Who?

She dropped the envelope to the table. Her hands were shaking too much to open it anyway.

She walked to the window, staring out blindly. She remembered the anthrax scare of a few years ago, death coming in seemingly innocent letters. She shrugged that off; she hadn't heard of anything like that happening recently, and of all the people she had angered in the past, she certainly couldn't remember a disgruntled scientist. Unhappy former lovers? More of a possibility. Could it be the one she had seduced away from her college roommate, brushed off after graduation? Could it be the one who had abandoned his wife for her, only to be discarded for a younger man? Certainly not the poet she had left for the investment banker; disappointed he was, but gentle he remained.

There was only one thing left to do. Open the damned thing.

The Beginning

As she mindlessly went through her mail after an exhausting day, suddenly her thoughts became laser focused as this mysterious envelope sat atop the pile. Thought bubbles above her head dregged up her past like lightening. Life had moved on. But she was mystified by this envelope with no return address. Further, the postage cancellation mark was not fully stamped so there was no way to tell where this came from. Her thoughts raced...could it be from someone from the past? A secret admirer? A fortune left to her? At once, fear, panic and intrigue raced through her as her hands began to shake.

The Beginning

It began with the most mundane of tasks - sorting the mail. She shuffled through it: bill, bill, catalog, and then a white envelope. It had her name and address, printed as though from a computer. Nothing really unusual there, but there was no return address on the front. She flipped it over. Blank on the reverse, too. She was about to open it, when her hands paused.