YOU HAVE MAIL

William J. Fung

Chapter 4: Return Post

The cycle continued on for the next week, with Jay and Kay getting to know each other rather quickly. She would ask him questions and he would reply, asking questions of his own which she would reply to. Jay would also charm her while all this was going on. By this time, the number of email messages between the two of them averaged three or four per day from each of them. Through this one week, Jay found out that the two of them had the same blood type, and some common interests. Jay exploited these facts by telling Kay that the two of them were meant to be together and that fate had brought them together. He could hardly believe that he was writing such melodramatic garbage. Throughout this week, the two of them got to know each other very well, as they shared not only well known facts about themselves, but also deep secrets with each other. Jay's secrets were exaggerated slightly to maintain his sappy charm. He continued to end off his email messages to her with song lyrics, except that single lines from songs grew into verses.

The email continued between the two of them, with each of them sharing more and more about each other's lives. She discussed her work, and he discussed his school. Within all this, they both discussed topics which included their attitudes towards love, sex, and relationships. Jay figured that to keep Kay interested, he would agree to everything she said. Whatever her opinion was, his was similar.

Near the end of the week, Jay decided to commit to an action that would have Kay eating out of the palm of his hand. He decided to give her his mailing address so that she could write to him using conventional postal methods. Jay expected that Kay would write to him without hesitation. Kay replied to that email message by telling him that he had read her mind, since she had the same idea, and provided Jay with her mailing address. Jay's plan had worked, she was his for the taking.

Within a week, Jay received his first letter from Kay. Before he opened it, he looked at the envelope for a while, as it had some interesting elements to it. The first thing he noticed was that the envelope was thick, since there was more than a couple of sheets of paper in it. Obviously, Kay had bought him a gift. He then looked at the front of the envelope, and noticed that on the side, it said "Thank you, Postman". Jay thought that this was really cheesy, but continued to look for interesting elements. On the back of the envelope, where it was sealed, there was a little baby blue ribbon that was held on by adhesive. It was apparent to Jay that she took great care in her letters. So he opened up the envelope and took out the gift. This object was in a small plastic bag, which Jay quickly removed it from. What the object appeared to be was a soft plastic container with a zipper on one side of it. On the other side of the object, it was made to look like a package of tissue. Jay could not figure out the significance of this object, and proceeded to read the letter, hoping for some insight.

When Jay read the letter, he noticed that Kay had really nice handwriting, and could tell that she was left-handed by the slant on the letters. Jay made a note of this for future discussion with her. Within this letter, Kay wrote about how Jay was the first penpal she has had in a long time, and how important he is to her. She also wrote about the gift, which happened to be a coin holder made to look like a package of tissue. Within this letter, Kay also included a Chinese poem, which she wanted Jay to find the meaning of. Jay did not read Chinese, but he knew others that did. Kay ended the letter by saying that she looks forward to receiving letters from him, as that would solidify their relationship with actual objects, rather than with lines of text on email software.

Jay immediately emailed Kay a thank you message for the gift, and promised her that he would carry it around everywhere he goes. Jay also asked about how she was left- handed, and mentioned that he knows several people who are left-handed. Jay also told her that one day, he will find out the meaning of the poem. He included a French poem as a measure of payback, and told her to find its meaning. Before ending the message with the standard song lyrics, he told Kay that he would write her a letter as soon as he could. His final task was choosing song lyrics, and Jay knew of the perfect song to send, however, he couldn't decide on any single verse of the song. In the end, Jay included the entire song and sent it to Kay.

© Copyright 1998 William Fung

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