The wind howled outside the window, a long wailing.
Some called it the Scream of the Banshee.
When you heard her voice…
Well, it’s best we not talk about it, eh?
Inside, a young couple were going about their business, one looking at websites, the other slaying monsters on the big screen tellie, videogame controller slashing the air.
They only had five business days to replace the curbside mailbox or the Homeowners Association was going to mark them with their first demerit.
Demerits meant fewer privileges — blackout dates for prime golf tee times and tennis lessons — a punishment no neighbour dared mention when arriving at the clubhouse hours after others had already hit the course or taken a shower following a morning of backhands and double sets.
She read the suburban covenant again. No mention of what the curbside mailbox should look like.
Only “height from ground to mailbox opening” and “distance from the curb to mailbox post.”
She surfed the Web for a while, checking her social media status, making sure she was getting plenty of views of her recent tea party in the backyard and her husband’s “BBQ with the Boys” night.
As co-owners of a fish-and-chips franchise, their status amongst their peers was more important than anything, they supposed.
After a couple of hours reading friends’ daily updates and digesting the news, she returned to the task at hand, randomly selecting, from the list the search engine had given her, a website selling mailboxes…
treetrunkdings 