The Postcard

By Cindy Wilson-Buranek

Does love transcend the boundaries of time? If two people are meant to meet, is it reincarnation or destiny that brings them together? Joe never believed in such things,
until the postcard came in the mail; a postcard that was 72 years old. Joe sat down and
read the womans words. Now, he didn't’ know what he believed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cindy Wilson-Buranek
• Release date: Apr 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452372471

Cindy Wilson-Buranek

The Author Cindy Wilson-Buranek was born in Moline, Illinois in 1957, the sixth child of Darlene and Robert Wilson. Her mother was an avid reader and passed on her love of the written word. Her mother would read out loud sentences that moved her. The fact that words arranged in a particular order could elicit such a passionate response, stuck with Cindy. Her mother watches from above and her eight brothers and sisters continue to hold her literary hand. To escape the craziness of a large, loud family, Cindy would sneak away and write. In high school she was encouraged by her creative writing teacher, Ms. Beck to enter two writing contests. She won first and second place, her first monetary acknowledgement of talent. Ms. Beck pushed Cindy to attend The University of Iowa, Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop. Over 15 years passed before she followed her advice. Cindy attended the Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop and felt she had come home. Surrounded by other writers that understood the need, the burning inside that haunts your soul to write, she published her first online story, “Let Them Eat Cake”, a humorous story of her fight with breast cancer. Her fellow writers admonished her to “quit taking classes and go write the damn book.” After her daughter, Ashley almost died in a car accident; life’s uncertainty, changed Cindy. She quit her Project Engineer’s job in Iowa, cashed in her 401k, moved to Florida and wrote “The Postcard.” Cindy lives in Cape Coral, Florida with her husband, Mark and their three dogs, Sophie, Maddie and Moose. Her daughter, Ashley, is a first grade teacher in Cape Coral and is married to Isaac, a very old soul. Cindy is currently working on her third book, “Gentle Current,” a dark story of wrong decisions and their consequences.

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The Postcard

by

Cindy Wilson-Buranek

Smashwords Edition

Published By: Cindy Wilson-Buranek on Smashwords

The Postcard Copyright © 2010 by Cindy Wilson-Buranek

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To my Mom for always believing.

Keep checking in, I'm not done yet.

To my wonderful friends and family.

They both have big hearts,

cheap rates and good coffee.

I will be forever grateful.

Pretend for a moment

Nothing in life is a coincidence

That the chance encounter

Was not by chance at all.

Pretend for a moment

That God sends us people

To teach us one particular lesson

Or possibly even two.

Pretend for a moment

That God Sent me you.

The postcard arrived seventy-two years late. It was postmarked 1928 or 1929 depending on how you deciphered the smeared ink. Was it a blurred nine or was it actually an eight? He had decided it was a nine because the number nine was his lucky number. He had won nine times at the dog track betting on Nine Lives, a greyhound that appeared to have already lived beyond his time, but, yet, kept on winning. A carcass of bones till the bell rang, and then Nine Lives was born again, a reincarnated bolt of muscled lightening chasing the mystical rabbit. Once they retired the poor bastard, Joe had signed up to take him home. The first thing he would do for the old dog was get him a rabbit, a really old and slow rabbit. Enough was enough for God’s sake. Joe studied the postcard again; the address was legible enough to land in his mailbox even though parts of it were missing.

Jero m W ls n

13_46 Slee y Hol ow L ne

Moli e, Ill no s

Joe had lived on Sleepy Hollow Lane for two years. He would die there if God listened to his prayers. He turned the postcard over in his hands. The picture was worn and faded but the image was somewhat visible. It was like looking through a fogged over bathroom mirror where only parts of the face came through. The image was a woman, a beautiful woman with long black hair, staring into a lit candle. The shadows cast by the candlelight illuminated the sadness in her eyes. It reminded Joe of the faded pictures in his attic. The black and white photos of relatives he never knew, part of the estate left by an uncle he had never met. Her black eyes followed him. Jesus, Joe said out loud.

The postcard slipped from his hands. From the floor her handwriting flowed like an artist’s brush. Parts were dramatic and bold. Parts were muted and lightly touched with ink. From this distance they were no longer words, but strokes of emotion. He sat down on the carpet and began to read the post card.

