sunday mail.

Delilah awoke slowly. Sundays demanded a change in pace, even though, without a job or schedule of any kind, Sunday was really no different from any other day. But there was just something.
Delilah sat cross-legged in her bed and looked out the small window. Her bleak world was, as usual, suffocated by blanketed gray clouds. She counted the pigeons as they flew by. One. Two. Three. Four.
Five.
Satisfied, she looked around her small, well-decorated bedroom. Across from her her majestic vanity loomed, a seemingly worthy ruler of its domain. However, on closer inspection, the dresser felt dismembered, maimed. Delilah recalled the hopeless afternoon in January soon after she had arrived in Washington Heights, prying the mirror off with various kitchen utensils and basic tools. The day itself was enough to face first thing in the morning, she'd thought. She'd put the mirror out on the street that night.
The next morning, it was gone.
Delilah's eyes, slowly adjusting to the Sunday, fell upon the heaping pile of dirty laundry by the closet door. The day began to take shape.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Delilah turned her bedside lamp on and off, on and off. The red lampshade cast an awkwardly warm light on the whole room. With most of her clothes in a formidable mound on the floor, Delilah's dresser drawers seemed eerily deserted. With few options, she dressed herself, taking her time. The quiet apartment and quiet streets demanded nothing of her. Especially not on Sunday.
Draped in cottons, polyesters, wool blends, and denims, Delilah left her room, carefully avoiding the cracks in her beautiful floors. In the bathroom she brushed her teeth five times. With so many years of careful hygiene, her smile had the potential to be radiant, but the necessary mechanisms for such an act had long ago grown rusty and immobile.
On her way out the doors of Washington Heights, Delilah made her traditional Sunday stop at the mail room. She'd gotten her week's mail on Sunday since she moved to this building. Delilah's thinking behind the unusual timing of her trip rested in the fact that her timing was indeed unusual, and she was less likely to run into one of her neighbors. She found the small, square, metal cubby labeled 505 and inserted her small, tarnished gold key. She removed the small stack of letters before shutting the tiny door with a metallic plink. Then bag of laundry and collection of envelopes in hand, Delilah stepped onto the streets of her inhospitable neighborhood.
Before her mind became completely focused on her first piece of mail, she spotted the boy at the bus stop, selling papers. This Sunday he stood on the stack so that the pages would not rustle and blow away with the sporadic gusts. She felt so sorry for him. Some days she crossed the road and bought a paper. But not today.
She slowly walked the straight path to the laundromat against the wind. The drawstrings of her dirty laundry bag digging into the crook of her bent arm, Delilah examined the first letter in her stack. It was from the DMV.

Dear Miss Plunk,
We regret to inform you that your request to change the date of birth that appears on your license from January 24 to May 5 has been denied. We at the Department of Motor Vehicles are not at liberty to

Disappointed, Delilah shoved the letter back into the prepaid envelope and moved it to the back of the stack. Next came a post card from her brother. The first in nearly a month. She admired the beautiful turquoise of the Norwegian fjords, the daffodil sunset, the clean air before flipping the card over. Delilah managed a slight smile as she struggled to decode the message hidden in her brother's abysmal penmanship.
After her unexpected lesson in modern hieroglyphics, she eyed the third envelope as she arrived at the laundromat. Something was familiar about the way her name was written. Something comforting. But before she could make out the return address, a violent gust of wind tussled her hair, slammed into her chest like a sack of bricks, and sent the letter flying out of her fat fingers. Dropping her bag of laundry at the door of the laundromat, Delilah chased the letter as it danced across an empty Baker street and made its way for Barton. Still avoiding the cracks in the pavement, Delilah looked like a light-footed child chasing a butterfly.
The graceful envelope finally came to rest. Delilah quickened her pace slightly, worried the wind might pick up again and send the mysterious letter flying once more. Only as she bent her knees to retrieve the mischievous parcel did Delilah notice where she was. The sheer power of the many voices threatened to shatter the beautiful, tall stained glass windows that flanked the side of the otherwise bleak gray chapel. With no better reason than forceful curiosity, Delilah, letter in hand, climbed the wide cement steps to the large wooden doors. Her five plump fingers wrapped themselves around the brass handle and pulled.
Even with the door barely cracked, just enough to see through, the massive chorus accosted Delilah's senses with waves and waves of glorious sound. Their red robes glowed against the black of their skins, the ecstasy of their craft written upon their faces – eyes closed, heads tilted, white teeth glistening like the moon. All of them swaying on the bleachers in unison reminded Delilah of the summer breeze whispering softly to the soft flowers of the garden, His gar–
The door slammed shut as Delilah's attention flew back to the forgotten envelope in her hands. Her mind racing, fat fingers quivering slightly, she eyed the return address.

Oh my God.