FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Edited by wellifimust, Psydrosis, and Cardigan

My tip jar.

Word count: 4,080

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At first I thought she was a ghost.

I saw her in the thick brush: a white blur under the gleam of my car's headlights before it was gone. I stepped on the brake and pulled over. I grabbed my cap off the dashboard and exited into the sunset swampland.

The figure--I saw now as a squirrel--stepped out of the trees several yards away. She held a sketchbook in the wing of her cloak, short fur blending black to grey to orange when she pulled away her hood. She smelled of thyme, like flowers picked from my mom's old garden.

The squirrel sized me up as I approached. The arms of her cloak were sweat stained in the humid air. "Got a letter for me, postie?" Her voice had a whistle to it that I hadn't quite heard around these parts.

I shook my head. "Just making sure you know where you're going. You shouldn't be out here after eight, y'know."

She peered at my mail truck. "Why are you here, then?"

"Drove to Lahe to cover for an employee. I was taking a shortcut back."

"To where?"

I pointed over my shoulder. "Lowell."

"And you're a possum," she remarked. "Interesting."

She reached for her pencil to scribble something on her pad. Crickets chirped in the shade of overgrown roadside vegetation. No other vehicles sat on the road.

"Do you live here?" I asked.

"Same city." She didn't make eye contact; she just kept writing. "I took transit this morning. Then I walked out here alone."

"With camping supplies?" No answer from her. "Did you bring water?"

"No. I'm just trying to get a closer look."

"At what? The afterlife?"

I waited for a laugh or a chuckle, but she just frowned at me. I stuffed my paws in my pockets as she narrowed her eyes.

"The deep swamp. I need to take in the lost colony with my own senses. The work of people--largely woodpeckers--who lived here before the weather pushed them to move away or die."

Maybe she was a ghost. Did my joke hit too close to home? I shook my head. "You'll join them if you run into something venomous after dark."

Her rigid frown rose into interest. Maybe the first unconceited look she gave me. "Really?"

"My uncle got bit out here once. Only made it back to town on his brother's back."

She thought that over for a moment and nodded. "Thank you, uh..." She caught a glimpse of my name tag. "Riley. I'll walk back now."

Dying sunlight filtered through palm branches. I turned around and beckoned her. "I can drive you back."

She raised an eyebrow. "While I watch you make deliveries?"

"The route's over." I spread my paws. "Half-an-hour beats three, huh?"

She followed me back to the mail truck, squinting as I slid open the door for her. "I didn't know delivery trucks had passenger seats."

I stepped in and sat behind the wheel. "Where don't they?"

"Home." She clutched her sketchpad to her chest, then shot out a paw between us. "My name's Luna, by the way. Exchange student from Bernan University."

The truck hummed as I started it up. "A whole continent of coast between here and there." I looked idly at the GPS stationed between our legs and noticed my path back to the office turned near her school. "That's what this 'lost colony' stuff is for, right?"

She nodded, then paused to inspect my windshield trinkets, including my permit and business card. I checked my mirrors and hit the road. "An anthropology project," she clarified.

"Oh. Like, digging up bones?"

She chuckled. "I'm not an archaeologist."

I snorted. "Hell if I know; I never went to college. I started here over a decade ago, and I didn't need a degree to deliver. Or to manage." With a paw resting on the wheel, I used the other to locate my lemonade. "Why waste my time?"

She ignored that remark. "It's really more than just digging. I'm not into physical work; I'm an artist. And I'm drawing the swamp."

"The whole thing?"

Luna crossed her fingers and smiled. "That's my plan."

I let that sit as I took a drink. "Sweetie, I think you're gonna need a bigger canvas."

"Oh, I know. That's why I'm only sketching it."

That answer didn't make much sense at all. Probably a project organized by some academic dictator with no regard for their students' sanity. I shook my head and turned back to the road.

