There’s a red letter on the grass. It’s addressed to someone who doesn’t live at that address, or, even in that town. Somehow it must have flown out of the mail truck as it had been doing its rounds of collections and deliveries.
It sits innocuously, near a small, circular flowerbed of red petunias in the front yard of number 7 Timtally Lane. It has sat there for a week, passing the time in whatever fashion it is that inanimate pieces of paper choose to entertain themselves.
The house that resides near the current placement of the red letter is a simple enough, ordinary house. Its low story, brick exterior matches almost exactly those of the houses surrounding it. Inside you would find the same white paint and blue lounge chairs that you would find in almost half the lounge rooms in the country.
Indeed, number 7 Timtally Lane was so incredibly average that it frequently made the dark blue roof shingles cry. Or it would have, that is, if roof shingles could cry – Or if they could feel any emotion beyond that of simply being a shingle. This last fact being particularly upsetting to the shingle in the fourth row centre, who liked to feel that there was an importance to his existence, and that part of that importance was to be, even if only slightly, original and creative.
However the miserable non-life of the shingles is another story entirely. Or it would be if they didn’t all agree that an entire fiction about the non-lives of roofing shingles was just a little too sad to even consider.
The point is that number 7 was a very average house, in a painfully average street. It had red petunias out the front, and hidden amongst them was a, most likely very bored, red letter that was addressed to some other house in some other city.
It had sat there for a week, noticed only by the roof shingles, and they weren’t exactly in any position to do anything about the letter. At least that is, not until after they had figured out how to paint glittering silver stripes on themselves.
Inside the house, lived couple in their very early thirties, and their two children – A girl aged 7, and a boy who had just recently turned 10. Soccer practice was on Monday’s and dancing on Thursday’s.
The mother of the average pigeon pair was a Mrs Jane Jones – so named by the roof shingles, because it was the most average and boring name they could think of. They had considered a massively strange name to call her by, but they themselves were essentially too boring and average to think of anything suitable. Although, the shingle in the fourth row did make some interesting suggestions, such as ‘Xlankerbean the fifth.’ In the end Jane had won out as a name purely because it was shorter and simpler for them to say. So, the cute irony had lost out, and she was named Jane Jones – Much to the ever-lasting disappointment of the fourth row, centre shingle who still occasionally made some outlandish suggestions.
Jane did squash on Saturday’s, pilates on Tuesday’s, yoga on Thursday’s and worked part-time as a receptionist at a medical office in the city.
Mr Jones, who was so very boring to the shingles that they had yet to bother giving him a first name, was a banker, or an accountant, or possibly even lawyer. The shingles didn’t know in order to tell you. Whatever he did, they were sure it was massively boring. It required him to wear a horrible greyish suit five days a week, and kept him rarely home.
On Saturday’s Mr Jones went golfing, and once a month on Sunday’s he went fishing. Or , rather he said he went fishing, and dressed like he was going fishing. However, the shingles knew – via word passed along from roof to roof, that on these days, he could in fact be found at a very interesting bar several streets away.
Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s Mr Jones was always several hours late home. On these nights he sometimes didn’t get in until well after 1am. These outings kept the shingles entertained for much of the week, as they considered whether or not he was having an affair. If he was having an affair, they argued with themselves, they wondered with whom, and if Mrs Jones was aware of the situation.
The shingles strongly suspected that she was in fact completely aware, but was so bored by the man that she didn’t actually care if he was, or was not. Still, the situation was a small matter of interest to them in their otherwise gossip-free existence. Or, it had been until 2 nights ago when they had seen the other woman for just a moment, and found her to be even more incredibly un-entertaining than Jane Jones was. Quite a feat they thought; to be that uninteresting.
On October the fifth, exactly one week after the red letter had arrived in the petunias; another red letter flew out of the mail truck and joined it in the garden bed. That afternoon, for reasons the shingles couldn’t figure out, Mrs Jones did something quite out of the ordinary for her. She took a walk around the front garden, and in amongst the petunias.
The shingles watched as four times she walked directly past the two letters, before finally finding them on the fifth trip. She glanced at the letters, their addressees and the returns on the back. A quick look at her watch proved she was running late for some part of the weekly routine and she hurried off, shoving the red letters into the glove-box of her car.
