Disclaimer: I don't own anything
In the bright morning light, a mailman stopped to catch his breath on the sidewalk. The man was half hidden in a shadow cast by the stump of a tree. It had only been half cut down because the owner had remembered that axes were out and had hastily left, leaving an eerie stump. He whistled quietly to himself and delved into his satchel for another wad of letters.
A bill for a Mrs Jessen... The Latest In Catalogue for a Mr Sampson...
He returned them to his bag. A white envelope caught his eye. He took it out, glanced at the address and sighed.
'What a waste' thought the mailman shaking his head sadly.
The Baudelaire family had always had their mail delivered by the same mailman and over the years had grown to know the family . How he had enjoyed seeing the look on young Klaus' face when a new book had arrived. And the amazed grin from Violet when he had given her the blueprint for the mail sorting machine...He exhaled and looked to where the door would have been.
Thump...scrape...creek
'a fence possibly? Somebody using a wheelbarrow having discovered they were "in" merely thirty seconds before?'
The man peered down the street. No wheelbarrows.
He turned round. Nothing could've prepared him for what he was about to see. There, in the spot he had looked mournfully at only a few minutes ago stood three children! Three children that he had known, that were supposedly dead according to the news papers. They died in a fire and now they were stood there! Covered in ash!
"Excuse me," the eldest Baudelaire called "We need to get to Veblen Hall. It's an emergency. Could you tell us where it is?"
(Its pretty good luck that the man was a mailman, and therefore had a good idea where most places were.)
"Ju-just two blo-blocks that way" the mail man stuttered. His whole body turned to jelly and his eyes were wide. He gestured with a shaking finger in the vague direction of "two blocks that way"
"We're not going to hurt you"
'THEY'R TALKING TO ME' thought the mail man ' WHY ARE THEY TALKING TO ME?'
"Ghosts always say that, but then they hurt you anyway" he stammered, heart racing.
"But we're not ghosts," Violet said
'aaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh ' thought the mail man. ' Those poor unsuspecting children are caught in a realm between this world and the next! Those poor poor children'
"Don't tell me you're not ghosts. I saw you rise out of the ashes myself, as if you had come up from the center of the earth. People have always said it's haunted here on the empty lot where the Baudelaire mansion burned down, and now I know it true."
' Oh those poor children, if I wasn't so terrified at them being dead I'd help you' thought the mailman 'but now Im just '
And with that last thought in mind, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him and sped off into the distance, leaving a trail of auction leaflets behind him.
Hahahaha not quite sure the point of that...but please R/R
