Postcards: Transformations

image of salt pillars from the Dead Sea
Dear Nancy,
Nothing lives in the Dead Sea, right? No fish, no plants, not even any microbes, or so they say. So when the … masses … started to rise, we were assured that it was only salt, that it had been there all along, formations growing just under the surface. But we could see them changing, shooting up faster than the water level was dropping It’s as safe as ever, they said. Just protect your eyes.
By the time the scientists arrived it was too late.
The rest of the tour group will not be coming home. But the good news is that we’ve discovered a new species.
Saltily yours,
Sally
Image of the baby Jesus in a church in Bethlehem
Dear Kris,
Peter always had a thing for Baby Jesuses, stealing them from nativity scenes. The one from Bethlehem would be ultimate souvenir, he said. I worried about him getting shot. Ha!
Despite the crowd of true believers, Peter grabbed Baby Jesus and started to pull him away. But the thing didn’t move. It stretched until there were two heads and two sets of prayerful hands and when the mitosis ended there were two Baby Jesuses. Peter tucked one under his shirt.
Outside, he tried to move his prize to his pack, but it had melted to his flesh, which now seemed made of plastic. He screamed as we pulled on Baby Jesus’s legs, but they just sucked into Peter as plastification spread. In the end, the rest of us stared in horror at the plastic Baby Jesus lying beatifically where Peter had stood.
With regrets,
Mary
Image of brightly colored sheep grazing near the Ireland coast
Dear Rachel,
Easter started out pretty much as expected. Religion, brunch, an Easter egg hunt. I let Millie join the other kids and enjoyed an Irish coffee. But she returned crying that the eggs had run off. Run off? Had someone given her an Irish coffee? We went onto the field and where there had been colored eggs, now there were colored sheep. Pink ones, yellow ones, green and blue and orange spotted ones. One egg remained, and on closer inspection it clearly didn’t come from a chicken. It was huge, and getting bigger. Until—you guessed it!—it hatched into a fluffy sheep. Who knew?
Love,
Jacob