《Tales from the Afterworld - short stories collection》Story 023 - URGENT LETTER (urban fantasy)
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URGENT LETTER
It rained heavily. The pigeon’s wings got soaked. He found a temporary shelter under the edge of some shop’s roof above a notch in the wall where a single brick was missing. There he huddled up, ruffling his feathers with his beak in a hopeless attempt to dry them off. He knew how urgent his mission was. He needed to fly west, immediately, but how could he fly in such weather? He wouldn’t get far!
But the letter, the urgent letter was so important! The pigeon sighed, resolved himself, and left his shelter…
A tired, mope-eyed man was checking the passengers’ tickets on the bus. “Tickets, please!” he said, again and again, rocking in motion with the bus as he walked. Suddenly, his eyes met the pigeon’s. The man stopped, speechless.
The pigeon looked wet and tired. Perched on the back of a tattered bus seat, his wings droopy, his feathers ruffled and wet, he muttered: “Please, let me stay. I have a very urgent letter to deliver.” The mope-eyed man let him have the ride for free. One doesn’t see talking pigeons every day, after all.
The heavy rainfall had turned into a deluge with a thunder grumbling on the background by the time the bus reached the final stop.
A sad girl braved the storm with an umbrella clutched in both her hands. She had no idea she was heading west.
“Would you mind if I perched on your shoulder?” she heard.
The girl turned her head and saw a pigeon clutching on to her cloak, his beady eyes gazing at her intently.
“I have to deliver a letter. It’s urgent,” the pigeon continued, “but the weather is not good for flying today.”
“Where do you need to go?” the girl asked, suddenly heartened up for a reason she couldn’t yet understand.
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“West. That’s exactly where you were going.”
The girl wiped her tears on her sleeve, straightened her shoulders, and strode forth. She had a strong, burning feeling that something important had just happened in her life.
The storm raged, flogging the city with cold, cruel rain. The girl’s umbrella was poor protection against such weather. Her clothes soaking wet, her hair plastered to her forehead, she sloshed through the muddy, bubbling puddles, heading west with the stubbornness she didn’t know she was capable of.
The girl entered a skyscraper that towered above the city like a sinister obsidian obelisk. She ran upstairs, then took the elevator. The pigeon sat on her shoulder, holding onto her soaked coat as hard as he could. A shiny golden ring on his little foot contained the urgent letter. Nothing was more important than this…
His carrier passed the secretary and broke into the main office. Her hair was messy, the broken umbrella she held in her hands looked like a sword in the semi-darkness of the room.
Twelve people rose from the Round Table to greet her. One of them removed the golden ring from the pigeon’s foot, opened the urgent letter, and read it out loud:
“Today, under heavy rainfall, a girl will come to you. She is the one destined to save the world.”
(July 10, 2003)
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