Certified Mail
Matthew Ryan Fischer
“You look terrible. Your aura is off. It’s all black and icky. You
sure you’re okay?”
“You know that’s not a thing, right?”
“It’s totally a thing.”
“You can’t see my aura. I don’t have an aura.”
“Of course you have an aura. We all have auras. You just refuse to
try and see for yourself.”
“No. There are no special powers. I see things just fine. I
believe in things I can see.”
“What about the electric impulses in your brain? Can you see
those?”
“Yes. Science can. And those two things aren’t the same at all—“
“Maybe you just don’t know. Maybe the pulses in your brain are
also your soul. Your spirit. Your chakra—“
“No… No. You’re not convincing me of anything. You are not going
to argue fairytales and science and expect me to listen. You are not magic. You
do not see magical things. There is no such thing as magic.”
“More bad vibes from Mr. Moody… What a surprise. This is why you
are never happy.”
“Spare me the therapy.”
“How ‘bout you spare me your negativity?”
“How about you spare me the Namaste nonsense.”
“You don’t even know what that word means.”
“I… —I’m not going to admit that.”
“I’m feeling depressed just being near you. I can literally feel
myself getting sick already. My mood, my energy... you’re like a drain. A hate-drain.”
“Wouldn’t that mean I was leaching bad feelings from you? Wouldn’t you feel better being
near me?”
“I mean you’re going to infect me with whatever is infecting you.
You bring all this darkness with you. You block out other people’s light and
pass around your nastiness.”
“Catalyst. Or maybe accelerant. I’d even say instigator. There are
several other words I’ll accept.”
“Clouds. Dark, evil clouds. I don’t even know why I hang out with
you.”
“And you say I don’t
know the meanings of words.”
“I’m sick of this. Why invite me to brunch if you aren’t going to
tell me what your problem is? You only invite me to things when you want to
bitch about something. So can we just cut to that? I’m feeling tired.”
“I got my Death Certificate today.”
“Oh goddess. No wonder you look so sick.”
“Please.”
“What?”
“No more of that talk. Please. I can’t take any more. You’re just
going to piss me off.”
“Fine. Did you read it?”
“No.”
“You have to read it. “
“No. No I don’t.”
“You have to. How could you not? Everybody reads it. Don’t you
want to know? Everybody wants to know.”
“I don’t.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. It’s so morbid.”
“You must. I mean you don’t get them if you don’t want them. You
sent it to you.”
“I didn’t send anything. I didn’t request or pay for it. The thing
just came.”
“The company got it wrong? The company doesn’t get this wrong. What
did the company say?”
“That they don’t make mistakes.”
“Well, there you go. In the future you must have paid for it.”
“If future me paid for it, it should have gone to him. Not to me. It
shouldn’t have come back this far. I didn’t pay for it. I don’t want it.”
“Unless future you realized on his deathbed that he needed to send
it back to you and this is the precise time you were always supposed to receive
it.”
“That’s the sort of fatalistic logic I hate with these things.
It’s all nonsense. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Nothing I
can do about that. If that’s what I did, or what I’ll do, then apparently me
receiving it now can’t matter all that much. Whatever happens in the future
will happen with or without me reading about it now. If I realize on my deathbed
I need to send this thing back, then apparently I’ll have enough time to do it.
What if I’m meant to receive it, but never read it? What if I’m meant to read
it in a month? Or a year? Whatever I’m supposed to do, I’ll do whenever I’m
supposed to do it. So no, I don’t need to read it now.”
“But don’t you want to know?”
“Not really.”
“Ha! Bullshit.”
“I don’t care what you think. I’m not reading it.”
“I’ll read it.”
“No.”
“Why not? What are you worried about? If you show it to me, then
that’s what was supposed to happen. And if it’s not what was supposed to
happen, it is the moment you do it. So you won’t be changing anything anyway.”
“This is the type of shit I’m trying to avoid talking about it.”
“Just show it to me already. You asked me to brunch. You told me
about it. You wanted me to know. You know you wanted me to know.”
“I hate you sometimes.”
“Yeah, but you love me. Let me see it.”
“Sounds like you’re hitting on me.”
“I’m talking about the DC.”
“Maybe I just want to complain.”
“Oh I know you want to do that. Life is futile. Change is futile.
Trying things is futile. That’s all you want to bitch about. And this letter
proves it. That’s your evidence right there. Everything is futile. Everything
is predetermined. You have proof. So why not show me? Why be afraid? Unless you’re
afraid you’re going to get what you said you wanted. Or maybe you were really
hoping for something better? Maybe you were holding out some self-determination
hope for yourself?”
“Fine. Read it...”
...
...
...
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What does it say?”
“You said you didn’t want to know.”
“Stop being a bitch. Tell me when I die.”
“It’s not yours.”
“It’s not mine?”
“Nope. Not yours.”
“Let me see that… How is that even possible?”
...
...
...
“It’s not me.”
