Failed delivery

I’m fascinated by our mailman. His laid back drawl reminds me of Hank the Cowdog and it’s impossible not to picture him loping across the high plains. He drops bon mots on you that seem childishly simple at first and then cut your heart as you lay awake at night.

Yep, that’s right, you heard me right, cut your heart in the middle of night. Now that he has stolen your heart, your whole body comes right apart. Or at least that’s what happened last Christmas. Being the mailman that he was, he gave it away the very next day. Now I’m confused.

It’s a cold city where life is cheap, and I’ve seen a lot of dirty dealing in my time. But that is the one case that haunts me to this day. The heart cut right out, wrapped in pretty paper, and mailed as a gift. No suspects, no leads, no clues.

Quite a shame, it would have made for a perfect Valentine’s gift. To give someone your heart, literally! Now that’s a million dollar idea, assuming a human heart sells for that much on the black market. But I digress — where did this neatly wrapped human heart come from?

I checked the label: Zayre! There hadn't been a Zayre open in the area since 1988. How old was this human heart? I went to the library & crawled through their catalog of catalogs. Sears...Value City...Woolco...finally, Zayre. I flipped through its pages until I got to the organs.

To my surprise, the relevant pages had been ripped out. Given how rarely a book like this is checked out, I figured it happened long ago… probably when Zayre was still a thing. Just my luck. Now I’ll never know.