Order For Friendship

Yash Seyedbagheri
Published on November 5, 2020

Nick orders things to see his name on packages. Movies and books, T-shirts. CDs, Tchaikovsky and Debussy, in particular. These are all items hypothetical friends send.

A friend ships Revolutionary Road by Yates. With another friend, it’s The Big Lebowski. Another sends a 420 T-shirt in the form of a road marker.

He relishes the care with which they select gifts, their knowledge of his eccentricities, their quiet empathy. 

Nick keeps ordering, goes broke. He writes a letter to the world, asking it to name one thing it loves about him. Just one thing.

Insufficient postage.

So much for friendship.

Genre: 
Fiction
Author Bio: 

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. His story, "Soon," was nominated for a Pushcart and he has also had work nominated for The Best Small Fictions.  Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, (mac)ro (mic), and Ariel Chart. He lives in Garden Valley, Idaho.

Issue: 
62