They Have Come to Warn Us

Chau huffed irritably, blowing the hair from her mouth.
Edana glanced at her with amusement, taking care not to trip over the curb. “Windy today, hm?”

The wind was pleasant. Edana wondered why Chau had such a trendy cut. When she thought of the Others she always conjured an image of beards, pipes and parchment. And yet here they were, beardless and a little less than sage.
“The lipstick — and the hair –” Chau said, clamping her left hand on her [...]

“The day I stop brushing my hair and trimming my nails is the day I die,” Chau replied curtly.
Edana smirked, letting Chau lead the way to their little plum Camry. The side mirror was held on with duct tape in a slightly mismatching shade of purple, courtesy of the hardware store up the road. Chau [...]

“You remember to turn off the gas?” Edana asked her, as Chau swerved right and got onto the highway. As the steady necklace of rear lights indicated, they were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“I did,” Chau said, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. “And it’s not about the gas.” Edana hated the sound of Chau’s [...]

Chau muttered something unkindly in her native tongue. Second nature, even after so long. She pushed her hair out of her face again, impatient to get home. “I am. You are. We are.”
“Hold on. We need to stop at the post office!”
The Asian woman jammed her foot on the brake, twisting painfully to see if [...]

“It’s the Letter,” Edana said. “I’ve got a few left here.”
Chau snorted. “I can’t believe we’re even bothering anymore.” Edana shook her head, gazing at her friend’s precise script. To Mr. Martin Steeple. To Chelsea Church. To Ram Reddy. “People don’t listen.”
“I can say the same for us,” Edana said. “But we must try.” She [...]

“Abstinence is the only sure way to fail,” Edana said. As soon as Chau parked, she was on her feet and bobbling to the door. Only Edana could bobble when she walked. Behind her, Chau locked the Camry and followed.
“How many stamps did you use this time?”
“Not so many…” Edana let the door close between [...]

Chau was there to pick up the barrage of letters. She cursed as her neatly done nails scraped the floor. Instinctively she made piles of her mail. One pile for the glossy catalogs, and another for bills. The rare third category included written letters. Sometimes they heard from the Others via beautiful, flaky cards that [...]

The addresses were all correct–Greenwood & Sons, Ltd. It was the return addresses that stopped both women cold. With shaking hands, Edana took the pile of envelopes she had intended to send, and sorted through them.
Mr. Ram Reddy, of Iselin NJ, had written back.

“Wait,” Chau said, “We’d written Mr. Reddy already?”
Edana looked at the envelopes she carried. “Oh yes,” she said, fanning herself with the offending envelope. “I forgot.”
Chau hid her exasperation behind her mangled manicure. “What a waste of stamps.”
Ms. Chelsea Church of Utica, NY — Mr. Martin Steeple of Irvine, CA — Wally Reynolds of Providence, [...]

“Well. When it rains, it pours. I suppose,” Edana said helpfully.
Chau ignored her. “We need to get these home.” She stuck the mail under her arm and marched out of the post office, defying the wind to play with her hair now.
Edana consdiered chucking the bills as well, but decided it was safer not to. [...]

Chau shoved the letters in the glove compartment and with a glare dared her to look at them. Edana at in the car, sitting on her hands to prevent them from betraying her and tearing those envelopes home. In the traffic, it took them ten minutes to cross the five hundred yards it took [...]

Edana took a moment to realize Chau was serious, then took the PO Box key, still in her fist, and slit open the first envelope. It was from Sarah Bellini, the address care of a university dormitory. Both women leaned to the center of the car to read.
//Dear Mr Greenwood,
I want to thank you for [...]

Mr. Greenwood, I didn’t know what to do, so I just begged and begged him to get in the car with me, but he knocked me away and left me. I stood there crying for like an hour and then some idiot in the parking lot said, “hey there, sweetie, what’s the problem?” I knew [...]

Edana turned the page over, as though some hidden explanation lurked there. It was blank. She looked to Chau, bracing herself for the tirade she was certain would come.
“Who //is// this girl?” the Vietnamese woman said, appalled.
“Sarah Bellini, apparently.”
“How did she ever get into university?” Chau took the letter to get a second look for [...]

“Wait,” Edana said, “I don’t think so.”
Chau looked at her, flabbergasted. “But that’s — ”
“– she felt compelled to reply,” Edana said, “and we should respond to her. Even if we can’t get anything out of her, even if she isn’t who we want, we should help her. She’s distressed.”
“Serves her right for attaching herself [...]

The next letter was on yellowing typing paper. They both recognized the characteristic spottiness of a 1970s model they had finally junked in 2000–turning over a new leaf for the new millennia, and all.
//DEAR SIR OR MADAM,
I AM WRITING TO YOU TO REQUEST THAT YOU CEASE AND DESIST YOUR FRAUDULENT MAILINGS. YOUR UNWANTED SOLICITATIONS HAVE [...]

“Completely insane,” Chau said. “I like him.”
Edana held her stomach, collapsing from the force of her laughter. She slammed her forehead against the window, the pouf of her hair preventing any serious damage. It hurt to speak, so until she quieted down to a thin wheeze, Chau waited.
“So we don’t write back?” Edana asked.
“This makes [...]

//Mr. Greenwood,
I know the truth. I know you’re not a mister and I know you don’t have a son. You’re a bunch of old women sitting around drinking tea, aren’t you?
Leave me alone. Take your freaky little business proposal and you stay the shit away from my family.
-KR//

“I resent the insinuation,” Chau said, “I don’t even LIKE tea.”
Edana laughed. “It’s still pretty bizarre,” she said. She scanned the letter again. “I wonder what betrayed us in the original letter,” she continued. “Do you think the others have picked this up?”
They folded the letter back and kept it in the running pile on [...]