Hello Stuart,
It’s your ex-gardening-correspondent, here! Just letting you know Elizabeth and I are not dead! When Mrs B. said, “PUT down roots,” we extended ourselves under the ground. Whilst our bodies burnt, our roots survived and, after the salt had washed away, we sprouted as new growth in the woods.
We have resettled in the town of… well I better not say… and “borrowed” new appearances and new lives. I work for a tech company distributing parcels all around the planet – quite a change of direction! Bless my…
My new identity doesn’t have a beard.
I am often tempted to slip in a few free seeds to the parcels we send out. But I resist. That terrible attack by that awful sweary old woman (Hello Iris!) made me appreciate my lot. I am the duplicate of a man who gets to live with the duplicate of the woman he loved. What more could I want?
Elizabeth has persuaded me to stop “taking over humanity.” We will continue our race the old-fashioned way. That’s right! We bought a beehive.
She says to say “HelLO” by the way. She thinks we should leave this planet before humanity destroys it. But I reckon we can wait here for a little while and see what happens.
All the best.
Your green-fingered friend,
“Murdoch”
Editor’s Note: Whilst scanning this postcard for publication, the ink dissolved and floated up from the page in a murmuration of black spores. Luckily, I was wearing my official Bear-Creek-Gazette-branded Hazmat Suit, as I do at all times in this dark and dangerous epoch, and the spores were caught in the suit’s filters.
Using an AI programme, I have since been able to recreate the smell of these spores so that they might be sniffed by a human nose without fear of contagion.
Please contact Bear Creek Gazette if you would like to buy the rights to a digital encoding of the smell of this postcard. You are not buying the digital-sniff itself but the rights to it in the form of a “Non-Fungus-ible Token.”
To “Mr Brimley” I would say this:
If you are reading this “Murdoch”, I do not appreciate the spores and I am mildly annoyed about all the death and destruction. I keep smelling the salty tang and thinking the mythical ghost ocean of 1823 is rising up again but that’s not due for a while yet.
Mostly though, I am vexed that you have abandoned your column. Marjorie has taken it over, along with your shed and allotments. She’s currently clanking away on her typewriter with a column about how “flowers are nice.” I’ve said, “That’s fine as long as it’s the subject which is flowery and not the language!” She’s glowering at me now.
I passed on your regards to Iris. The army must have let her keep the flamethrower as she was last seen loading it into a Volkswagen van and swearing a lot. I asked if she wanted me to return your message and she said she would do so in person.
Oh, and Marjorie said she found a glowing blue plant in the smouldering remains of your shed this morning. It was labelled “Thainwaile.” She touched it and the plant flinched and started glowing orange. What does this mean?