Each month, I buy a book of twenty stamps. I create twenty post cards. I write twenty short stories about them. I send them to twenty strangers. This is the twenty stamps project.

Request a postcard by sending your snail mail address to sean.arthur.cox@gmail.com or find me on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SeanArthurCox

Monday, October 29, 2012

Where's my story?

"What?" I can hear you saying (Superman loaned me his sense of super hearing for the weekend in exchange for my southwestern meatloaf recipe). "It's Monday! Why don't I have a story?"

Well, dear reader, this is the twenty stamp project, where I write twenty short stories a month and mail them off. You've had your twenty stories already. You'll get a new one on the first of the month.

Meanwhile, let's catch up a bit so I can give you the state of the project.

  1. It's the end of the month, so the October stories have been sent out already. Yay! 
  2. For those following, the blog is three months behind the short stories, so if you received a post card, the story is yours and yours alone to enjoy (plus any friends and family you share it with) and won't appear on here for three months. During October, we read the stories I wrote in July. Come November, we'll be reading the August stories. I haven't written any holiday themed stories yet, but when I do, trust that they will show up on the blog in a wholly untimely manner.
  3. For a while I'd been printing up the photos at Big Box X (not the actual name of the big box store) and I was pretty pleased with the quality. However, BBX has decided maintaining photo printers is for chumps and so it's been down for the past two months. As a result, I've had to print them at Big Box Y, whose printer is in much better shape. It's just a shame the quality is lower. As a result, some pictures have been arriving scratched up and pretty awful. Further, the pictures are darker, so some of the details that helped form the basis of the story don't show up. There's a story you'll see in December about cows in a trailer. You can see the trailer in the photo, but the cows are almost entirely obscured by shadow now. I'll work on finding a new place to print pictures.
  4. Also, inexplicably, the post office has been off their game. My first two months, all stories went out without a hitch. I had six returned (sometimes with no reason given at all). I'm not sure if they hired a new guy and he's none too quick (possible), if my handwriting has gotten worse (also possible), or it somehow has to do with the low quality of the photo prints. I've re-sent them and I think most if not all have made it. If I tell you you have one coming and it doesn't arrive in the month I told you you'd be getting it, let me know.
  5. Which brings us to the new way of doing things. Whatever the cause of these postcards getting returned scuffed and damaged, I'm tired of spending extra postage having to resend them. So I started putting the post cards in envelopes, which feels like it's sort of defeating the purpose of post cards. Still, it gets pictures and stories to you more reliably and it makes things a little better for you. First, the addresses are printed instead of hand-written which makes them more legible and thus more likely to make it to you. Second, because I couldn't find cheap envelopes, I made my own, which lets me print up the story on a sheet of paper to include, which once again makes things easier on you if you can't read my teeny tiny chicken scratch script. Third, because the stamp isn't actually going on the postcard anymore, it left room for me to draw a one panel comic strip where the stamp would go, so hey, added fun.
Anyway, that's what we're looking at. No story tomorrow or Wednesday, but they'll start coming again the first weekday of each month. Hopefully I can get the printer issue resolved and get better quality photos again.

Until then, have fun, happy Halloween, and keep checking the mailbox!

Friday, October 26, 2012

Bartleby, Cattorney



Bartleby Black, Cattourney at Law (his marketer's idea, not his) took all proceedings with the solemnity of a church. It gave him no pleasure to conduct business in conditions such as these, surrounded by pop culture and other common geekery, but he needed to see the alleged forged issue of Detective Comics #27 for himself before he agreed to file suit. “My only condition,” he said, “is that you must handle the comic book yourself. I will not have any accusations that I have somehow tampered with the pages.”

“Besides,” he said. “I have no thumbs.”

