At the Lakeside Postal Outlet

“You can barely see the hole.”

“You can barely see the fence.”

“When was it built?”

“So long ago. I …”

“…can’t remember, eh? And can’t remember why.”

“Well, I…”

“Or why the hole.”

“I’ll love you till I die, Candace. But I can’t tell you all you want to know.”

They were in the parking lot between the postal outlet and the lake. Raffy had the packages and Candace the letters. Candace had noticed the fence and the hole as Raffy stood from dropping and picking up one of the packages. The packages were heavy, other cars were coming in the lot, and Raffy was sweating and impatient to be off on other errands.

“Let’s go on in,” he said. “There’ll be a line.”

Raffy found the smell of the lot’s hot asphalt a further irritation, while the mystery of the fence intrigued his wife.

“You’ve lived here all your life,” she said. “And someone thought there had to be a fence. And therefore a hole, thought someone else. ‘Don’t come in.’ ‘Can’t stay out.’ And so it goes. Meanwhile the reasons erode and the greenery grows and no one remembers a thing.”

Meanwhile Raffy noticed he had locked the keys inside the car. That changed the whole day and their whole lives. Incompatibility was the reason given for their subsequent divorce. And then the time came when neither remembered the reason, or the fence or the hole.

30 July 2026
Texas Jim
Halifax, Nova Scotia