Snail Mail
Artwork by Alice Reid
My quiet suburban street feels like a highway. A narrow, two-way road speckled with glass and bits of cars from fast drivers’ failed passes. There is always construction. The sounds of hammers and drills blend with bird songs, trampolines and barking. Between the street and my house is a red brick fence that glows in the afternoon sun. Slender silver trails wind up and over the recessed mortar, traversing cracks and weeds. The webs of glittery tracks merge at the base of the chipped metal flap and disappear into the hollow chamber. The place where the outside world tries to reach me.
I'm afraid to open the flap. The faint sigh of its hinges reveals hordes of pale glistening bodies gathered in rippling silence. The highway is muffled in their dim rust-scented penthouse. They lie on beds of shredded flyers and rain-damp paper, soft with mildew and sweet rot. Twin stalks peer through the metal slot at passing joggers, paired lovers, new mothers and fluffy dogs.
I'm not sure when they first occupied this residence. Are they organised? Do they have a sense of time? Are they routinely struck by incoming mail, or have they learnt to part on cue, taking an orderly position along the perimeter? They indiscriminately gorge themselves on feasts of ink. On faces of lords, saviours and local political candidates. On emblems of authority, wedding invitations and parking fines.
Every other day, like a medieval knight armed with a pair of tongs, I cower at the margins of my letterbox. I grow sick of flinging holey, illegible letters onto the grass to inspect their importance. I buy a box of poison. Before I can use it, we have a week of dry heat. Weeds lap and drag at the red brick fence as they crisp and curl. When I open the flap, I find fresh letters and some dry, empty shells. I’m glad to receive a full letter, although it could have been an email. I think how they must have suffered in the unwavering heat.
As the air cools and dampens again, the box of poison collects dust on a shelf in my laundry. A pair of tongs lives on my front porch. Snails live in my letterbox.