- Originally mailed to M. Krell in Horn Lake, Mississippi

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Rival Insurance



Attorneys Jerry Goliday (“Putting the I in Goliday”) and Phyllis Meeks (“Seek Meeks – Inherit the Earth) realized they had stumbled upon a gold mine when rival insurance agencies set up shop on opposite ends of the building. For reasons no one could prove, the rivalry between Martell from Progressive and Helen from All State soon escalated into a full scale war of words, with each attorney comfortably kept on retainer. On a good day, Goliday and Meeks made small fortunes on out of court slander suits, sometimes as many as ten before lunch.

Within five short years, Goliday and Meeks made enough to have their dream wedding in the Bahamas and retire someplace sunny. Helen was sent upstate after shooting Martell for saying some things that were not so progressive.

- Originally mailed to C. Sawyer in Ocean Springs, Mississippi

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Modern Art



Earnesto Rivera felt his abstract sculpture perfectly captured the feeling of the modern world, crafted of cold and unforgiving steel, blue as his depression, but full of curves to symbolize the soft lies we tell each other to convince ourselves that everything is all right. The critics called it bold, daring, a triumphant masterpiece, but the public assumed it was a playground. Earnesto found this strangely appropriate, others innocently delighting in his suffering. Modern Art magazine praised its long winding paths that led nowhere. NouveauSculptr.com sympathized with its endless up and down theme. The children of Woodland Hills mostly preferred the twisty slide.

- Originally mailed to A. Anderson in Portland, Oregon

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Water Tower



The summer had been a hot and dry one, and the local water tower felt pride in finally being able to aid his fair city, to water its lawns and cool its children, to make the grass grow ever green. On the day they were to open his floodgates to the parched world and let him give drink, a meddlesome rainstorm stole his thunder. “A conspiracy!” he cried, but who could argue with the cumulonimbus's alibi? He was from out of town, and the city had all dried up. He assumed if there had been a water tower, it would have been put to use already. The water tower sighed and put on his most patient face. The storm cloud would take the spotlight today, but the tower was no fly by night operation. No, he would always be there for his city, and one day, when the hurricanes came and people cursed the storm, they would turn to him for water pressure and on that day, he would hold his head higher than ever.

- Originally mailed to D. Garner of Biloxi, Mississippi

Monday, October 22, 2012

Talking Salad



Oscar Wilde once said “When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.” For many, this is much hoped for money that is inherited from a lost loved one or a job that creates more problems than it solves. For one vegetarian animal rights activist, the gods had bigger plans. She would pray at night that the savages of the world would understand the suffering their food endured before reaching its plate. In the morning, her soy latte bemoaned the pain of being ground and boiled and her salad lunch cried at the agonies of being ripped from the mother vine and hacked to bits while still fresh and alive. By dinner, her perspective on food had completely changed. She would eat only nuts and fruit that had fallen from the tree, and of course meat she killed herself, the free range cow having had a fair chance to fight back.

- Originally mailed to K. Ballard of Owensborough, Kentucky

Friday, October 19, 2012

Advice Wall




When a man finds himself stuck, he often seeks answers from a power beyond himself. Many pray, but there are other systems of mystical divination. The Chinese had the I Ching. Europeans had the tarot, the Norse their rune casting. Americans had the Magic 8-Ball. Down beneath the Exit 26 overpass just outside of Johnsonville stood the Advice Wall, a large expanse of concrete covered in words and phrases, painted on by kids long forgotten. Teenagers, who find themselves confused and needing guidance more than most, would follow the abandoned railroad tracks to the advice wall with a water balloon in hand, and pose their question to the sagely stone. Then, with their eyes closed, they would lob the balloon at the wall, and where the water hit, there they found guidance. Many swore by it, particularly Mayor Filmont, who as a kid fresh out of high school asked the wall what he should do with his life and was told, “iTs youR towN.”

