by A. G. Hopkins
Return to Sender is enjoyable specifically because it raises
a number of questions about the characters and events
portrayed, and because it doesn’t fit any of the more
common formulae. While any decent short story will
provide a twist at the end, and occasionally a story
will provide a new perspective or a new setting, most
stories are somewhat predictable. Return to Sender is
unusual in that nothing about it is from any standard
mold. The main characters are unusual, and the
circumstances in which they find themselves embroiled
are decidedly out of the ordinary, even for fantastic
fiction.
Curiouser and Curiouser.
The main character, whose name is Often, has an odd relationship
with a young girl named Colette. I'm guessing she is
his sister, although she could easily be a school
friend who continues to haunt his life.
Often is a young man in his first apartment, and
working at a rather mundane job as a copy editor.
He seems responsible, down to earth, contented, and thoughtful, if
not especially concerned with the feelings of others. Colette is chaos incarnate. She has no visible means of support, and lives in the moment,
enjoying what others might consider shocking or
disturbing. And she has an irrepressible happiness about her
which is quite charming, even in light of her somewhat
unstable mental condition.
From the first page, certain oddities make themselves
apparent. Often is shown with Colette, crossing the
street. Behind them in the crosswalk are two people
with unnaturally wide smiles. These two people are
obliterated by a speeding automobile. Where the
average human body would suffer a horrendous crunch
and thud, these two practically explode in a gush of
blood, like a pair of watermelons. Colette stays to
gawk at the blood and gore, while Often, oblivious and
engrossed in his portable stereo, wanders on down the
road to where he sees a sign advertising an apartment
to let, with the unnerving additional plea of "For the
love of God!" This is where Often's new apartment is
located, and there may well be good reason for the odd
note, the extraordinarily low rent, and the landlord's
eagerness to let the flat. Not to mention the death of
the previous tenant may hold some additional intrigue
and mystery.
And meanwhile, someone else is watching and commenting on
occurrences.
Colette, while helping Often unpack, discovers a mail
slot in an interior wall. It has a solid back wall, and yet expels a mysterious letter just
moments later.
The letter contains
instructions which Colette and Often set out to
follow. These instructions lead, through what would
appears to be a random chain of events, to the violent
and shocking death of a small girl via meteorite.
Upon their return to the apartment, Often and Colette
see an unusual man at their door who turns out to
be a winged demon or monster. When
the creature vanishes, the "eggy" smell left
behind seems to confirm certain hellish connections. 
To act, or not to act
Thus are Often and Colette thrust into the roles of
catalysts, with new letters appearing on a regular
basis, and the instructions leading to various and
sundry results. Their actions as catalysts are
invariably small and otherwise unremarkable;
purchasing a candy bar, giving a dollar to a bum,
scaring a pigeon off a short brick wall.
Often and Colette attempt to catalogue them, in order
to determine if they are doing good or not, but most
of the results of their actions seem indeterminate.
This indeterminateness makes the story quite
interesting from a philosophical point of view. How could we ever
really know what effect we have on others, when even the smallest actions can lead
to the most dramatic results and changes in other
people's lives?
Is there a force in the Universe which orchestrates
these actions in order to facilitate some grand plan?
There are mysteries aplenty in this little strip. What
is the story behind the visitations? Why would this be
happening in this particular apartment? Who is the
little old lady next door, and who was the previous
tenant? How did that tenant really die? Whose voice is
it in that dark panel in the second page? Every page and every update seem to present an
additional question, and answers are few and far
between.
The story is easy to read. I’ve started at the
beginning several times now and each time found myself finishing all the available
archives. It is
engrossing and rich in detail, mysteries
and questions.
Vera Brosgol is one of the wonderful artists from the first issue of Flight; she also collaborated with Shaenon Garrity on L'il Mel for Girlamatic.com. She likes to interact with her readers, often writing
little notes and asides to us in the margins. This
makes it difficult to tell if something ‘small’ in the
comic is really a part of the story, or a little joke
on her part. For instance, there is a scene where
Colette comments on the size of the apartment, and in
a single panel, Brosgol shows us the neighbor lady
living in a 3 foot wide space, with a dead body in the
wall between the apartments. It’s difficult to be
certain that the size of the space is really 3 foot,
or if the body is really there, or if it’s simply
Often’s imagination (or Brosgol’s) at work
exaggerating what could be next door.
It could be argued that Brosgol touched too lightly
on Often’s character development, giving us only one
brief glimpse of his ‘normal’ life before thrusting
him deep into this unusual circumstance. This makes it
difficult to gauge how he is handling the weirdness in
his life. We don’t have a good yardstick for what
would be considered ‘normal’ for Often.
Brosgol has laid the foundations for an
extremely intricate, well plotted, and thoroughly
enjoyable fantasy/mystery tale, or possibly just an
intriguing exercise in religious debate. Either way,
it's going to be an extraordinary ride.
