A Day In The Life Of A Postage Stamp
By
Terry Forster
The post office had been open late in the evening as it was Friday late opening and customers were becoming less and less.
It was almost 10:pm when the ladies behind the counter closed and locked the door, emptied their days takings from their tills into blue plastic bags and placed their bags into the safe. Once the light went out and the sound of the of the key turning locking the door, and then the short buzzing noise of the security alarm stopped, every thing was silent.
Have you ever sat down on an evening and said to yourself “What a day,”
That's just what I feel like right now.
My name is Ernie I have been fourth from the bottom of the pile in the third row for quite sometime now. I don’t mind being here as its nice and warm I am tucked between two girl stamps Anna below me and Grace above me. We chat for most of the day as there isn’t anything else to do but chat about this and that and we are now really good friends. It's quite warm down here at the bottom of the pile in the third row, one day Grace will be chosen and then me and we will be stuck onto a parcel or a letter that will travel to somewhere n the world.
It was a Wednesday morning around 10:30 when grace shot upward and disappeared through the slot at the top of the stamp box. About an hour later I too went soaring upward and then was pushed through a slot into the open air. It was quite busy outside of my box and rather chilly with people rushing here and there looking in shop windows.
I was bought from a stamp machine outside of the post office. Actually there were six of us purchased together in a little red coloured book, we were all good friends who really stuck together.
We were then stuffed into a dowdy coat pocket and it was horrible. There were bits of old fluff, a half smoked cigarette along with a toffee sweet without its wrapper and us six first class stamps. Poor little corner stamp coughed and spluttered and we all thought he was going to choke.
After a while we were pulled out of the stinking pocket and stuck onto envelopes, I shudder at the memory as I was torn away from my friends and licked by a long slavery tongue, the smell of the tongue was absolutely revolting and I was almost sick to my stomach. I was pushed down hard onto the corner of an envelope and with a heavy thump I was banged hard in my face by a dirty hand. Suddenly everything went blank, the culprit then picked me up and stuffed me back into his smelly pocket again. I was bent over double which sent shivers right up to my perforations.
It seemed like forever as I was bounced up and down as my new owner continued his journey to goodness knows where.
Suddenly he stopped, put his smelly hand into his pocket and pulled the envelope and me out into the fresh air thank goodness. He looked very closely at my face and then without any further ado or thought, pushed me through a slit at the top of a big red box.
It was terribly dark inside this box as I tumbled to the bottom of the box. There were other stamps inside, some were frightened and very quiet, others were whimpering or crying and one stamp was humming a tune. One of the stamps said “We had nothing to worry about” What in the world did he know?
Eventually the door of the red box was opened and a rush of freezing cold air filled the inside of red box causing all of us stamps the shiver. We were all roughly gathered into the hand and were removed from the box and thrown into a large dirty bag and taken to a large building.
There were thousands of us of all shapes and sizes and we were tossed into a rotating bin, tumbled around and around until I was almost sick, once it had stopped we were then sorted into different piles. I found myself cosied up next to a very pretty stamp stuck onto a lavender envelope. She told me she had arrived here on an aeroplane from America and the journey was very exciting for her. Other stamps from numerous nationalities looked on with interest.
Whilst I was talking to the pretty stamp, large hands suddenly scooped us all up and placed us onto a revolving table. It was like being on a waltzer at the fairground it revolved so fast. One by one we were smacked in the face, then we were separated into different piles and coded like a prisoner with black wiggly lines all across the face of the envelope and my face.
As I lay there I just thought to myself “Thank goodness that's over and done with” when I was grabbed and forced into another smelly bag. I was then thrown into the back of a van alongside other bags and then felt the sickly motion of travelling quite a long distance.
Eventually I ended up by being pushed through another small opening is someone’s door and I fell to the floor with a mighty thud.
I was just recovering from my shock of the fall when a very large brown envelope fell on top of me and I was smacked in the face once again..
As I was in the process of recovering a hand picked me up. “Oh! Not another damned bill” an angry voice said.
I now wondered who the heck was Bill and I was to say, quite confused by this time.
I then heard a small voice, it was a young boy and he had a pair of scissors in his hand.
“Oh! My goodness” I cried out, “he's going to mutilate me, cut me into pieces.”
It only took the boy a few seconds to cut me free of the envelope, He was going to re-paste me into a large book that was full of exotic stamps and, each one in its own frame.
My new owner was a small boy with a great big smile on his face. He very carefully trimmed my edges with his scissors, making sure he didn't damage my perforations and then gently pasted me into my new home with a blue frame around me.
The boy turned over the book leaves and I saw different stamps from all over the world, but I was the only first class British stamp in his book.
When he eventually closed the book I heard him say.
“THERE YOU ARE MY BEAUTIES” I do love all of you.”