As we rolled to the edge of the thicket, the sun scorched my eyes between the shadows of palm tree trunks. We put down our sun visors. She still had her head down over her sketchpad, pencil in paw, scribbling a couple pages ahead. From the short wiggling of her fingers, it looked like she was writing something.

"Taking notes?"

Her scribbling stopped. "No." Then she flipped back to her previous page, continuing to work long strokes across the page. I turned up the A/C until it jostled the pages and licenses pinned to the dashboard. Below the rearview, the wind shook a hanging picture of my husband.

Talkative one minute, one syllable answers the next. I cleared my throat and tried another approach. "What's your drawing have to do with a lost colony?"

She suddenly reflected on that, as if my question flipped a switch in her mind that pulled her away from her art. "Everything. It's just as much about them as those who took their place."

I snickered. "City kids and their trailer parks?"

Luna didn't laugh. "That's part of it. The land speaks its own language."

"Profound," I said. "I'm sure the academy will love it."

She continued as if I hadn't spoken. "It tells us--if shy of context--fragments of who they were and how that identity shaped their home. What we see now is all the evidence I have."

I grabbed my drink with a free paw and pored over that. "And what does that tell you?"

"Nothing. That's why I'm sketching it. I'm turning to nature for my muse."

"Huh." I studied her bushy tail as it curled into her lap. "I hope that works out for you."

"Thank you."

A wooden sign pointed towards bordering towns, a marker of the fringe of the swamp. I stepped on the gas as I noticed the tree shadows lengthening. The engine purred with the choir of bugs.

Luna cleared her throat. "May I ask why you left town for someone else's route?"

"His wife was due in three days. Some kids just can't wait to get out of there."

"Oh my." Graphite swept across her page. "That's generous of you."

"Well, Mike's been here a decade. Lydia's in my squash club. It's just another hour out of my day."

The A/C blew the smell of her fur through the truck when she stretched and peered back at the empty trunk. "You're that close with your coworkers?"

"We have the same routines, meet the same kinds of people; just part of being a team."

"That makes sense." After chewing on her eraser, she turned back down to her book. "What about you? Do you have kids?"

I shook my head. "Well, I was a surrogate father for a friend who couldn't conceive with her husband. It's their job now. Donating was the easy part." I spun the wheel to turn into the final stretch of the swamp. "But for me? I'd love to adopt someday."

Luna's tail flicked. "Not have your own?"

A bit of a presumptuous question. I laughed and nodded at the picture hanging from the rearview. "I'd have to ask my partner. Something tells me he wouldn't be able to carry one."

"Oh!" Her eyes widened at the winking portrait of the T. rex. "What's his name?"

"Luiz." I waved my paw between us and flashed my wedding ring in the sunlight. "Been married ten years. He's a pretty big filmmaker. You ever seen Fortress Escape? Snout Computer?"

"No." She stared back at me blankly. "Never heard of them."

I shrugged back to the road. "Well, they're popular here."

Back the pencil went. We sat in silence as we crossed a bridge to leave the swamp proper. The robotic voice of the GPS woke me up as I turned past the stop sign to pull onto Palmside Drive.

Sun at our backs, I glanced at Luna. "So...why here?"

"Hm?"

"You could've picked a bigger city. Or even a smaller one. Hell--you'd find a million other lost colonies further inland." I stroked my whiskers. "You got family here?"

"No, I'm living in residence at the university. But for the city..." She brushed through her tail for a moment. "My friend left for a neighbouring city for her thesis. I almost followed, but I thought it wouldn't be right for me to stay that close to home."

I squinted at an upcoming traffic light. "I'm not sure I follow."

"I wanted to prove to myself that I could live apart from my parents. I picked Lowell because it shares the climate of cities I know, yet, for being hardly two hours from the border...your culture's so different."

"Is it?"

Luna dropped the sketchpad on her knees, page down. "In every way. Take your stores, for example. There's no clerk at the door." She stretched out her feet. "The buses have no leg room."

"That's not just a cultural thing." I chuckled and recited a phrase my dad used to tell me as a kid. "That's called municipal incompetence."

