I missed the postman because I was in the garden hanging washing

Dear Delyara, I saw him from the side, already walking away, one of those little cards in his hand. “Sorry we missed you,” it will say tomorrow, though the truth is much stranger than that. He missed me because I was thirty feet away pegging up school shirts in weak sunlight and trying to use the weather before the forecast changed. I laughed when I realized what had happened. It felt absurdly accurate. The small domestic labour of the house had hidden me from the outside world by a matter of seconds. And now the consequence would become one more errand, one more task, one more thing to collect and remember. That card isn’t even here yet and I’m already tired of it. I don’t mean to sound bitter. Some days life is just comically unhelpful in its timing.