Post-Apocalypse Dead Letter Office Read Free Page B

wanted us to give him a pencil and paper. When we got back from the burial, he showed us a shakily written note and said the sailor had been yelling something at him, then talking to him, then whispering, and that he was trying to listen to what he was saying after he’d dragged the guy onto the shore. Nick says he wrote down the words phonetically so they’d make sense to him. He says he remembered it perfectly. Well... I don’t think Nick really knows what he’s talking about when he says phonetically, but regardless, we think the language is Mandarin.

    This is borne out by the evidence recovered from the vessel itself. A couple sailors decided to tail the barge, which kept drifting south through the sound. Eventually it washed ashore on Bainbridge island. It was empty, except for some paperwork in the bridge.

    We don’t mean to pressure you into doing translation work for us, but we paid quite a bit to get this missive and its accompanying bottle of cheer into your hot little hands. Two whole smoked salmon and a pint jar of roe. Steep, but totally worth it all the same. We think the couriers are upset that folks are giving them more to deliver in the early spring and late fall, when it really sucks to ride cross country. (We’re not saying that you shouldn’t send us more mail whenever you want, though!)

    Anyway, we wouldn’t have mailed this to you, but we can’t get any Chinese folks to talk to us. A whole lot of people around here bought into the rumors that the Chinese were to blame for the lights going out, the cars stopping working, etc. Deanne said that she overheard a member of the mayor’s staff passing on the latest rumor – that he knew for a fact that “The Yellows” had seeded the clouds and somehow caused this year’s late hard frost (ruined the apple crop). Deanne apparently confronted him about it, asked how they could do that when no plane’s flown here or anywhere else for almost a decade. She swears he mouthed the word “gliders”.

    Well, with idiotic ideas like that in abundance around here (even amongst some of the most progressive, decent folks in town), a bit of violence seemed very likely. And, sure enough, after word of the “saboteurs’ barge” got out, a pretty nasty mob took it to the international district. Thankfully, nobody got killed or anything, but some eyes were blacked and a few storefronts – previously abandoned, most of them – got damaged. The end result was that lines were drawn and pretty much everyone of Asian descent has sealed theirself up in the international district. It really does suck. The mayor, at Deanne’s urging, is making peaceful overtures to the leaders in the district. And, despite Nick’s honest-to-Christ heroic efforts to save the barge’s last survivor, it doesn’t seem that they’re coming around. There’s some old adage that goes like, “A million attaboys don’t equal one gotcha,” and it has certainly rang true in this instance. But, we’re not done trying. The pages attached are copies of Nick’s – we kept the originals, just in case the mayor’s efforts pay off. Regardless, if you can figure it out we’d really love to know what it says, if only to honor the memory of the men who died on the barge. Given, of course, that you can actually decipher Nick’s handwriting (you should have seen the original one he scribbled out when he was just coming out of his hypothermia). Hee!

    All our love to you and Jean (and little Jean or Charlie).

    Signed,

    The Ballard Posse

    Deanne Nicole Nick

    “Neh-eee, kay. Yinyongkey. Yooawn shing meeawn bow. Keykey.” –Nick

To: Fred Whitman, Kansas City, MO

    From: Olive Barnes, Eureka, CA

    May 14th, 20+7

    Dearest Fred,

    Hello from me and all the Eureka Public Library crew. Well, what few of us there are still employed here.

    Hope all has been well for you and your family down in KC. Haven’t heard very much from our super-extended family lately. Have you and Lisa tied the