The following morning, the roof shingles stared as Mrs Jane Jones sat on a kitchen chair in the middle of the front lawn. It would seem she had forgone some morning ritual in favour of reading other people’s mail from a seat amongst the petunias.
It was the most interesting, if insane, thing the shingles had ever seen her do – Completely out of character for the totally average housewife. Nonetheless there she was, and sitting in such a position that they were able to read over her shoulder.
Marion,
You need to get the Internet. I’m too young to have a pen-pal. The concept always seems to conjure the image of lonely couples in aged homes finally discovering their long lost soul mates.
Maybe you are my soul mate, and my life is simply that sad. But I much prefer to fool myself into believing there’s more out there for me than just you. So if you could please get the Internet, or even just a telephone, my self-delusions would much appreciate it.
I painted the door, the railings and the fence at the front today. All in mismatched, clashing colours. I have no idea why I did it. I didn’t really have the time. Its not as though I am ever overly bored. It doesn’t even look any good; Looks awful actually.
Still it is at least new, different from every other house in the neighbourhood. Tomorrow I was thinking I might set about pulling up the entire front lawn. Grass, trees, flowers, everything. I’m going to replace it with a mass of those river stone things and plant Fly-traps and cactus instead.
I’m in a mood, I’m tired of everything being always the same and I feel like being different, so I suppose ‘why not?’
We both know I’ll hate it in a month or two and then I’ll change everything all back again to how it was before. But, for now…it’s new.
The people up the road have been staring at my cutely odd letterbox that you sent me. This will give them something more worthwhile to look at now! I might even string pink fish-netting, vinyl and chains along the fence and walkway. Not a bad idea that actually. It’ll tie in all the odd colours that I painted everything else. Certainly it would be different from the norm.
I could put that strange metal pink and yellow flamingo Jonathon bought me last winter out there too. That would work well!
See, now look at that, your decorating advice is invaluable Marion, it truly is. One letter to you and the clashing paintwork suddenly makes sense.
Speaking of Jonathon. He finally ran off on me last month. I don’t think I told you. He discovered he was a transvestite. No doubt he’ll discover he’s something entirely new come next month and toddle back home wearing some outfit that’s completely odd.
We had a fight over that flamingo. That and the purple and gold throw-rug. I would have happily given them over to him (It’s not as though I ever liked them.) Except I could never be sure where he would leave them when he has decided that he’s not a queen after all. Knowing his strange moods I’d likely receive the blame for having lost them. Better to keep them here and do something weird with them that neighbours can stare at.
They like staring at me, these neighbours. It’s one of the ‘benefits’ to having moved to a smaller town. It leaves me tempted to do all this garden work while wearing that Frank ‘n’ Furter outfit from last Halloween. Just to see what they’ll do.
Better yet! I’ll go to the mechanics shop and work on the cars while dressed in that. Give the sweet, darling wives something to wonder about. Surely it would have to be good for business to give the bored men something to drool over. Lord knows there’s not much here for them.
What of that creepy boss of yours? I hope you kneed him right in the studded g-string. You should sue for sexual harassment, you know that don’t you? Just make certain you don’t bring him home! I know you’re tempted. You’ve had enough ‘pets’ in the past, let this one go and run over by something. For your own sake, please.
I must go. The neighbours are looking, so its time to do something freakish for them.
Get a telephone!
Portia.
Jane Jones blinked at the letter. The shingles stared silently at it. The letter itself attempted to do something strange. Which was sadly beyond its capabilities, it being only a piece of paper and not much more.
The singles watched as Jane turned the letter over. She rubbed at the page corners, as though to see if there was more to the letter. She sat in stunned silence for a little while before carefully opening the other letter.
Marion,
I know I only just posted to you. Jonathon is back. He’s decided that he’s Amish! It would be hilariously funny if he weren’t so insistent on throwing my computer out.
Portia.
The shingles watched in shock as Jane Jones ran back inside of the house and came out with a small writing desk, a pen and some paper. She was writing back they realised in astonishment. The angling of the little table made it difficult for them to read over her shoulder, but they did see that the letter she had written was indeed addressed to ‘Portia of the interesting front lawn.’
The next day the shingles noticed that Jane brought home with her an odd looking bright blue metal heron statue that she placed in amongst the petunias near enough to the new black wrought iron garden set that she had also bought.
