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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Hi you all<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> I’m passing on this story, got it from the Writers’ division listservs. (the author is in her late 70’s)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Mailbox, Inc. Flash Fiction 734 Words<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>A stylish couple parked their Cadillac, gathered their pile of mail and entered the Mailbox store with a cheery greeting for the friendly manager.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>After having the forty envelopes stamped and posted, The wrinkled, stooped, elderly woman opened their large box and extracted an unusual number of letters stuffed into it. The manager contained his curiosity at this thrice-weekly performance. He wondered why, with the return address of "Natural Fragrances Inc.", there were never any boxes mailed.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Meanwhile, a tall man, living at "Top of the World," in a trailer behind his museum of rocks, minerals, precious stones, and his hand-blown glass, eagerly awaited the mail. His life was lonely, being situated between two copper mines in two towns where the miners lived. His wife gone, no children to visit, his appetites still strong, he met no women. Mail delivery was the high spot of his day. The box was located up front scarcely off the highway where mining trucks and all traffic between the towns moved around the clock, leaving road kill in its wake. Being spring, even baby javelina were found.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>He got a newspaper bi-weekly, called "The Single Scene." Since he had no cell phone because of an out-of-reach signal, and no computer, he had taken to answering the intriguing ads by mail.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>He was surprised at the number of women looking for a partner, and was a bit put off by some of the more blatant ones. One, however, had held his interests, actually, much more than that. He had fantasized. She was beautiful in his eyes, old enough that he would not be accused of breaking the law, and dressed to show enough, but not too much, like the others often did. She had a business, "Natural Fragrances," developing individual fragrances using one's DNA and pheromones, crafted to seek out the man of each Woman's dreams. For him, she promised anything and everything to meet his wildest dreams if they found a match.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Her last letter said she would visit him, but she was having some financial problems with her business, and could not come until she found a loan to complete her project and get transport to his home. She promised that in her next letter, she would impregnate her message with her own crafted scent, since all of her experimentation had been on herself.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>His curiosity overcame him. In his last note, he had promised a large check to cover the last leg of her research, and enough more for her travel to see him, upon receipt of her letter infused with her own sweet pheromones.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>The mailman pulled his truck as far off the highway as he could with the tall man's letter in his hand. He felt a bump, and quickly alit from the car. A skunk, still standing, turned tail up, and sprayed the poor man's face, clothes, and what he was carrying. Gasping for a non-contaminated breath, he quickly put the letter in the box, and drove to a place where he could strip and shower.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>The tall man, eager with anticipation, started to his mailbox sometime later in the day. Out of habit, he looked at the highway, and thought, "thank goodness, no road-kill today to clean up". As he reached in for a letter. Eyes smarting, he could not even read the return address.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Holding it out from himself, he deposited it outside his door for later reading.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Several days later, not having received his awaited answer from his new love, he saw the one he had gotten several days before. He was finally able to tolerate the smell, and was shocked to find the return address. This is the message he found. "My Darling, with your promised help, I was able to complete the research on myself. I have immersed this note in this fragrance for several days. It contains a promise to you. Upon my visit, you will hold the length of me in your arms. I will be open and eager for your every move or need. I am insatiable, and will impregnate your bed with my aroma so that you can enjoy it, even for the time I might have to leave."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>The tall man, picked up the note carefully by the corner, carried it to his potbellied stove, opened it, and tossed it in the fire, along with the latest issue of the "Single Scene."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Jackie Lee<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Time is the school in which we learn.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Time is the fire in which we burn.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Delmore Schwartz<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>-----Original Message-----<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>From: stylist [<a href="mailto:stylist-bounces@nfbnet.org"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>mailto:stylist-bounces@nfbnet.org</span></a>] On Behalf Of Robert Leslie Newman<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 4:57 AM<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Subject: [stylist] Pocket Prose, too? RE: Poem in Your Pocket Day, April 24<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Jacky<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Those poems were really interesting and good. MM, thinking now of prose...I wonder if there may be some pocket prose pieces that authors here could share with the list? (Yeah, pocket prose.... excuse my diction, flash<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>fiction.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>-----Original Message-----<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>From: stylist [<a href="mailto:stylist-bounces@nfbnet.org"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>mailto:stylist-bounces@nfbnet.org</span></a>] On Behalf Of Jackie Williams<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2014 10:42 PM<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Subject: [stylist] Poem in Your Pocket Day, April 24<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Fellow Poets,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>My assignment this week in my critique group was to select four short, accessible poems, print and cut them apart, and bring them to the senior center to put in a large bucket on the sign in table. Since there 14 of us in my class, if we each make ten copies of each poem, making 40 poems, that it is quite a few that might convince a non-poet that it is a worthwhile and enjoyable craft.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> I have enclosed the ones I printed and cut apart. I did not print where they were published, and the amount of the award. That is just for your information to give you an idea of categories, where you can send them, and what you can earn.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Poem in Your Pocket Day Jacqueline Williams April 24, '14<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Indiana Third Place, 48 entries<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Obituary<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>When I am settled down up there<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>I'll have myself a holy tear,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>or when I'm fired up down there,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>I'll surely make the Devil care.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>But if I'm not invited in<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>because of godly grace or sin,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>I'll plant myself in earth with men,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>and grow to bud and bloom again.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Arkansas, 1st Place, $25.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>A limerick but very serious, called a Merickli<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>The Trigger Points of Nature Do Not Lie<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Our earth sheds its tears, gasps for air.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Our experts, denied, feel despair.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>The oceans may die,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>and forests don't lie.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Producers of carbon don't care.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>ASPS, Twitter Poetry, 2011, First place, 25.00<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>String Theory Made Easy<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>It seems<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>I have a choice.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Become an entity<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>who's all unwound or one who's tied<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>in knots.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Old Age unpublished<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>When there<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>is no place left<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>to sail your boat-set eyes<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>upon that arc of blue and stay<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>afloat.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>The two twitter poems are Cinquains<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Perhaps you all would like to try a short accessible poem for such a purpose? Are there more than eight poets in our group?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Though the national deadline was today, Florida has done things like this for the entire month of April.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Jackie Lee<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>