“I told you. You think I’d fuck with you about that?”
“I don’t know. God. It’s not me. It’s not mine.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to throw it away.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. But you can’t. That’s somebody’s life.”
“No. This is a note. A piece of junk. Somebody is living their
life—“
“And they wanted to know.”
“No they didn’t. They sent this to me. If this was meant for them,
they would have sent it to them. The company does not make mistakes.”
“Somebody is living their life and you know when they’re going to
die.”
“I got someone’s junk mail. You delete that shit.”
“This is nothing like that at all. This is someone’s life.”
“You forward every piece of incorrect mail you receive? Honestly,
you throw it out, just like everyone else.”
“No. No. Not at all. This is not junk mail. This is not getting
the wrong person’s mail delivered. This is someone’s DC and whether it was
meant to be sent to you and not them, they are still going to want to know
about it.”
“Fine. You care so much, you deliver it.”
“What? No. That’s not my job. That’s yours. It’s your mail. It
might not be your DC, but it was addressed to you. You have a responsibility.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
“At least call the company again. Someone should know. Right or
wrong. Somebody has to know.”
“You’re really annoying with this. You know that?”
“All I hear you saying is blah blah blah, and we all know sooner
or later you’re going to listen to me like you always do and eventually you’re
going to do the right thing.”
“Oh fine, whatever. Who is Mr. Lucky? Huh… weird.”
“What?”
“I was kinda happy it wasn’t me. I didn’t really look at the name.
But… I think I might know this guy.”
“Really!?”
“Well, maybe, maybe not. I mean I know the name, but I don’t know
if I know him.”
“So maybe this was meant for you.”
“Yes, because this DMW has the same name as someone I went to
school with. Totally means that someone meant to send this to me instead of the
corpse.”
“Make jokes, but you don’t know. And you should want to find out.”
“Waste time and money to let myself in on the secrets of the
future – the future of when some loser is going to die? Just because he may or
may not share the same name with someone I knew one time. Sounds like a good
plan.”
“You act like a cynic, but I know better. You hold onto that DC
and you’re going to get curious. And no matter what you say, you can’t help but
ultimately do the right thing.”
“I told you, I’m going to throw this away.”
“Sure.”
* * *
“Oh my god, so I need you to be cool about this.”
“What?”
“Just please. Okay? Be cool? This is hard for me to say.”
“I don’t know what you’re going to tell me, but I love this. I
wish I was recording this.
“You were right. Okay? You were right.”
“I’m always right. I’m just glad to hear you say it.”
“I went to see that guy. That DC guy? I went to see him.”
“And?”
“And I knew him. Not well, but yeah, I knew him. For like six
years of school. I went to high school with this guy. And now I know when he’s
going to die.”
“And you told him? Right? You didn’t cop out or any of your normal
bullshit? You gave him the certificate?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“He thanked me.”
“Thanked you?”
“Broke down and cried. Right in front of me. Thanked me. Told me I
saved his life. That he was broke and lost his job and didn’t see any way out
of things. But getting it, the DC, knowing that he was going to make it.
Knowing he had a future. It gave him all the hope he needed. He cried and
thanked me. Said I saved his life. It was crazy.”
“Bullshit. You’re making that up.”
“I swear.”
“You are such an asshole.”
“You want to call him? I swear to God.
He said all of that.”
“So you’re a real hero. Cute. Big hero.”
“I don’t know about that… but…”
“But what? You’re going to pat yourself on the back again? Want me
to call you a hero again?”
“No, I... I got another one. Another Death Certificate.”
“Whoa. Again? Who’s this?”
“A girl I dated in college. I... I opened it and read it right
away. And I knew her name too. What the fuck is going on? Who is signing me up
for these? Me? Them? Why would anyone think it was a good idea to involve me
with this? And how is that even legal? I thought you could only send back your
own – can’t disrupt the future with too much knowledge sort of thing.”
“Maybe the law changed. Maybe they realized the past can’t rewrite
the future.”
“Maybe.”
“You think you’re killing off everyone that ever pissed you off?”
“No. I don’t think that. I’m pretty sure I don’t become a future
space-time murderer.”
“Future you could be a murderer. Or murdered. I’d believe that.”
“Yes. You’re probably right. I probably could do that. But how in
the fuck does that make any sense in this situation? I write people in the past
to have past me warn them about future me?”
“I don’t know. It might make the future surprise that much better.
They wouldn’t suspect you.”
“Can’t argue with that logic. Future serial killer me is toying
with not only his victims, but his past self and potentially destroying all of
reality in the process.”
“Sounds like a TV show.”
“It does. I’d watch that.”
“Me too.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing. You think I might get more? Am I
supposed to know these people? Am I going to keep knowing them now? New friends
for life?”
“Maybe you’re being directed down a new and enlightened path of
interconnectedness.”
“I don’t know. What’s my aura say?”
“Well, it’s not as black as it was. That’s something.”
“Finally. Some good news.”
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