She stood for a quite a worrying length of time, smiling oddly at her weird garden ornament. The roofing shingles, all except that one in the centre of the fourth row, began to fear that Jane Jones had finally snapped. A life of boredom to the level in which she had been living, couldn’t be good for the marbles, they gossiped.
They were still debating amongst themselves as to which treatments could do her the most good, when suddenly; the mail truck went past once again and off it flew yet another letter. A purple one this time.
Mrs Jones stared at it where it lay amongst the petunias, in almost the same positioning that the red letter had been in. The shingles sat in silent shock as they watched Jane watch the purple letter. The purple letter did nothing under all this attention. After all it was just a letter, and what do letters do when they aren’t doing anything in particular?
Slowly, almost fearfully it seemed, Jane Jones bent down and picked up the errant letter. She turned it over in her hand contemplatively for several minutes before she finally took a seat at the new garden setting and hurriedly opened the new letter.
Silver ink curled its way prettily over the purple paper, and once again the roofing shingles read along over the back of the shoulder of Mrs Jane Jones.
Paul,
You’re a bastard. What kind of person does that? I thought about phoning you to tell you off in a more personal way, but I figured that I might as well use all this bloody bridal stationary for something.
You were already married! How does that not ‘come up in conversation?’ When we were booking the church might have been a good time that you could have slipped it in! At some point when we were organising the reception would have worked equally good. Before I bought the damned dress would have been helpful!
What I’m not getting, (read: The bit that really angers me the most.) is why you would propose at all if you knew that you had another family down south and weren’t going to go through with any other wedding to anyone.
The least you could have done would have been to propose to me in private! I now have the entire football club and all their spectators asking me how the marriage is going!
I’ve filled the front lawn with those creepy massacre-look garden gnomes that always freaked you out so much. If you ever show up here again, I sincerely hope that they actually do leap up and attack you with their axes, as you always feared they would.
Hoping that your wife has opened this,
Much hate,
Breona
Mrs Jones triple checked the address on the envelope, and the roof shingles were sincerely bored to note that the letter was most definitely not for number 7 Timtally Lane. It was for another address, in another city, and indeed even in another state.
‘How very average.’ The shingles thought to themselves – never considering the incredible strangeness of all these letters for other people consistently landing in amongst the Jones’s petunias. Which was indeed beginning to become very strange, but it would be months, almost a year, before the shingles actually noticed that fact.
Mrs Jane Jones however, did notice the incredible oddness of three letters for two different addresses all landing in amongst her front yard petunias. Three days after the arrival of the purple letter, the shingles could see her still seemingly searching for something in amongst the garden bed.
The truth be known, it was simply one of those freakish things that happen in life. No electrical devices, no mystical attracting spells, not even any kind of a divine intervention. Just a very freakish coincidence. But nevertheless, Mrs Jane Jones didn’t know that. Two nights of the next week she could be found in the houses of two different psychics attempting to remove a spell that didn’t actually exist.
When the fourth letter arrived, even the psychics shrugged their shoulders and said, “It’s just meant to happen.” The fourth row centre roof shingle, who was calling itself Czar Yoquey today, thought it was all the best thing to happen since that woman across the street had gone through menopause.
Portia,
I believe I have found my true biological father. He is in Cuba on a secret mission to uncover the drugs syndicate there. In order to get to know him better, I shall need to go undercover with him. Otherwise we might both get shot.
Could you please send me my Rastafarian Hat and the paint gun? I think they may be helpful to complete the image of a Cuban drug-lord’s son.
We named a plantation in your honour. Thought you might like that, even if the secret agency that has sent biological father here won’t allow for us to appropriate any of its profits. Still, the Portia Plantation does seem to be a very profitable one, or so father says.
Love you. Will be home as soon as we’ve completed father’s secret mission. You know, having a secret agent for a father could explain so many things.
Jonathon.
Mrs Jane Jones blinked at the letter. The shingles blinked at the letter. The letter did nothing. If it could have, I believe it would have pulled out a weapon and declared itself lord of the petunias. It couldn’t though of course, being only a letter. But, I’m certain it wished it could.
Mrs Jane Jones once more hurried back into the house to emerge with a pen and a writing pad that was apparently new. The shingles missed whatever she had written on the writing pad, as they were too busy staring at the strange gothic art which adorned the paper. They were still debating if the blood print indicted a vampire or an injury to someone when Jane Jones folded the two completed letters into envelopes and drove off to post them together with the mail from the petunias.
