No Cash, Only Letters by Bogdan Dragos

Image Source: Canva Pro

“Got me a little crowbar

and one of

them ol’ school

ski masks,” she said. “And just

before it was

about to go

down, my

pathetic-ass boyfriend

punked out of it.

I lost all my respect for

the guy on that

evening.

I still love him, yeah. But I

no longer respect

him.

It really is a big, big, huge

difference there, you

see?

Such display of weakness

is unforgivable.

So I refused to go down

with it. I refused to

punk out like he did, and followed

along with the plan

by myself.

I went ahead, put on the ski mask

and grabbed the

trusty crowbar and cornered

the mailman in

the dark alley. See, where I’m

from, the mailman

doesn’t bring only the mail,

he’s also delivering

the pension to old

people. That’s how

it goes. So I figured he’s

gotta have quite the

cash on him.

I gave a few good swings at

his head, yeah,

but still I could tell that

his screams were fake. He

dropped down

and played dead like a fucking

coward. Lost all my

respect for him

as well. I wanted to fuckin’

bash his face in, unhinge his

jaw or something. But

the bag was too

exposed. So fat and so

full. I grabbed it

and ran.

But, after I got back to my

place… well, what do you know, there

were only letters in it. No

cash. Not one fucking bill.

Letters only.

Yeah, I was pissed.

So pissed that I went to the

fridge, got me a cold

can of beer,

opened it

and sat back on the couch

opening letters for

the rest of the night.

I had the TV on in

the background, on the local news, just

to see if something was

said about the unhappy

incident.

Welp, there was nothing.

And the letters… I read some

of them. Those that weren’t

written by hand. I can’t read

that shit. I read the

ones that were typed

and… Well, I discovered that the

world is quite the

pathetic place to live in. It’s

the people that make

it so.

They’re all crazier than I am.

Those people

who write I mean…”

-BOGDAN DRAGOS

Bogdan Dragos supervises casinos for a gambling company, working twelve-hour shifts locked in a dark office full of TV monitors. There he mostly daydreams and writes poems and stories. He also manages a poetry blog Daydreaming as a profession.

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