Returns Log — December (Clerk’s Copy)
Parcel No. 203. Sender: an old man on the Water Planet. Addressee: his daughter, a miner on the Iron Planet. Contents: forty ration packs, one quilted jacket, one charm.
“She’s always been the kind who feels the cold,” the old man said at the counter, beaming. “I heard there’s nothing out there, so I wanted her to have everything she might need.”
There’s no such thing as a planet with nothing on it. There’s only distance. Eleven years, one way. By the time the parcel arrives, his daughter’s mining crew will have long since moved on to another world. Once a mine is worked out, it closes — and the whole planet it sits on disappears from the ledger right along with it.
Reason for return: addressee not found. The sender’s own address has also changed hands at least once in eleven years, so there’s nowhere to send it back to, either. Regulation 9: “Goods that cannot even be returned to the sender shall be redirected to the nearest household in need, as determined by the office.” Processed.
Parcel No. 210. Three hand-knitted blankets. Held at quarantine. Stamped: living fibers, prohibited. Apparently mites from the sender’s home planet had been sleeping snugly deep in the wool. Every distant world has its own distant bugs, and the rule says you don’t mix them. Addressee not found. Regulation 9. Processed.
Parcel No. 224. A box of dried fruit. Size violation. Parcel dimensions differ from planet to planet, and even a single millimeter over means it won’t fit on another world’s sorting shelf. No address to send it back to, either. Regulation 9. Processed.
Parcel No. 251. Two children’s shoes — both for the right foot, as it turned out. The sender mixed up a low-gravity planet with a high-gravity one while packing. Either way, by the time shoes like these arrive, the child’s feet will have already outgrown them. Regulation 9. Processed.
And so the December shelves fill up with goodwill that has nowhere left to go. Every one of these parcels was packed with real thought, for someone far away. Thought too carefully, maybe — carefully enough that it never arrives.
Parcel No. 280. The last one this year.
I read the sender’s line, and the hand holding the stamp stopped moving.
The Water Planet. My mother’s handwriting.
Addressee: my own name. A mining dormitory on the Iron Planet that no longer exists.
Eleven years ago, I left that mine. I couldn’t bring myself to say I wanted quieter work than the tunnels, so I just quietly transferred to this returns office instead. I never gave my mother the new address. Whether I didn’t want to worry her, or just couldn’t swallow my pride, I honestly still don’t know.
Every winter since, she’s kept sending parcels to my old address. Every time, they cross however many planets lie between us, get stamped addressee not found, and land back on this desk.
I look back at the cot in the rear of the office. This year it’s piled with ration packs, blankets, dried fruit. No. 203. No. 210. No. 224. “Redirected to the nearest household in need, as determined by the office” — the household living in the back of this office has, for a long while now, been just me.
All those parcels packed for someone far away have, one way or another, kept the nearest person warm this winter too.
I open my mother’s parcel. Inside: one quilted jacket. I’ve always been the kind who feels the cold, too.
I write the number of the back-room cot in the recipient’s field. I leave my mother’s handwriting on the address line, unerased.
I stamp it.
I close the log.