POSTCARD FROM NEW YORK

Short story below came from a trip to New York a few years ago.  It was a winner of the Fish One Page short story competition again a few years ago.

Woke up this morning to something you never get in this city.

Silence.

Not a car horn, siren, or murmur of voices reaching up to the 14^th floor.

The street below was empty or so I thought. In the flats opposite the hotel folk were also looking down from windows to the street below.

Then I saw what they saw.

A road block of police cars and then a figure like an extra out of a B Movie moving slowly up the street. He or she was dressed in what looked like a deep sea diving suit. He or she walked slowly, very slowly.

I followed his, or hers every slow step until they stopped and I saw it. Directly across from my hotel was a briefcase, an everyday briefcase, sitting upright, and so alone looking, on the sidewalk.

And I was on the 14^th floor with a lift I had already found out never arrived when you wanted it.

I watched.

The deep sea diver with what looked like a metal rod ever so slowly edged open the case (I don’t know how that suit would have protected him) and out flew…paper.  Paper that drifted higher and higher down the street, to God knows where else. 

Minutes later the car horns, sirens, murmur of voices returned and folk streamed, almost bored looking, out of flats and hotels like water released from a dam. 

And I walked down the fourteen flights of stairs and joined them.

Love to the boys.