“So weird,” I said to myself as they tumbled onto the bedspread like kindergarten paper snowflakes. “So random.” But still I was touched by the gesture, even if it was starting to look like none of the napkins were really clean.

“Gross,” I grabbed one with edges were stained in watered-down pasta sauce. Today’s dinner had been a mass-produced version of spaghetti in a can. I had eaten my own ration sitting on a stool by the sink. I was about to throw the napkin into the toilet when something caught my eye. A pattern. No, a letter. The letter e. I pulled the napkin open, the centerfold offering some resistance as the sauce had dried and held.

James King from Birchbark Island. 7 y.o. 5 years ago. Dad is okay. Love you. Stay with your mom.

Suddenly, the napkin was heavy, too heavy to hold in one hand. I walked it carefully back over to the bed and laid it down. What was this?

I picked up the next one and opened it.

Shelly A., Hilly Narrows. Tell my sisters to hide, keep running!

Oh god.

I opened them all in a flurry, reading as fast as I could, though the script was often wobbly or soaking into the paper or misspelled in the dark.

I have to get out. Help me. I am forgetting the words. I forget my children’s faces.

They’re changing the game. Tell the leaders to burrow. Tell them to take up arms. It’s the only way.

To Bella Dawn from Rainfall River: DON’T COME FOR ME. Stay safe. XO, Mom.

They weren’t gifts. They were bombs, and they threatened to blast me to pieces. I backed away from them, both hands over my mouth, until my shoulders hit the wall. So much hope. So much pain. And now it was documented and spread out on my bed. Maybe they weren’t written on paper or signed with a flourish. They didn’t come in envelopes or have stamps affixed to the corners. But they were letters, and I had been assigned the role of postman.

I didn’t want them. I didn’t want the responsibility. I didn’t want to actually hear their voices any more than a just quick word pushed through a locked door. Because really hearing them meant I had to do something.

I ran to the bed and gathered up the missives in my arms. I had to get rid of them. There could be no evidence. I went back to the toilet, only to pause again.

What would I say tomorrow and the day after and the day after that? That I’d flushed them away? That I couldn’t do anything for them? Here I was, thanking them for their gifts like I was some Good Samaritan, but for doing what? For saying their names? Telling them it was fucking sunny outside? They didn’t need my shallow platitudes. And really, I was taking no great risk. What they needed was action. They needed me to do something real. I burned with shame. I had actually felt smug, like I was some kind of savior handing over shitty spaghetti and a few words to people who were dying in the dark.