Force of nature

“In physics, one of the four fundamental forces that occur in nature and affect the structure of the universe, including gravitation, electromagnetism, strong force, and weak force.” Wikipedia

The first sign that something is wrong arrived in an envelope from a good friend in England. We have been writing to each other for over ten years and as usual I was pleased to see the big envelope with foreign stamps. Inside however I found my own Christmas card sent a month prior decorated with a big question mark and yellow official sticker declaring, “Return to sender, unable to deliver.”

 “When did you move?” was written below it, “why didn’t you tell me? I thought I lost you!!!”

I did not put too much thought into that, it happens, mail gets lost all the time and then found, it is just a small glitch, like snow on August, or a rain storm in the middle of January, bizarre yes, but possible.

The next week a text message from my credit card company flickered on my iphone, “just to let you know that you failed to submit your payment this month and it is overdue, please take care of it immediately, extra fees will be taken from your next bill.”

“What bill? I went back to my pile of unpaid bills, nothing.

In the coming month the stream of returned letters increased slowly but in a steady pace now followed by Facebook entries titled “Help! Did anyone see this person?” and I couldn’t avoid the growing sense of alarm. Hesitantly I picked the phone and dialed the Postmaster in my town.

After a long wait on the line the man answered, a bit short and abrupt, after all being the master of such valuable service that connects people is not a small thing.

This was the same man who two month prior I spoke with personally explaining that I will be spending the winter months away, and following his expertise advice filled a ‘forward my mail’ form.

“Your mail?” he mused over the inquiry for awhile, “let me see,”

Ten more minutes on the empty line and he returned delivering the deadly sentence I was hoping to avoid.

“There was a mistake,” he announced nonchalantly as if it was not my life on the line, “We returned it by mistake instead of forwarding it,” not alarmed by my voice drowned in deep sighs he added “it happens, don’t take it so personally.” And when I still did not say anything still drenched in my tears he added in somewhat softer tone, “Hey, look at it as a force of nature,”

I did, you can’t fight nature or the post office, these forces are bigger than us, all you can do is bend your head and plough on.

I informed my friends and relatives who were happy to find me, and supportive of my misery, the credit card companies not so much.