Darling, You were right about me. I was a fool to walk away from love like ours.

Your love frightened me. It was as foreign to me as doubt was to you.

You knew from the moment we met. I knew from the moment you left.

Come back to me Jerome. I have a lifetime to love you.

Forever, Anna

He held the postcard in his hand, gently touching her face with his hand.

The poor bastard never got it, he said.

Joe lit a cigarette and watched the smoke curl around his fingertips. The curtains were drawn and the room was dark. When he inhaled, the cigarette cast a red shadow across the face on the postcard; when he exhaled she disappeared. The postcard picture was a portrait sitting; he assumed the woman was Anna. He smoked the rest of the pack watching her. There was something nagging at his subconscious that he could not shake. The more he watched her face go in and out of the light the more he was convinced he knew this woman. The postcard was over 75 years old. Anna had to be dead.

*****

Joe woke the next morning feeling thick with fatigue. He had slept in small bits of time most of the night. Falling asleep with this woman on his mind he wished her into his dreams and followed her throughout the night. Each time he reached out to her she would vanish into a black mist of hair. Looking over his shoulder he knew she was gone, but a part of him could still feel her. In his dream he had walked down Maple Lane towards the river. The surface of the water violently coughed and spit, as if trying to expel something foreign within its banks. She was there in the darkness, her body thrown against the rocks. Joe slid down the incline of the bank, lost his footing on the green moss and scraped the skin from his hands. Her body was so cold. He held her hand willing the warmth into her

I knew you would come, she said.

Oh, Anna. Her eyes turned black as her body lost air. Her life force hissed through her deflating skin. A misshapen tarp of white flesh lay upon the bank of the muddy, black river.

Anna! he cried.

Her dead eyes looked nowhere, at nothing. Then, he woke up. Different renditions played inside his head throughout the night, always ending with her blank dead stare. Playing hide and seek with his subconscious, he forced himself back to sleep trying to pick up the story where it left off. Like returning to an unfinished puzzle and forcing the pieces together, it was a fool’s game.

Until this morning, Joe had never considered himself to be a fool. He wanted to think that his actions were of no consequence, just passing time on an early Sunday morning while others sat in church dreaming of the Village Inn Special: two eggs, pancakes and toast. He hoped God was somewhere between passing the plate and the first cup of coffee. He carried God in his pocket, jingling his change for strength and continual confirmation that he was not alone. It was a quirky habit that had started in Sunday school. His dad had always given him nickels and dimes for the collection plate but long after he had stopped attending church the sound still brought him comfort. The difficulties of his day increased if he was forced to use exact change. His house was filled with coffee cans and piggy banks filled with pennies staring down at him from undusted bookshelves across the room. Today, he would entertain the heavens by this dubious investigation of lost love. He could have stayed home and read the editorials but walking out the door each day was far more amusing than anything he could read in the Sunday paper.

Pulling the postcard from his pocket, he rechecked the address. Her house was at the end of the block. A house he had driven by many times with no recollection of it at all. A structure of little importance until it became Anna’s house. He wondered if she had died alone, never understanding why the man she loved had never answered. It is the unknown that carries us away, the unanswered questions that haunt us, that grip our minds in circular thoughts of madness. Tortured and taunted into numb complacency, it is the survival mode of the unloved, the grieving and the lonely. Love is for the brave, the hopeful and the foolish. He was walking towards a mental exorcism, a cleansing of curiosity from his questioning soul. He had never believed that old adage that curiosity killed the cat. His mother had brainwashed him at an early age that life held limitless possibilities and if he was bored then most likely ‘he was boring.’ Idle time was for the rich and ill informed she said. Joe’s mother had been neither.

Standing on the cold pavement in front of a dead woman’s home he no longer felt brave or hopeful; he felt like an ass. He had trekked across town at 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning to look at the outside of a house. There was nothing extraordinary about it. It was your standard white house on every Dutch Boy paint can, except the black shutters were replaced with yellow ones and the sidewalk a mish mash of cobblestones instead of red brick. Only thing that made this house