Her warm laugh was pleasant to hear. "My sample size is small."

"Is that an issue in your studies?" I perched my elbow on the window. The truck fell silent at the light, apart from the ticking of the turn signal.

She spent a moment thinking that question over, as if it meant the world's importance. "Sometimes I'm afraid I can't tell the full story; that the evidence isn't there and my curiosity will never be satisfied." She tapped her paws together, mimicking the rhythm of the ticker. "What about you?"

My gaze drifted from the window to her eyes in the mirror. "What about me?"

"You carry around so many letters. Don't you ever wonder what they say?"

I frowned. "That's never crossed my mind."

"How many love letters have you delivered without a thought in the world? How many acceptance papers?" A smile pried at her lips. "How many sperm donations?"

The joke hit me like a truck. Had to set the gear to park to not rear-end the poor fellow in front. "Aha! Hopefully they weren't on Mike's route! But, y'know, you don't think about what's in the envelopes. You just care about making it on time."

"Right." Luna shuffled her feet. "Speaking of making it on time, I was wondering if you could do something else for me before we're at my stop. You see, I haven't really gotten a chance to talk to many residents, so I'd like to tape myself asking you a couple questions about the swamp. I need some audio tracks for my project, and I've been looking for original material."

Traffic slowed on the other side of the intersection as I thought about it. "I don't know if I'll be helpful, but we could try."

The traffic light turned green, letting us into the city with the sun glowing angelic white on Luna's fur from beyond the window. From her pocket she produced a phone.

"Eight-twenty-three," she recited into the microphone, "Thursday, July six. Interview five." Luna glanced at me. "Riley the letter carrier."

"Local postal service branch manager," I corrected.

She snorted. "Riley the 'that'. To start off, did you grow up here?"

"Nope. Moved here with my husband thirteen years ago." I flipped up my sun visor. She didn't follow.

"Have you ever visited the Lahe Swamp before today?"

"We hiked out there a few times, me and Luiz."

"And did you know about the colony?"

"Never heard of it until today. If your project is banking on this, I could drop you off at the museum."

"Been there, obviously." She tapped the pencil against her teeth. "Was Luiz born here?"

"Yeah. Grew up about eight minutes from here."

"He learned quite a bit about the swamp growing up, I take it."

"Probably. You want my number? I could ask him about it and talk later."

She glanced at his picture. "Maybe. I still want to get through this, though."

"Suit yourself."

"Did he ever tell you about the area?" Luna watched another truck pass by. "The giant trees with holes bored through their trunks?"

"He said he used to play in them with his friends when they were kids. Some hollows have ladders to the branches, which used to be shelter for..." I trailed off at my realization. "Those are the ruins, aren't they?"

"According to most accounts. Ones he probably heard about in school. You said he grew up on the outskirts of the city, right?"

"Still had to walk a ways for schooling, if I recall." I chuckled shortly. "That part always shocked me."

"What?"

"That infrastructure was so dialed back. My dad was born here, but he moved to Sully before I was born. I was in school a little while later than Luiz, but the buses I rode were years old."

"How much older is Luiz? Is he much taller than you?"

"Twelve years. And a couple feet." My eyes drifted to my side window, watching the palm trees and bushes speed by. "Wait, what does that have to do with anything?"

"I have a classmate studying height differences in marriages. Even cross-species, partners tend to end up closer than their averages." She waved a paw. "But I've got a friend back in Bernan who's dating an older fellow too. Her parents aren't too happy about it."

"I know that noise."

"With the age gap?" Luna was staring out the window and drawing again when I peeped over. I couldn't quite see her sketch, but it didn't look like a landscape.

"I don't think Dad's quite over it. He never talked to me about romance after I came out." I scratched my muzzle. "Mom thought homosexuality was evil. Up until she died."

"Oh. I'm so sorry." She studied me with sympathetic eyes. "Even living in Sully?"

"Just because she lived there didn't mean she fit in."

