I shut the door to my car with approximately twenty five percent more force than usual. A scoff of air emerges from my body as I remember the way the pink man’s spittle gathered at both corners of his mouth as he uttered in frivolous corporate doublespeak. Due to public outrage, the broken nitro cold brew tap in the break room promises to be repaired by next week’s end. A man of the people.

Considering the statistical probability with which the pink man’s wife may or may not have ever provided him oral stimulation, I move to open the mailbox at the curb. Clutching its bounty, the nagging blister on the back of my heel begins to open back up as my kitten heels limp up the cracked stairs to the apartment. Purrr.

I fish my keys from their worn leather abode, frantically searching for an excuse to flake out on my looming living room workout. The door opens. WD-40 is a thing, you know. I flip through the cornucopia of waste. Jury duty, jury duty, blackmail, pink slip, chain letter, eviction notice. Ugh, people who incessantly quote movies are such a red flag Becky. Coupon newsprint, coupon newsprint, car lease, post card, dog walking, RH catalog. Torn Letter?

The moment it catches my eye, a lid twitches. Out of approximately four hundred and twenty three people I know on a first name basis, which of them could possibly have such poor taste in wedding stationery? I thumb the letter over in my obsessively moisturized palm. No postage, no address, a hastily hand written Rebecca Samuel. God, Lawrence really needs to get a life. Out of all the apartments in all the cities in all the world, he’s got to manage mine. Red flag, right. Half contemplating the stark disintegration of Lawrence’s hygeine in the months since his divorce, I tear open the rough envelope with an index. Manifesting those two thrilling little words. Extension granted. But as I claw my unmanicured fingers into the enclosed, the tips darken. A single, filthy page fills my nostrils with petrichor and gasoline. A handful of words scream at me in Courier.

VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUND.

THE SUN SHALL BE DARKENED.

CAVALRY

19H

7.2.25

Tucked at the bottom of the page, as plainly as on Lawrence’s rent check thirty two days ago, is my signature. A familiar flood of cortisol inflames my spine. But for the first time, my nervous system has reacted with appropriate intensity. My brain pressurizes and I read the words fourteen more times before a new thought can enter.