04.17.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:58 pm by Tom Mach
I would like to share with you my first story ever published in a national magazine. I’d love to here your comments on it:
The Woman Who Got Into Stamps
by Tom Mach
(reprinted from the July, 1982 issue of Stamp World, published by Amos Press, Inc)
The best psychic in the world. That’s what Laura Wilson considered herself to be, even though another Washington psychic named Jeanne Dixon received national recognition for foretelling events. Had Laura been able to predict the J. F. Kennedy assassination, as Dixon had, she would have been famous, too.
She would have had Congressmen and business leaders alike knocking on her door, begging her for a chance to tell them about their futures and fortunes.
Unfortunately, Laura could not even forecast the weather unless she heard it first on the 6 o’clock news. Prognostications were just not her “thing.” But she had other paranormal gifts. Like bending metal by the power of her mind. Or making objects move by just staring at them. It was something that the parapsychologists called “telekinesis,” and Laura felt she was better at it than even the noted psychic, Uri Geller.
But there was no call for telekinesis demonstrations these days. People were far more interested in knowing when interest rates on home mortgages were going to drop, more interested in knowing when they were going to make their first million. Fortune-telling, yes. Telekinesis, no.
Consequently, she didn’t earn enough to support herself. She had been living off her savings, but was getting perilously close to becoming destitute. She had thought about finding a job, but unless she could find something which would allow her to use her psychic talents, she wasn’t interested. She even thought about possible ways she could combine her paranormal abilities with her job. She could be a driving instructor and show students how to drive a car with mind power alone. Or she could work as a secretary and impress her boss by typing without using her fingers. No. These things would only get her labeled as some sort of sideshow freak.
She knew she had to make a decision soon about solving her financial mess. Her personal property consisted of a small wardrobe, a savings passbook containing $72.19, a battered Volkswagen, and a generally insignificant stamp collection — which, however, did contain one stamp which made all her other possessions trivial by comparison. It was an 1840 two-pence blue Great Britain Queen Victoria. Used, and in good condition, she figured it could net her perhaps $300.
Laura hated the thought of selling it. She had inherited the stamp from her great-grandfather and felt that by selling it, she was breaking a sacred heritage. It was the only keepsake she had, and it was not easy for her to part with it. But after all, she was getting desperate. Mrs. Mikulsky was already threatening eviction if she didn’t come up with the rent tomorrow. Laura really didn’t have much choice.
Learning about an important stamp show at the Sheraton, Laura decided to do it. She lifted the stamp carefully with a pair of tongs and placed it in a small glassine envelope. Later that day she pushed through the crowd in the ballroom. The place was alive with people of all shapes, sizes, and ages.
As she forced herself toward the tables where the dealers sat, Laura marveled at the excitement people showed toward stamps. To her, it was not even a real hobby. To these people, it was an obsession.
She rushed to grab an empty chair near a sign that advertised “Offering The Highest Amount For Stamps.” An owlish-looking man in horn-rimmed glasses wearing a blue flannel suit faced her from the other side as she dropped into the seat. She felt his inquisitive eyes on her as she removed the glassine from her purse.
“I’d like to sell this,” she said, stumbling over her words as she handed him the stamp. She wished there were a mirror so she could see how she looked today. She was only 35 and generally considered not bad looking. But she imagined that today she was a sight with her unmanageable blonde hair and the dark circles under her eyes, the result of yet another sleepless night.
She fidgeted with her hands as the man took his time examining the stamp with a magnifying lens. “It’s a pretty rare stamp. It’s worth at least $500.” She bit her lip after saying that. She really didn’t know how much it was really worth. Someone had told her last year that the stamp was probably worth $300; so she figured that, maybe with everything else going up, the stamp might be worth $500 or even more.
“Offhand,” the man finally said, “I’d say that we could probably give you $200 for it.”
Laura wanted to say, “Okay, I’ll take it.” But something told her not to. “Is that all it’s worth?” she asked suspiciously. “I was told it was worth more than that last year.”
The man’s face betrayed some irritation. “Look, lady, that’s all I can offer you for it. If it was gummed and uncanceled, I could offer you a lot more. About $4,000 if it was in mint condition.”
“$4,000?” Laura’s voice was so loud that everyone near her stopped talking and turned to look. She flushed, feeling as if she were in an E. F. Hutton commercial.
“You mean,” she whispered; “that the price goes up by some $3,700 just because of a little glue on the back and the absence of a cancellation mark?”
“That’s right,” a deep voice coming from Laura’s right side said. She turned quickly and saw a man probably in his 20s or 30s with dark wavy hair and wide generous smile looking carefully at her. He was seated next to her, but until he spoke to her just now, Laura had not noticed him.
“You would be amazed,” he continued, “how much the value of a stamp could change by just one little factor.” His observant brown eyes darted to the dealer with whom she had been arguing. He noticed how that man was displaying his impatience by shuffling papers and looking behind Laura for other customers who might be willing to see him.
“Let’s go where it’s a little less distracting,” he said. “Perhaps you could join me in a cup of coffee.”
“Why, or course,” was all Laura could reply.
They found an unoccupied table near the rear of the restaurant. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with the dealer. You’re right, of course. The stamp is probably worth more than the dealer offered. But those guys take pretty high markups.”
“It seems to me you know quite a bit about stamps.”
He shrugged. “I guess I should. I design them. Or I should say, I used to design them. Thanks to the budgetary policies of our federal government, I’ve become the latest victim. You see, the government has cut back on staffing at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving & Printing where I work. I am now on indefinite layoff.”
