The Queue

‘Next!’ Came the voice. I stared down at the letter in my hands. I was clasping it so tight the paper was beginning to rumple. This was it. My moment. So why couldn’t I move forward to the glass?

It had seemed easy; write the letter, send the letter, move on. Six months, eight unfinished letters, years of anger, sadness and hope, months of talking and talking and talking and it felt more and more like a Herculean challenge. I could not finish a single one. It was too much. I wanted to give it all up, to go hide under my bed, forever.

Somehow, after more talking and more crying, there it was. The Letter. I hardly recognised the author. Who was this calm woman? Who was this woman that was thankful for what she had and no longer obsessed with what she was missing. Who was the woman who found the strength to say goodbye and to not look back? It was my words, my handwriting, my story and my pain. It was the hope that was different and the knowledge that this woman seemed to possess, that separated her from me. She was me though, just a new version. A version that had been there all along?

‘Next!’ Came the call again. I looked up and I could see her, peering out through her glass hatch. She sounded in a hurry. Maybe I should come back later? Maybe I should turn around and walk out and forget this whole thing.

‘Missus, if you’re not sending that letter I’m afraid you’re going to have to step out of the queue.’ Decision time. I moved towards the window. Slowly. Letter still clutched firmly in my hand.

‘I need to send this by registered post.’ I said, the shake in my voice obvious to nobody except me. She gave me a price and slid open the hatch for me to put the letter in. She was impatient. There were four people behind me. She did not have time for my melodrama.

I wanted to look her in the eye and say, ‘You don’t understand what’s happening here. You don’t understand that when I send this, my life will change forever. Everything that has gone before will no longer matter and my future will not be clouded in the fog of what might have been. Please just give me a minute.’ Instead, I slid the letter through the slot and watched as she stuck the stickers on it and gave me my receipt. I stood at the counter, staring through the unbreakable glass at the letter. Was it too late to ask for it back? Probably, unless I wanted to look like even more of a crazy woman.

‘Anything else?’ She asked. Tears filled my eyes.
‘I...’ I wanted to say, be careful, that’s my past, present and future and you’re now in control. I swallowed. ‘Thanks’.

I took a deep breath and walked away. I only looked back once.