- Originally mailed to P. Brown of Clovis, New Mexico

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Sun Worshippers


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The Ashti peoples of the southern swamps were the world's only society of nocturnal sun worshipers. They praised the heavenly sphere for all it provided, warmth and light, and knew it was necessary to let the crops grow. They simply never were able to experience it. Every night when the sun sank beyond the horizon, the Ashti feared they had offended their god, and so they would pray together all through the night with only brief breaks for food. The hours were long and hard, but every morning, their devotion would be repaid and the sun would rise. The Ashti were elated that they had been spared, but alas, were so exhausted from a long night of intense prayer, that they would fall asleep soon thereafter, only to wake at dusk to see the sun, thus offended at the way he had been ignored, leaving the world once more.

- Originally mailed to R. Cox of Biloxi, Mississippi

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Blurs



The Blurs put on an amazing show that night, and much to their fans' great pleasure, performed a broad selection of tracks spanning their entire discography. The big hits that topped the charts and the obscure sleeper b-side classics that only the die hards knew the lyrics to, each wove one into another blurring the lines between one piece and the next. It was a celebration of thirty years of music that for three glorious hours flowed like a river, at times peaceful and others powerful but always beautiful to behold. A critic from the times who had never much been a big supporter of The Blurs was forced to admit in his review of the concert the next day that their music was “respectable enough if you like that sort of thing” but was nothing short of impressed with their ability to perform live and out of focus.

- Originally mailed to T. Switzer from Biloxi, Mississippi

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Shriners



No street gang alive could match the Shriners. They had guts beyond measure. They smoked their hash pipes openly and with class and a man bold enough to pull off a fez could do anything. Men quivered at the thought of a Shriner drive-by, dozens of tiny cars cruising down the avenue, each packing a strapped geriatric. When something went down, the Shriners shot first, and when things went south, while other gangs had to rely on back alley surgeons, the Shriners would simply roll into their well-stocked and staffed hospitals, get patched up, and then hit their enemies back while they were still recovering. So when the West Side Vice Lords woke to find Bob Dobbs emblazoned on their door, they know their time ruling the projects had come to an end. This was Shriner territory now.

- Originally mailed to H. Longino of Gulfport, Mississippi

Monday, October 15, 2012

Dubstep Demon



Grimnok was without a doubt the most garish demon to walk the earth in as long as anyone could remember and the whole neon spots and bright red horns had the worst habit of attracting woo girls when he had serious damnation business to be doing. A demon ought to be feared and respected, he would bemoan, not cuddled upon while friends took pictures. They should be groveling at his feet in terror begging for their lives, or at their very least offering up their souls. Oh sure, at first he delighted in their presence, with their cheers for hand grenades and hurricanes and Bloody Mary. He thought them beings of indescribable carnage, but oh how his heart sank when he learned the only thing they intended to punish were their livers. Soon, they would rue the day they thought him a mere “party monster.” But before he could enact his vengeance, he would need to fortify his resolve with at least six more jell-o shots and a few hours dancing to some really rockin' dubstep.

 - Originally mailed to J. Hall of Jackson, Mississippi

Friday, October 12, 2012

End of the World



There was a tree at the edge of the world that never seemed to grow and never seemed to die. It just stretched out into the emptiness beyond, bridging the gap between here and there, earth and sky. It became something of a rite of passage, a ritual for anyone who succeeded where all sense said they shouldn't to visit the tree. With published at long last manuscripts, with game-winning balls, with lovers well out of their league they would come and reflect and sometimes have their pictures taken, and they would shout beyond the cliffs, “You said the world would end before it happened, but here I stand at the end of the world, a success.”

- Originally mailed to C. Merritt of Juneau, Alaska

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Knitted Cthulhu



 Among scholars of the necronomicon, there is a great debate as to the true nature of the great old one Cthulhu. Some said he was a giant from beyond space, capable of devouring worlds. Others claimed he slumbered beneath the seas. There were camps that said he had bulbous yellow eyes the shone like the fires of hell and some said they were like a man's eyes but for the inhuman emptiness behind them and others claimed he had no eyes at all. None disagreed, however, that to look upon him guaranteed a man lose his sanity. On the evening of November the twenty-seventh, 1932, Nicholas Watkins forswore reason and dared to summon Cthulhu that he might say with certainty what the dread god looked like. When he later told his peers that the endless lord was a tiny fellow of knitted blue wool with button eyes and red cap, they knew he had glimpsed Cthulhu, for he had clearly been driven quite mad.

