Thank you Karen. Karen who kept the letters. Those dreaded, awful, terrible letters. She kept every single on of them, all for us.

Our house wasn’t small at all. But everytime, on the eighth day of the week, all eight of us huddled in one small room in the house. On that day, every week, our house shrank to that small, dark room. With all eight of us cramped in there, there was little space to move about.

There is only one door that remained closed throughout the entire day. On the other side of the room, is a small slit for mail to come through. At around 8AM that day of the week, the slit would open, filling the dark room with light. When the slit opened, we could see, and we treasured that light. The letter came with the light, but we did not treasure the letter. The letter would fall to the ground with a silent thump. The slit creaks close, and we are plunged back into darkness.

Karen, the bravest of us all, or perhaps the dumbest, would pick up the letter first. SHe would read it, and since the rest of us were too scared to read it too, she kept the letter. For eight hours. At 8PM tshe put the letter back through the slip. When the letter left, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Then we leave the room. It was over. For that week. Then when the time came, we would have to endure the torture once more.

Whenever we ask her what was in the letter, she always replied, “I don’t get the big deal. It’s just Derick inviting us over to his house for his party...” We shuddered. We didn’t like Derick.