a resolution that ties everything together with a resounding moral at the end. But no one has time to read that, nor have I the care to tell you.

I’ll save you the exciting details. In the end, our little story concludes with but one message: always check the return address.