◵
I swoosh through the air in triple time, parceling my juggles, and just in the nicker of time I make it to the doorstep! I am an express pony for certain and all, and I always go through with the mail.
As I am about to knock on the door of the boutique, it opens with a suddenness! and back I go with a flutter of letters and scurry of feathers, to land pinch upon my tail! Out dashes the Boutique’s beauteous proprietress, who turns to me with concern. “Oh dear, are you okay?”
I nod and swirl around me, taking stock of my flock as I wind a whirl and updraft all the drafts and bills and billets-doux and little boxes, and stack the parcels all wry upon the mat before her.
“Perfect!” she cries, snatching up a garment-box. “Just the thing I’ve been waiting for!” She turns to carry it inside the door.
“There’s also this,” I say, reaching out with a little envelope, torn and blotted in spots, and shaky scrawls inside and out. Her brilliant eyes narrow as I hoof it over. “I’m sorry for the condition, but it looked like that when we received it.”
“Oh?” She gives me a friendly look. “Oh, no, don’t worry about it. It’s nothing very important anyway. Thank you very much, and have a pleasant afternoon!” She tosses the battered letter into a small wastebasket, takes the garment box inside, and shuts the door with a certain finality.
I set off upon my rounds again as the rain starts to fall from the mostly cloudless sky.
◷
Overhead, out of the vision of most, my other orb espies a small cloud over the boutique, and peeking over the edge a curious blue nose. I cannot as some do call her the ArDee because to me it means Rural Delivery.
The Wander-Bold looks as if she wants to fly around the world while she waits. She stares down, tapping a hoof as I zip into my landing just on schedule, just to meet the opening door of the anxious shopowner seeking to check on her mail, and over I go onto my keister!
Above, Dash plants a face in hoof as I rearrange my cargo to best presentation, but looks sharply again as her Uniquity emerges and sweeps up the box. The cloudwatcher is on tenderhoofs, almost ready to leap down and intervene.
As she tenses, I reach to my letterstack and pull out that one envelope to present to its rarecipient. The dashsender above is perfectly still. She must have poured so much hope into that little creasy fold of paper, with its scritches and erasings, addressed with shaking scrawls as if the inscriber were wracked with heartsobs.
As those words are said and the missive is ditched I see the shock in her eyes, the discomprehension, the blinking back, how those eyes are growing wetter...
She can't stay here but no place else is worth going in the entire miserable world.
But then she flies off, leaving a few drops below her like the hints of oncoming rain.
The first draft of this story originally appeared in the March 2021 Writeoff, where it came in first.
Thanks to MockingBirb for their most helpful formatting advice!