1,155 Words
By
Terry Forster
The post office had been open late in the evening as it was Friday late opening and customers were becoming less and less.
It was almost 10:pm when the ladies behind the counter closed and locked the door, emptied their days takings from their tills into blue plastic bags and placed their bags into the safe. Once the light went out and the sound of the of the key turning locking the door, and then the short buzzing noise of the security alarm stopped, every thing was silent.
Have you ever sat down on an evening and said to yourself “What a day,”
That's just what I feel like right now.
My name is Ernie I have been fourth from the bottom of the pile in the third row for quite sometime now. I don’t mind being here as its nice and warm I am tucked between two girl stamps Anna below me and Grace above me. We chat for most of the day as there isn’t anything else to do but chat about this and that and we are now really good friends. It's quite warm down here at the bottom of the pile in the third row, one day Grace will be chosen and then me and we will be stuck onto a parcel or a letter that will travel to somewhere n the world.
It was a Wednesday morning around 10:30 when grace shot upward and disappeared through the slot at the top of the stamp box. About an hour later I too went soaring upward and then was pushed through a slot into the open air. It was quite busy outside of my box and rather chilly with people rushing here and there looking in shop windows.
I was bought from a stamp machine outside of the post office. Actually there were six of us purchased together in a little red coloured book, we were all good friends who really stuck together.
We were then stuffed into a dowdy coat pocket and it was horrible. There were bits of old fluff, a half smoked cigarette along with a toffee sweet without its wrapper and us six first class stamps. Poor little corner stamp coughed and spluttered and we all thought he was going to choke.
After a while we were pulled out of the stinking pocket and stuck onto envelopes, I shudder at the memory as I was torn away from my friends and licked by a long slavery tongue, the smell of the tongue was absolutely revolting and I was almost sick to my stomach. I was pushed down hard onto the corner of an envelope and with a heavy thump I was banged hard in my face by a dirty hand. Suddenly everything went blank, the culprit then picked me up and stuffed me back into his smelly pocket again. I was bent over double which sent shivers right up to my perforations.
It seemed like forever as I was bounced up and down as my new owner continued his journey to goodness knows where.
Suddenly he stopped, put his smelly hand into his pocket and pulled the envelope and me out into the fresh air thank goodness. He looked very closely at my face and then without any further ado or thought, pushed me through a slit at the top of a big red box.
It was terribly dark inside this box as I tumbled to the bottom of the box. There were other stamps inside, some were frightened and very quiet, others were whimpering or crying and one stamp was humming a tune. One of the stamps said “We had nothing to worry about” What in the world did he know?
Eventually the door of the red box was opened and a rush of freezing cold air filled the inside of red box causing all of us stamps the shiver. We were all roughly gathered into the hand and were removed from the box and thrown into a large dirty bag and taken to a large building.
There were thousands of us of all shapes and sizes and we were tossed into a rotating bin, tumbled around and around until I was almost sick, once it had stopped we were then sorted into different piles. I found myself cosied up next to a very pretty stamp stuck onto a lavender envelope. She told me she had arrived here on an aeroplane from America and the journey was very exciting for her. Other stamps from numerous nationalities looked on with interest.
Whilst I was talking to the pretty stamp, large hands suddenly scooped us all up and placed us onto a revolving table. It was like being on a waltzer at the fairground it revolved so fast. One by one we were smacked in the face, then we were separated into different piles and coded like a prisoner with black wiggly lines all across the face of the envelope and my face.
As I lay there I just thought to myself “Thank goodness that's over and done with” when I was grabbed and forced into another smelly bag. I was then thrown into the back of a van alongside other bags and then felt the sickly motion of travelling quite a long distance.
Eventually I ended up by being pushed through another small opening is someone’s door and I fell to the floor with a mighty thud.
I was just recovering from my shock of the fall when a very large brown envelope fell on top of me and I was smacked in the face once again..
As I was in the process of recovering a hand picked me up. “Oh! Not another damned bill” an angry voice said.
I now wondered who the heck was Bill and I was to say, quite confused by this time.
I then heard a small voice, it was a young boy and he had a pair of scissors in his hand.
“Oh! My goodness” I cried out, “he's going to mutilate me, cut me into pieces.”
It only took the boy a few seconds to cut me free of the envelope, He was going to re-paste me into a large book that was full of exotic stamps and, each one in its own frame.
My new owner was a small boy with a great big smile on his face. He very carefully trimmed my edges with his scissors, making sure he didn't damage my perforations and then gently pasted me into my new home with a blue frame around me.
The boy turned over the book leaves and I saw different stamps from all over the world, but I was the only first class British stamp in his book.
When he eventually closed the book I heard him say.
“THERE YOU ARE MY BEAUTIES” I do love all of you.”
1,155 Words