He woke up in a strange bed which meant he was in a hotel away on business because he missed his own bed. More importantly he missed who was in his bed. She was a Goddess with her beauty like no other on this small blue planet. She would always just hush him when he said that and insist she was a norman woman who beauty was just above average. She would say she is no Goddess. Well that is how she felt to him but he would go ok above average beauty and smile at her. When he woke up in a strange bed he knew he could not glimpse her beauty in the morning light. This feeling of longing made him pick up a postcard from the gift shop and write a quick cheesy note but he realized he was almost late for a meeting with the new clients. He got the front desk to call up a cab and asked for a stamp but they didn’t have any so he would have to get one.
He met the clients and gave them a presentation on his laptop and bought them lunch at a fancy restaurant that he hated because it was never filling. The clients decided to sign up and were happy to be taken out to a fancy restaurant. He sent a couple emails on his phone and his day was done with work. That was why he loved his job some days because he could pick his dinners which were going to be good. He felt his pockets and realized he needed a stamp. He asked the head waiter where he could by the nearest stamp. She said wait I have one left from sending out invoices. I will save you a trip. He tipped her a 5 for the kindness. There is a postal box across the street if you want it out today. He said thank you and crossed the busy street carefully. He put the postcard in the box and doubled the check to make sure it fell in.
He used his app and called up a car to the restaurant and left to find some intel on a local greasy spoon with good pie. The driver knew just the right place called Smitty’s diner had been there 50 years. He couldn’t wait til dinner that night. He wanted some damn pie with ice cream. He went back to the hotel to do some paperwork and take a swim. He was going to be hungry that night for Smitty’s diner. He still missed her and thought about how good she looked in her swimsuit on the beach. He didn’t know why he missed her so much because he would be home at the end of the week. He just had butterflies in his stomach. He took his shower after the swim. He got dressed and called up a driver on his app and put the address in for Smittys. He had an open face sandwich with turkey and gravy with fries on the side. He liked dipping his fries into the gravy. That would make her laugh when they would eat out. She said he would drink gravy if it was on the desert menu. He got some peach pie ala mode. It was so good and he left the diner and looked up at the sky which looked dark and scary. Then he heard a screech but felt nothing. For an instant he thought of her before darkness. The driver didn’t see him.
She got the news in a call by a police officer from another city and his words hit like thunder in a silent place that had never heard any sound. She could not hear anything he said and she collapsed on the ground and earth felt as if it rumbled below her and she cried a river and until some of her friends found her on the ground in the kitchen and they picked her up and put her to bed like she was a small child. Her friend who was a nurse made her drink some yellow fluid and cleaned her face off. She tried to pull herself together but it still felt like emptiness in a barren landscape. She did all the things you have to do after death and she made it through the funeral because she couldn’t feel anything. She stayed in and would not leave the house.
This is how the rest of her life was going to feel like with just shadows of memories and no connection. She felt bad but also the world seemed to feel the effects of natural disasters happening around the world. Weird things happened all around the world. It reflected her mood and she took no notice but upheaval was happening around her like a mirror reflecting her despair. Her world fell apart and so did the rest of the world. Volcanoes were erupting around the world as if to relieve the pressure but she was too far lost to take notice. The world was full of fear and on the verge of collapse.
A postcard is a tiny object and can get stuck so easily in a mailbox and that is where it was stuck on a piece of gum and the post worker never saw it in the back of the box. That is where it was to stay into something that happened to change that. It stayed stuck with one last message for a lonely sad lover. The unfilled mission of that postcard filled the neighbor with even more despair than a city block could handle. The people on that block could feel there was something wrong. Suicides on that block went off 50 percent and no one knew why and it became almost cursed like a legend of olden times when knights rode horses. That is what this world needed a hero to find what the quest is and complete the quest. Nature is a vacuum is what people say but do they really know what that means. It means Nature will find a knight even if they don’t really exist anymore or never really did. A land filled with despair can die or survive on hope. Hope is the real magic that is more important than a magic potion or blessed sword.
A man with many illusions and a medical diagnosis doesn’t seem odd for someone who wakes up with a quest in his brain but this felt different to him. He was a knight Sir Light he would tell passers by in the cursed kingdom. He called his kingdom cursed and he would save it against the Blue Knight who was casting spells to doom the world until he was defeated and the spell would stop cursing the land. That evening he came across the blue knight and ran full force and knocked over the mailbox and broke several ribs. The cops and an ambulance came for him but he was gone. The cops called the post office and a worker came to get the mailbox and see what had to be done to fix it. The postcard was visible to the postal worker because it was on its side. He grabbed it and took it back to the local Post office. It had to be processed by hand because it was sticky but it made its way through the system.
One of her friends checked on her and brought her some pizza and brought her mail. Not that she would notice it but for some reason the post card fell on the floor. She looked down as she was eating pizza and saw his name and handwriting. She picked it up off the floor and read its message. “I miss you my Goddess. She smiled and it felt like the sun had come out in the arctic. I will be home soon but I thought of you this morning and wanted to know I love you. I miss our bed and pizza with you. I will be home soon and I can’t wait to see your Smile.” She wanted to say I am not a Goddess but then she remembered she was a Goddess and the Earth depended on her. This reminded her of the responsibilities of keeping everything together because She was Goddess of the Earth and she had to act like one. It was funny she had forgotten who she was even if she loved a mortal man. She hated that he called her that because it reminded her of the life she tried to ignore for a little happiness. She knew he wouldn’t want her to let everyone down. A slice of happiness is better than no happiness.
Things started to get better on Earth that day and disasters seemed to stop and people could feel a difference even if they didn’t understand but it was getting better.
Amelio's Palace of Stories 