Please, Mister Postman #StoryADayMay

Our Story A Day prompt for today is to use a song title. My Holly prompt is fountain pen.

It’s been a while since Steffie visited, so I combined all these with a dream I had long ago, and BOOM! STORY!

Please, Mr. Postman

Steffie smiled up at the nattily dressed man and patted the seaside bench, next to where she was sitting.

He groomed his white mustache, touched the brim of his cap, bowed slightly, and complied. He looked her up and down, a smirk on his thin pink lips, a roguish and hungry twinkle in his bright blue eyes. “Haven’t I seen you at the hotel?”

“You have,” she said. “And I’ve seen you.”

He groomed his mustache again. “I can’t stay long, alas,” he said, “much as I’d like to. It isn’t often one meets an angel on the beach. I have another appointment rather soon.” He gave another slight bow. “Not, I assure you, with so charming a lady.”

Steffie put a hand over the watch he turned his wrist to check.

“I know, Mr. Postman,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you know my name. I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, there.”

“You know my name,” she said. “You just don’t know it’s who I am.”

“How intriguing!”

“I’ll tell you something else I know: I know who your appointment is with.”

He jerked, but she held him fast.

“I know something else: I know what’s in your inside jacket pocket. Why don’t you give it to me, instead?”

Postman tugged against Steffie’s grip, his eyes wide, like a horse’s who smells smoke.

“Please?” she said, her winsome expression at odds with her iron clasp of his wrist.

“They’ll kill me if I don’t deliver,” he whispered, suddenly haggard, suddenly old.

“You should have come to me when they approached you.” She shook her head, more in sorrow than in anger. “Did they offer you money? Money, Mr. Postman? Money?

“I’ll share,” he said.

Steffie released his wrist and knocked his cap to the ground, exposing his bald dome.

His face went from sallow to flushed, and he knelt at her feet to retrieve his dignity.

She pulled a very special fountain pen from her pocket, uncapped it, jammed the point into his scalp, and injected its contents–not ink–into a pulsing vein.

He cried out and threw himself away from her, woozy before he could stand, unconscious before he could even think of running.

Steffie found the letter she was looking for exactly where she knew it was and replaced it with another.

When Postman woke, he wouldn’t remember the past half hour. Waking in the sea grass would puzzle and frighten him, and he would look forward to retiring on the money he was selling his soul for. The document he was selling would prove to be useless, and his retirement would prove to be short-lived.

Steffie, reflecting on this, was unmoved. “I said please,” she told the universe.

~*~

Yeah, I had that dream about stabbing a guy’s head with a fountain pen when I was a child, only I killed the guy. A. Child. Fear me.

And now, because I’m all about the earworms:

MY PROMPTS TODAY: Song title, fountain pen

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “Please, Mister Postman #StoryADayMay

  1. Daniel Antion

    May 24, 2019 at 1:57pm

    Thanks for the great story and the link to the song that is stuck in my head. Better that than Steffie’s pen.

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      May 24, 2019 at 4:23pm

      #4 Daughter says, “No wonder you don’t like to read or watch creepy stuff–It’s already creepy enough in there!”

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply
  2. pm laberge

    May 24, 2019 at 5:02pm

    Great Story! Great Song! Great Lyrics, Greater Tune.
    Back when they actually knew how to sing and dance!

    Awwwwwrrrriiight!
    Job well done, Steffie.

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author
      • pm laberge

        May 25, 2019 at 4:25pm

        Yea, she turned out ok, for a little girl who was raised in a convent, eh?
        Those Penguin Nuns, when they raise you!

        Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      May 25, 2019 at 10:31am

      The Steffie stories are always dark. She’s an assassin, basically.

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply
  3. joey

    June 9, 2019 at 7:20pm

    I have saved all these — so glad I did!
    This one was excellent! I thought the pen stabbing would kill the postman, so your dream sounds right to me. Great irony here, and I do so love Steffie! She is 100% my favorite polite, but evil genius! Haha!

    Okay, and about the earworm, here’s the thing: So I wake up and I see this story in my email, and as I go through my morning grooming, I am stuck with “Please Mister Please” and so I share this earworm with The Mister as we make the bed, and then we’re on a whole thing cause I ask if it’s ABBA and he says no, “Olivia Newton John” and we marvel at how he knew a music thing I didn’t know and then we end up talking about how his dad had that album and we end up turning the bed down 13 hours later, both of us still singing it, despite the whole day of words and music between us. When we went on our trip, I added it to our playlist! That’s what you did to us, Marian. 😉

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      June 10, 2019 at 8:18am

      My work here is done, Tonto. Let’s ride! ~cue the William Tell Overture Gallop~

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply

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