Luna's ears drooped. I caught it in the corner of my vision as I pulled up to a red light. "Did your dad side with her?"

I scowled at her. "What does this have to do with your lost colony again?"

That stopped her in her tracks. Her eyes fell back to her page. "Sorry."

I took a deep breath. A pair of pedestrians walked by--two birds I didn't recognize the pattern of. "Dad used to work in lumber with all those traditionalist macho types. He was always hellbent on manning me up--teaching me to be like him. More selfish than malicious. We haven't talked since Mom died."

Luna hesitated. "Ah. I'm sorry."

I chuckled shortly. "You can stop apologizing, you know."

"Oh." She pursed lips that barely hid a smile. "I'm not sorry for that."

With a smirk, I ran my fingers over the leather of the wheel. "Dad met Luiz once. It was awkward, and I figured he felt threatened. I think we wanted different things out of life, so I stopped returning his calls."

"There's something to be said about found family," Luna mused. "Not to make assumptions about your own lived experience, but you shouldn't have to put up with them just because they're possums."

"Right."

Nearing the towers downtown, Luna turned to me again. "So, what was it like moving across the continent to stay here?"

"Well, I had Lou. We met when I sat next to him at a film festival. Business trip for him, day out for me and my friends." A car came up on my rear. I merged to let it pass. "It's funny. It was raining so hard I almost stayed home that day. I remember what kind of stuff I was worrying about when I brushed my teeth and got dressed that morning. Everything that turned out to be so meaningless packed into a day that changed the trajectory of my life."

She smirked. "You called me the philosophical one."

"Well, I asked him out before I left. I was shooting a lot of shots then, since things hadn't worked out with my last few boyfriends." I kept my eyes fixed on the road, carefully navigating the half-lane left by cars parked on the side of it. "He didn't even tell me about his growing fame until our third date."

"Defense mechanism?" Luna spun around her pencil. "There's a lot of crazies trying to date fame."

I scoffed. "Oh, I'm crazy too! I just don't care about fame."

The sky glowed yellow above the concrete jungle. Orange hues highlighted the tips of purple clouds marking a day fleeting.

"Has it been a bit of an adjustment, then?"

"Yeah," I said, staring at a billboard in the distance. "But you face challenges in any relationship."

"Thirteen years, though, right?"

"Doesn't mean it'll last forever."

Luna didn't say anything. After a moment of quiet, she looked at me wistfully. "Nothing lasts forever."

It was a curious thing to say to someone nearly twice her age--not that it even felt like I'd lived half my life since that age. My parents always talked about that as an existential fear. For our differences, there were some things I managed to inherit. That thought gave me some butterflies. I hadn't talked to Dad in months.

"Riley?" She had to repeat it before I heard it.

I snapped out of my reverie. "Uh huh?"

"I think you missed a right."

My eyes snapped down to the GPS screen. Then up to the hospital in the distance. God damn it.

"Thanks. Got a little off-track." I glanced over at her phone, still recording from her lap. "Speaking of...your interview. I think I've talked more about myself than I have your subject."

Luna shook her head. "I asked you about yourself. There's only so much you can say about the land itself. And what's that worth out of context?"

"The interview was worth a shot," I offered.

"It's worth something more to me." She turned back down to her drawing. "You haven't studied the swamp like I have, but your experience of the structures built around it is valuable to me."

I sat waiting to turn back onto the correct path. A group of pedestrians walked ahead at the light. "I wasn't born here."

"But have those thirteen years felt incomplete? You had to adapt here as an adult, rather than learn it from birth like your husband." Her pencil stopped moving. "You just might see the things lifelong residents are blind to."

"Like what?"

She held my gaze, hauntingly still for a moment. Finally, her eyes turned away and she shrugged under the arms of her herb-scented cloak.

Luna's silence remained as we drove upon ancient stone buildings that clashed with the sleek modern towers in the distance. I cornered into a busway on the fringe of her campus and pulled over.