- Originally mailed to J. Witten in Oxford, Mississippi

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Skeletons Wait




Lawrence had a loyalty to his wife Shirley that could never be matched, so when their short trip to the grocer's for low fat, low sodium garden vegetable water crackers took longer than expected, he waited. When she searched the whole cracker aisle and came up empty, he waited. When she asked every employee, every manager, and eventually every customer where to find them, he waited. He waited while she personally checked the entire inventory, and waited when the manager told her there might be some on the truck next Tuesday. He waited through the salmonella scare, the factory strike. He waited through product discontinuations. The company went bankrupt and closed down and still he waited. After seven years, when another cracker company, Whitman's Wafers, created a similar product, his waiting paid off. His wife returned to the car, tried one, and lamented that they were not as good as the old ones and she would have to find a different sort of snack to satiate her craving. His ghost agreed and he waited while she returned for the store for a quick peek around.

- Originally mailed to  H. Ainsworth of Gulfport, Mississippi

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

October Mail Call Update - Good News!

I still have a few post cards left to be claimed, but that's not the best thing. Thanks to the generous donation of a book of international stamps from S. Donohue of Allen Park, Michigan, I can send post card short stories to people in foreign countries!

Wherever you're from, if you'd like a short story and post card to arrive at some point in the future, send me an email (at sean.arthur.cox@gmail.com ) and I'll write an original short story for you absolutely free of charge!

Saturday Night Trooper



They called him the Saturday Night Trooper, the Sequined Sargeant, the Disco Commando. They teased every time they raided a rebel outpost, saying his sparkling helmet would attract blaster fire, that his three piece suit offered no protection. He gave the usual replies, that a blaster clipped right through armor and maybe being lasers, the beam might be deflected by the sequins and glitter. His dancing skills and fancy footwork certainly helped him dodge his share of heavy enemy fire, and no one could argue that his sense of style often put him front and center of any post-battle victory photos. In truth, he didn't mind the friendly ribbing, but when a disco convention on Coruscant saved him from the first Death Star explosion, and suspension without pay for countless uniform violations spared him from the second he found he could no longer stomach the jokes about “Stayin' Alive.”

- Originally sent to B. Nowell from Newport News, Virginia

Monday, October 8, 2012

Ming



Ming loathed his nickname. It was wholly unfair. He wasn't merciless. Yes, from time to time opponents would threaten his power or his life and he would be forced to dispense righteous violent justice upon them. This, he would say, was not a lack of mercy but simply common and reasonable practice. One cannot abide traitors or assassins if one's government is to have any sort of stability. For this they called him merciless? What about the puppies he adopted, or the time he took everyone in the office to lunch at the food court? No one would dare call him merciless now, not if they wanted a brownie with their sandwich and lemonade.

- Originally mailed to B. Bowser in Brandon, Mississippi

Friday, October 5, 2012

Jazz Hands



In 1974, the town of Halstrom commissioned a statue to commemorate the life of Carny Robinson (1918-1972).

Charles “Carny” Robinson, loved music more than life itself, especially the soulful improvisation of sweet hot jazz. Unfortunately, the town in which he lived allowed no music at all. At nights, he would hide in his closet, thick headphones on, and lose himself in melodic bliss, the heavenly mingling of harmonies and syncopation. He fought many bitter battles with the city council to repeal the ban, but could never change their hearts. Even so, he developed a reputation among the townsfolk as “the Music Man,” though none had heard a note in their lives. Curious, but mindful of the law, many would ask him, “What is music like?”

Possessing no eloquence, he let the memory of sound fill his body, arms outstretched in rapture, hands trembling with excitement. “I feel like jazz,” he would reply.