Indeed they were still debating the topic of the strange stationary when Mrs Jane Jones returned a two hours later. The conversation was only stopped when the shingle in the fourth row centre yelled at the others to look at the strange object Mrs Jones was placing near the driveway, facing the petunias.
It was a garden gnome, made to look somewhat suspiciously like Fidel Castro, complete with shaggy beard, a cigar dangling from his mouth, and a paintball gun in his left hand. Of course the roof shingles, being just shingles after all, had no idea who Fidel Castro was. To the shingles, the gnome looked even weirder still, and it was very weird looking to begin with. To make it stranger, rather than a Cuban military hat, Gnome Castro wore a multi-coloured, Jamaican Rasta hat.
The shingles gossiped in horror over this new edition, unsure what to make of either Gnome Castro himself, or of Mrs Jane Jones having bought him. The gnome smoked his cigar smugly in reply, and the blue heron stood imperiously amongst the petunias looking in another direction entirely.
As the shingles and Gnome Castro stared off silently at each other with their separate inanimate expressions – the blue metal heron watched as a postcard from several streets away flew into the petunias of number 7. None of the roof shingles would notice it until a number of days later, at which point the other shingles would tell Czar Yoquey not to interrupt their discussion of Mrs Jane Jones’s current strange behaviour.
It was another week still after that before Mrs Jones found the postcard, by which time the shingles had already read it and discussed it to great length. They were endlessly amused to watch her read it though, as it involved one of the girls from the ‘very interesting bar’ teaching pole dancing at a beach-side club in Rio.
Mrs Jane Jones went suitably red, but to her credit took the postcard around by foot to its rightful addressee at the ‘very interesting bar.’ The shingles responded by gossiping in horror, Czar Yoquey professed that it was wonderful, Gnome Castro smoked his cigar serenely and the blue metal heron snubbed them all by staring off in another direction entirely.
This was how it began that the once very boring Mrs Jane Jones replaced her squash, yoga, pilates and psychics with lessons in Pole Dancing. Thrice a week she would go to the ‘very interesting bar,’ and thrice a week the roof shingles of the entire street held their breath waiting for Mr Jones go ‘fishing’ at the same time.
It was whilst she was at one of these very interesting lessons that the roof shingles sat watching one early afternoon as a landscaper came in a truck and stole the grass from the Jones’s front yard. He was still there when Mrs Jones returned.
They supposed she would be horrified, but that was not the case. Quite the opposite, she actually gave the landscaper money for taking the grass away, smiled and went inside. The roof shingles of the entire street watched on as for the first time since the woman with the menopause, something very interesting was happening in Timtally Lane.
When the job was complete, the landscaper had replaced the grass of the entire front and back lawns of number 7 with beach sand. In the middle of which remained the circular garden bed of red petunias, now looking extremely out of place in this very curious suburban yard.
The shingles had never been more excited in the entire time the Jones’s had lived there. This was the first truly interesting thing, any of them had ever done. Czar Yoquey was in a sulk though, as the entire yard had been made interesting, and yet, still no little silver stripes for them.
Gnome Castro smoked his cigar and looked out approvingly. The metal blue heron attempted not to notice the sand, by looking off into another direction. The red petunias swayed happily in the light breeze and another letter flew out of the mail truck in amongst their numbers.
Mrs Jane Jones who had been standing there appreciating her new beach look yard watched it land and hurried over to fetch it. Sitting at the wrought iron garden set she opened it hurriedly.
Portia,
We have had to flee Cuba. Sad to say the local Authorities burned the plantation we had named after you. They would not believe biological father that it was part of an undercover investigation, so it was either go to jail or escape on a fishing boat.
We have made it safely into Mexico. Father has met a nice woman who was holidaying there, her name is Breona. Apparently, some guy proposed to her at a football game and then on the wedding day left a note saying he was already married. She needed to escape the comments for a while and so is now heading from Mexico to Rio with Father.
I’m going to head up to Texas. In the meantime, could you send my sombrero?
Jonathon.
The coincidence of this was not missed by Mrs Jane Jones who hurried inside to fetch the slightly concerning looking writing pad. The shingles excitedly gossiped about it all, while Gnome Castro smoked his cigar thoughtfully, the blue metal heron looked for answers somewhere off in the distance, and the sand just sat there.
