Post-Scripts I Delete When I Email You to Tell You I Found Your Novelty Nicolas Cage Sock Behind the Dryer

P.S. I put it on. Nicolas Cage’s face stretches in a funny way when you’re actually wearing it, especially his forehead since that’s where the foot is the widest. I think he looks kind of like that big-brained cartoon character—Megamind? Hey Arnold? I’m not sure which. We never discussed this. I wonder what you’d think.

P.S. I washed the sock after I found it. It was covered in lint.

P.S. I also found a beetle today, the kind with the green back that looks kind of like metal. I don’t know what it’s called. I figured you would.

P.S. Did you ever notice the way the sink leaks when the washing machine is running? I didn’t, until recently. I hired a TaskRabbit to help me fix it. His name was Ed and he had a ponytail that went down to the middle of his back. He was also a minister of some sort. When he was done, he gave me his card and asked me if I had given any thought to God. I told him to ask again when God gave any thought to me.

That’s really the kind of shit I think about these days—I’m like the opposite of one of those inspirational-quote books rich people put on little stools next to their toilets. I say this with love, but I blame you.

P.S. Isn’t it funny that I wrote and deleted and re-wrote this email so many times, as if it even matters? Isn’t it weird that I write these emails at all? I could send random jumbles of letters, like, “AAAAAAAA” or “HEIGHWRGJKHF,” if I wanted to, and everything would be the same as it would if I sent nothing. I guess part of me thinks that maybe there’s a way you’re seeing them. If you are, can you let me know somehow? When my grandpa died, my mom used to tell me to look for signs that he was still with us, but I never saw any. I was fourteen then so maybe I just missed them. I’m trying not to miss yours.

P.S. I always thought the socks were ridiculous, but I didn’t hide this one on purpose, or anything like that. I really don’t know how it got behind the dryer. I know you always used to wonder—just a little bit—if I hid it, even though you never actually asked. 

P.S. I’m going to put the sock in the box I keep with your other things. Maybe I’ll look through it in a few months or years and be like, “Why did I put that in there?” But I like to think it’s making the box more interesting. Like how you used to press wilted flowers between the books on the bookshelf when they fell off the little rosebush I kept on our porch. (The rosebush is doing fine, by the way.)

P.S. I know you loved Adaption, but for the record, my favorite Nicolas Cage movie has always been National Treasure. 

P.S. I actually don’t even like Nicolas Cage that much. I’m sorry.

P.S. Do you remember when we used to watch that show, 1000 Ways to Die? I always thought the worst way to go was in a vat of acid, and you thought it was leeches. Now, I know that the worst way to go is second. Remember how I used to make you promise that when we got old, you’d let me be first?

P.S. I know this sounds harsh, but fuck you for being first.

P.S. Where did you even get these socks? I can’t remember anymore. I wish I did. I think it would be a funny story. Like the one you used to tell at your friends’ dinner parties about how you bought a pair of hamburger earmuffs from the clearance rack at a beachside souvenir store in the middle of May. “Only you would do that,” I’d say, chuckling and shaking my head. You would be warm next to me. The whole world, back then, felt a little more warm. 

Kyra Kondis is an MFA candidate in fiction at George Mason University, where she is at work on a short story collection and is the editor-in-chief of So to Speak Journal. Her flash can be found in Pithead Chapel, the Atticus Review, the Wigleaf Top 50 of 2020, and Best Microfiction 2020.