The music ordinance never lifted, but when people had a song in their heart they couldn't sing, they would thrust their arms out, stretch their fingers and shake. 

- Originally mailed to J. Stillman in New York City, New York

Thursday, October 4, 2012

October Mail Call

While I work my way through catching up on the backlog of postcards and stories (I started doing this for my friends on Facebook, but wanted to expand), it's time I put out a call for people who would like to receive a random postcard and short story in the mail some time during the month of October.

Since this is the first mail call I've made on the new blog, I'll run you down the procedure.

  1. Decide you want to receive a random post card with a short story on the back.
  2. E-mail your name and snail mail address to me. It doesn't have to be your personal residence. A P.O. Box or your friend's house is fine. It does have to be an address I can send a post card to using only one USPS first class stamp.
  3. Wait for your post card.
It does get slightly more complicated than that, but not much. That's all you have to do, though. Each month, I'll take the first fifteen requests from people who have not received one in the past in the order that I receive snail mail addresses. First come, first served. The last five post cards will go to random past recipients. Why? Because getting personal mail when you expect it is fun. Getting it when you don't is even better.

Got it? Great! Now, let's get some post cards into mail boxes!

Closets




Miranda Tully didn't believe in closets. Oh, she knew they existed, but disagreed with them on principle. Too many connotations of secrets and shames long hidden. Skeletons in the closet, closet alcoholics. She wouldn't abide a closet's use in her home. Instead, she would pile and stack things in front of them, which she realized hid the place where shame hid. The closet became her secret, for to even have them suggested she encouraged such deceptions.

“Oh,” her friends would say. “I never realized there was a door back there.”

And Miranda would blush for shame.

- Originally mailed to L. Sims of Hattiesburg, MS

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Fake Cat



The creature did its best to impersonate a cat. Its fur was a perfectly thick glossy black and its ears had the proper points. It pretended to enjoy activities like batting at things and snuggling with carpeted pillars. Its disguise wasn't perfect, though. It had no tail, its eyes lacked the proper slits, and it misunderstood that cats claw at things for the sake of clawing, and not to prepare a thing for eating. Still its disguise was good enough to keep him undetected on the planet for many months, in which time he learned that though mankind seemed eager to serve him, any being which could not tell the difference between a real cat and a lousy fake would make for terrible slaves.

- Originally mailed to S. Gill of Ocean Springs, Mississippi

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Bartender



To say Bartholomew Higgans was a bartender ahead of his time would be something of an inaccuracy. He was a bartender who wanted to be ahead of his time and for a brief time was in a very literal sense. Bartholomew, determined to be the greatest bartender in the world, borrowed a time machine from one of the many wild west aficionados from the twenty-third century, and sought about seeking a comprehensive collection of all the greatest cocktail recipes of the past, present, and future. Alas, for when Bartholomew, who found his book, returned to 1876, he discovered that though he had the secrets to alcoholic perfection within his fingers, he could still only get his hands on the cheapest rotgut whiskeys. Thus, instead of being an innovator, he relegated himself to fulfilling the the role of prophet of the highball.

- Originally sent to A. Navoy in Jackson, MS

Jetpack


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There were those who teased when Lela Jenkins swore she would never ride in another stinking crowded elevator again. Their laughter turned to jeers when she said she would create a jetpack to avoid long walks up steep stairs. For weeks she toiled, adjusting the fuel lines, calibrating thrust, aligning it to local and federal aviation law, and finding an outfit to match its brass and bronze design. At long last, she had perfected the pack and arrived to work one overcast September morning, ready to put her co-workers in their place and take to the skies in triumphant style. The pack worked spectacularly, and the jeers had turned to wild cheering. She cut loops and carved a clean spiral around the towering office building. The day should have been a smashing success, and if it were only a matter of science, it would have been. Her plan was flawless in its execution but for one tiny detail. There were no external doors on the twenty-third floor.


- Originally sent to M. Bennett of Plano, Texas