Regina Saxony

Every Tuesday before work she goes to the post office to receive her stack of letters from Ilya. There’s something about the twine that snares the cheap paper altogether that kindles a benevolent warmth inside of her despite the desolation of the past three weeks.

“Good morning, gaspazha,” her bell like voice rattles off of the brass post boxes in some kind of clanging symphony. The woman knew her name, knew what she was here for, and with a certain frown on her face, the wrinkled hand places the cheap cardstock envelopes on the counter. “Any news from the fronts?” Regina attempts to make a conversation.

“The same as it usually is,” The woman sighs. It’s a dire ending, and that’s a harrowing certainty as the Axis powers chip away at their home. People are dying left and right, and if not from bullets and bayonets, from the lack of bread and the sheer mutiny. Everything in society is fractured, leaving nothing but the telltale sign of a billion little pieces glittering behind in that red snow, that red concrete, the red that soaks the unknown hands (for Regina doesn’t know or have the authority to blame one or the other.)

There’s a thick letter at the top of the stack, one with a thick wax seal. “Is the Christmas mail better than it was last year?” Regina emptily questions.

“Things aren’t going to get better,” The woman bites. Regina takes her letters and leaves, studying the intricate seal that strangely facilitated the Russian Eagle. The woman was right in many ways with her pessimistic foreboding.

And with Regina’s heart racing, she perches on a curb and rips open the seal to frantically read the contents of the letter.

It isn’t getting better.