Split House

Everyone called Elloise mad when she insisted on taking half of everything during her divorce from her husband Earl. Half of everything isn't uncommon, half the money, half the possessions, and in these respects, she was reasonable. She took half the books, half the dishes. She took one of their two dogs. With singular items, however, her madness showed. They had only one house, and she wanted half of it. Earl proposed they sell the house and split the proceeds, but Elloise was not satisfied. She wanted half the house. He protested, but she ignored him and took a chainsaw to the walls. In the end, she had half a house. She was crazy, they would say, certifiably nuts. Then one day, she met a divorced man named Ray who also owned half a house. They talked, they fell madly in love, and with a little carpentry, they were able to make a new house out of their two literal broken homes. The neighbors agreed, theirs was a relationship of pure insanity, but all relationships and all people have their insanity, and as Elloise and Ray would say, love is finding the crazy that matches your own. 

Originally mailed to J. Dunn from d'Iberville, Mississippi

Zombie Training

“Be ready, son,” my father would always tell me, growing up. “The zombie apocalypse could happen at any time.”

All fathers have their obsessions. Sports. Model trains. Grilling. His was zombies. At bed time, he would tell me stories of people planning and surviving, or not planning and dying, stories of people keeping a level head and surviving and people panicking and dying. Every night, he would give me the adventures of Goofus and Gallant: Undead Nightmare edition. While other boys' dads taught them to catch a ball, mine taught me to make a headshot from fifty yards with a pull string, compound, composite, and cross bow. He taught me wilderness survival and took me camping the way many fathers in rural areas did, but the advice was different. Sleep in a tree so Zed can't get you. Walk in the stream so Zed can smell you. Don't use guns unless you have to. Guns are loud, and will attract Zed.

At seven, just in case, he gave me an air pistol and would randomly stick targets in unexpected places to keep me on my toes, and at ten, he gave me a real pistol, taught me to shoot just in case (a bow simply will not do you any good within striking distance). I learned to strip and clean my gun blind, learned to make my own ammo. My friends called him weird. So did I when I hit my teens.

But to this day, every time I step outside the cabin and put an arrow through one of their heads before I even consciously realize one was shambling toward me, I say a little prayer of thanks for everything he taught me.

- Originally mailed to P. Walker in Diamondhead, Mississippi

The Heart of a Tomato

When I was five years old, my brother used to tell me that plants have souls and feelings just like people do. I didn't believe him at first, because how can you? A plant doesn't talk.

“Does too,” he would say. “When you hear the wind whistle through the trees, that's not the wind, it's the trees.”

Plants can't move.

“Have you ever seen grass sway? Trees rocking back and forth?”

Plants can't cry. How can they be sad if they can't cry?

“You've seen sap, haven't you?”

How do you argue against that when you're five? He had an answer for everything. He even told me about plants that grab flies and plants that will move to face the sun. When I asked mom about it, she patted my head and reassured me he was only teasing me, and that grass was not sad when I walked on it because it did not, in fact, have any feelings at all. I asked her about the fly eating plants and she said they were real. I asked her about the sun chasers and she said they were real too. I asked her about how the trees howled during storms and rocked back and forth, reminding her that I howled and rocked back and forth during bad storms too.

“That's just the wind,” she said dismissively as she added beans to a simmering pot.

I asked her about tree sap, and she confessed she didn't know what purpose it served. That was how I knew my brother was right. He had answers to all of my questions, which meant he knew more than my mom.

“He's making stuff up,” she told me. “That's what brothers do. If he doesn't know the real answer, he lies so you'll think he's smart.”

I almost believed her, too, until I saw her cut a tomato in two to add to the pot. I had seen the heart of the tomato and knew my brother was right after all.

- Originally mailed to P. and D. Goff in Madison, Mississippi

The Forest and the River

The forest and the river got into a bit of a feud one day. A few trees had grown into the river and the river felt quite put upon, and rightly so. A river changes its boundaries very slowly, but forests spread much faster at a consistent rate of regular slowly.

“But river,” said the forest, “every few years you overstep your bounds and enter me. What say you to that?”

“It is only a temporary visit, and only when my relatives from up north come to visit,” the river said. “Besides, you grow richer and stronger every time I do, so where can the harm be?”

The forest considered this and said, “But river, without your visits, I would never have been able to grow so big and so far. It is you who allows me to enter your banks.”

Now it was the river's turn to consider what the forest had said. The forest was correct, he realized. Sure his visits to the forest were not long at all and the trees would be in the river longer, but the river visited the forest often and the forest visited the river only rarely. Besides, the roots made homes for the fish, which made the river more beautiful, and who could object to that? From then on, the river was more forgiving of the few trees who overstepped the banks, and the forest was more forgiving when the river came to visit, for they were always both the better for it.

- Originally mailed to P. Walker of Diamondhead, Mississippi

Nonviolent Kidnappers

Jillian Wabash was kidnapped and held for ransom in 1996 by a sect of pacifist Buddhist monks. The monks, who had seen a great many ransoms in movies, knew they had to send some part of their hostage to prove to her parents that they were serious. Unfortunately, being non-violent by nature, the Buddhists could only bring themselves to cut off the child's hair. When her parents received the package containing a lock of hair and a note made of letters cut from magazines which read

“Dear sir and madam, we have your daughter and are taking excellent care of her, ensuring she receives three healthy meals a day, a warm bed, plenty of exercise, and proper education while she is in our custody. If we receive three million dollars in unmarked bills, we promise we will not harm another hair on her head. We apologize for the hairs we have already harmed, but we wish to assure you they will grow back and that for the time being, we have shaped her hair into a fashion that is stylish and esteem raising while still allowing her to learn that style is but wind, full of force but no substance and the esteem of others is but an illusionary boulder on the path to enlightenment. You may leave the money behind the dumpster at McDonalds on Washington Avenue.”

The Wabash family, after careful consideration, determined the monks would probably be able to do a better job raising their daughter than they could, and so for the next ten years, they politely replied to each new delivery of a lock of hair, “Thank you, but we do not have the money at this time. We appreciate you looking after our child in the meantime.”

- Originally mailed to T. Danley in New Orleans, Louisiana