A letter was hurried off, and all the various things at number 7 waited to see what she would bring home this time. Except the sand, because it was too new to see a pattern yet. Also, sand is just sand after all.
But the shingles put quite a lot of guesses in. The two things they decided most likely were either a big statue of a mariachi or else a couple in a ‘Mexican Hat Plant.’ They were all disappointed when she returned with only a chilli plant in a pot, which was boringly placed near the wall of the house.
They remained concerned that she had returned somewhat to her normal droll self, until sometime the next week when, very early in the day, a truck pulled up out the front and Mrs Jane Jones greeted it excitedly.
El Chupacabra was placed on the other side of the path to the petunias. He stood 7 foot tall, was made of alligator skin, came complete with wings, and wore a sombrero. Having rather a lack of education on myths, the shingles wondered what it was meant to be. Gnome Castro smoked his cigar with great concern at the teeth bared at him. The blue metal heron was determined to pretend it wasn’t there by staring off in another direction. The petunias waved hello. The chilli plant edged into the wall a bit more, and the sand just sat there, because sand is only sand. Although, a few well educated grains did quietly fly off on the breeze.
As the sand attempted to sneak off quietly the newest letter arrived. This time not into the petunias, but into the open mouth of El Chupacabra. Jane Jones stood on one of the garden chairs, pulling it down to reveal a crisp, clean white envelope with practical lined paper inside.
Dear Jonathon,
I hope this will find you with Portia where you said that you were headed after Texas. Breona left me for another woman. A Pole Dancing instructor that she met while we were in Rio. Can you believe that?
At any rate, since my cover in Cuba is blown, I am being sent home to work a desk job for a while. The address is number 9 Timtally Lane. I’m sure you’ll remember the rest.
Give Portia my best. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to met her in person, now that I won’t be undercover anymore. Please send your phone number at Portia’s, and your email address to Timtally Lane. It will be a much better way to keep in contact now that I wont have to worry over safety. Phone will not be connected until after I get there, so cannot send you mine yet.
All the best,
Dad.
It was later that same day, when Mrs Jane Jones returned from pole dancing lessons, that she went inside and began relocating all of Mr Jones’s belongings to the curb. She did it very calmly, and with a worrying air of cheer. She neatly piled everything he owned where the garbage bin would normally go.
Apparently, the shingles wisely guessed, someone at the pole dancing lessons had filled her in on the “fishing” trips and the other woman responsible for the late nights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays
Mr Jones returned just as Mrs Jones was emptying the contents of a very embarrassing drawer onto the top of the pile. He put up surprisingly little fuss about it all. The shingles suspected that the sight of El Chupacabra’s teeth might have put him off his will to argue. Either way, he stuffed the very embarrassing curb-side collection into his car, made a phone call and left. That, was that for the tearfully boring Mr Jones who would later return only for access visits to the children.
* * * * * * * * * *
Eight months later the dark blue roof shingles of number 7 Timtally Lane proudly resided over a household which held no resemblance to its original average state of being at all.
Letters still arrived in the petunias from time to time, and the garden of number 7 continued to get stranger with each one. There was a makeshift wrestling arena in the backyard now.
It was inside this ring, that the children of number 7 could now be found at times when there used to be soccer and dancing. If you asked the roof shingles they would be the best wrestling entertainers in the country one day.
The once Mrs Jones, had remarried already. Her, and Jonathon’s Father were in the process of joining number’s 7 and 9 Timtally Lane into one extremely large house. They were keeping the existing houses, and building a new brick section of rooms between the two properties. This added a whole new lawn for Jane to have fun with. Which was good, as she had run out of space at number 7 now.
The shingles of numbers 7 and 9 were still in the process of agreeing on a new surname to call the couple by. Only this time, Czar Yoquey in the fourth row was actually winning with his suggestion of ‘Xlankerbean.’ However the deformed orange flamingo of number 9′s front yard also did have some top suggestions.
The shingles did not know it yet, but after the renovations, they would finally get the one thing they had been wishing for out of all this.
In order to tie together the three different kinds of shingles on the house, they were going to be painted, all different colours, with glittering silver stripes adorning them. Portia and Jonathon, together with Breona and the Pole dancer, would be helping the Xlankerbean’s to paint them.
~End~
http://www.bukisa.com/articles/397414_fiction-red-letters-and-roof-shingles