"Ding, dong!" I sang. "Riley Transit has reached the end of the line. Thank you for riding with us and please do not charge the doors!"

"With jokes like that, I see why you want to be a dad," Luna grumbled.

Her phone camera snapped. It was pointed down at her open sketchbook. Quick paws ripped out the page and held it to me.

I blinked down at the sketched face of the possum. Behind him stood a T. rex resting a hand on his opposite shoulder.

Luna scratched the back of her neck. "I hope I captured his likeness. Your picture of him is really small."

There was a hopeful glimmer in my eye, matched by Luiz's warm smile. She drew me with my cap, funnily; I guess she couldn't see me without it. "Luna, this is incredible! Wait a minute, let me take a picture..." I rummaged through my pocket until her paw landed on my wrist.

"I drew it for you to keep. I have everything I need. Except..." She held a blank contact entry out on her phone. "Could we exchange numbers? I'm still looking for leads and I'd love to talk to Luiz directly. Or anyone you know who might be connected in any way--through great-grandparents, even--to the people who lived in that swamp."

I took the phone from her. "I'll see what I can do."

After swapping contact info, we shook paws. Luna then stepped out onto the sidewalk and stood at the door. Her smile glowed brighter than her cloak as she held her sketchbook and nodded to me once more. "Thank you so much! This means a lot to me, Riley!"

I started to wave at her. Then a thought that bugged me from the moment I saw her resurfaced. "Y'know, you remind me of someone."

"Who?"

Hesitation caught up with my pursuit. I'd sound like a total jackass if she took it wrong. On second thought, I just shook my head. "Nevermind. Just a memory." My fingers found the brim of my cap. "You have a good night. I'll be sure to get back!"

Luna vanished into the parking lot as I tapped off the GPS and turned back onto familiar roads.

I didn't see much of the city on the way back to the office. I was far too preoccupied by the decision Luna prodded me back towards to drive with more than simple reflex. The muscle memory was so ingrained into me that even in dreams I often found myself driving these streets. I told everyone I could navigate downtown with my eyes closed. Something about Luna made me forget that.

I sipped my drink, tasting nothing but the last couple drops sitting at the bottom.

The thought wouldn't leave my mind as long as I let it foster. Luiz was waiting for me at home, and I wanted to do this without him there. I knew he would ask if I had to retreat to another room.

On a quieter avenue, a couple blocks down from the postal office, I pulled over beside the curb. I fished around for my phone, opened the contact list and scrolled past Luna's entry. Names flew under my thumb, years whizzing by, until I finally loomed upon a long-unused number.

Headlining his profile was a contact photo at least a decade old. There he stood, an aging woodpecker, grinning tall and proud with his possum wife in his arms. My thumb hovered over the call button. With a deep breath, I took the plunge and pressed the phone to my ear.

The sun was gone from view, leaving behind a vista of millions of colours over the city sky. I slouched back in my seat, watching traffic pile up at the light as the phone rang in my paw.

The second ring followed.

The third ring felt as long as a lifetime.

The fourth ring inhabited its own eternity.

I knew it. I let go of my held breath and sat up straight. Why did I think he'd still pick up after this long? During the fifth ring, I prepared to hang up before it sent me to voicemail.

Instead, the ring cut out.

My mouth went dry. I must've registered the old landline, because the line crackled a little. The signal travelled a continent to reach me, but it seemed as though he were lightyears away.

"Riley?" His voice, a familiar whistle, sounded frail, yet hopeful, like a man finding an oasis in the desert. Guilt panged in my chest.

The intersection light turned green, prompting a mass migration of traffic ahead. I waited until I could muster up the courage to speak. What could I even say?

I peeked down at Luna's sketch. The confident possum wore a wordless smile. His partner, too, spoke only from his eyes. Yet, with not a word on the page, the drawing read like a letter long sealed from the back of the mail truck. Sitting open, it told me exactly what to say.

"Hey, Dad. I'm in your hometown."