Laura clapped her hands. “Well, it looks as if we have something in common after all, ah. ..”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, extending his hand. “My name is Mark. Mark Hollander.”
“1 hope that one of us can afford the coffee, Mark.” She went on to tell him how she was hurting financially because she refused to take a job unless it utilized her God-given paranormal abilities.
“So you’re a psychic. That’s interesting. Maybe you can tell me when I’m going to land a job.”
Laura frowned. “I’m not that kind of psychic, I do things like read auras, conduct astral projections, and practice telekinesis.” She saw the curious look in his eyes and added, “Look, if I took the time to define all those things I’d probably bore you to tears.”
“No you wouldn’t,” he beamed. “What is this thing called ‘telekinesis?’”
“1 guess I could show you better than I can describe it. See that salt shaker on the table? If you’ll be quiet for a minute, I will concentrate on it.”
At first, nothing happened. Then all at once the shaker began to move toward him, apparently under its own power. She came out of her trance and noticed Mark’s shocked expression. She laughed. “Sometimes when I’m in a hurry, I even change traffic lights to green.”
“Too bad you can’t change your Queen Victoria stamp to mint condition,” he said. “Look, I’ve got to go, but if you will give me your phone number, I’d like to give you a ring. That is, if your husband doesn’t mind.”
“How can he mind? He doesn’t even exist.”
In an hour or so, Laura sat in her apartment scolding herself for not selling that stamp when she had the chance. She opened her album and turned to the page of Queen Elizabeth II issues. The page was empty except for a 1 p1953 stamp, She removed it and noticed the gum on the back. Even gummed, she realized, that stamp was only worth about 20 cents. She placed the old Victorian stamp alongside it. The Victorian was un-gummed, and yet it was worth more than a thousand times as much. It didn’t seem right.
She stared at the two stamps for a long while. What would happen, if the two stamps switched places. . . if the Victorian became gummed and vice-versa?
In her mind’s eye she was able to see this happen. She felt her thoughts lock into a single purpose: to transform the Victorian into a mint condition, unused stamp. The distant ringing of a tele-phone began to break her concentration like the dismemberment of a jigsaw puzzle.
She awoke and realized that the telephone was indeed ringing. It was Mark. He wanted to know if she would be free to see him tonight. He apologized for the last minute notice, but he had just received two free tickets to a concert and he thought of taking her to it. Laura hated concerts, but she feigned interest and asked Mark to pick her up at seven that evening.
Laura worried throughout the Brandenburg Concerto arid the Mozart Symphony. How would she pay her rent to-morrow? She smiled properly when Mark talked to her, but she suspected that he noticed that her mind was elsewhere.
It was midnight when he brought her to the front steps of her apartment building. She felt like a day-after Cinderella. Tomorrow she would be out in the street in rags.
“Something’s been bugging you all night, Laura. Care to tell me what?”
Laura looked at him. He really seemed to care about her; he deserved an explanation.
“Why don’t you come in for a nightcap, Mark? But don’t get any fun-ny ideas. Just because I’m an older, more experienced lady doesn^t mean I’m easy.”
He made himself comfortable in a recliner as Laura went to the kitchen to turn on the burner for some hot water. He got up from his chair and started looking at the open stamp album on her desk. His eyes fell upon two stamps that were on the table near the album. He whistled loud enough for Laura to hear.
“What’s wrong, Mark? Are you looking at my collection of nudes or something?”
“Better than that, Laura. Come here!”
Laura raced to his side and Mark pointed excitedly at the Queen Victoria stamp. “Look at that! It’s uncanceled and in mint condition. Have you been hiding this one from me?”
“Why, no. I…” Laura’s voice trailed off. She recalled how she concentrated on those two stamps — the Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Victoria — mentally changing their respective conditions. Could it be possible? Yet, here was the evidence.
After explaining to Mark that the stamps had apparently undergone a telekinetic change, she asked his advice. He insisted that she take the stamp to a dealer friend of his next morning for an appraisal. Laura felt guilty about doing it, but Mark convinced her that it certainly wouldn’t hurt to find out.
The next day Mrs. Mikulsky pounded on her door, demanding the rent money. Laura assured her that she’d have it by noon, but wondered how she was going to get it. Certainly if this stamp was still worth something she could sell it. But perhaps by changing the stamp she had somehow made it worthless. Mark was right, she would have to find out for sure.
Laura caused considerable excitement at the dealer’s store. A bald man with eyes that blinked constantly huddled with another man who chewed on the stem of his unlit corncob pipe. As they whispered to each other, Laura looked nervously about. Suppose they had discovered that it was an impostor? Would she be arrested? Where would she run?
Both men nodded and turned their attention to Laura. “We can offer you $4,900 for this magnificent original. Would you be willing to take a check?”
Laura was too stunned to give an immediate reply. This would be more money than she had ever seen. And she had Mark to thank for encouraging her to see this dealer about the stamp. Surely, he should get a piece of the action.
“Can you write out two checks?” she asked. “Make one out to me for $4,000 and the rest to Mark Hollander.”
Laura discovered that the more she practiced her powers of telekinesis on stamps, the less guilty she felt about it. And it was so easy to do. She simply had to concentrate on two stamps at a time, mentally switching the gummed condition of a lesser-value stamp with the ungummed condition of another. She found she could do the same thing with cancellation marks.
Mark urged her to work only on stamps worth less than $500 apiece so as to avoid suspicion. He also advised her not to sell more than about $8,000 a month, and to go to different dealers for each transaction.
Once Mark asked her to tell him exactly how she was able to make the change in stamps through mental powers alone. She told him that it was too technical, but Mark was persistent.
“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She pressed her forefingers to her forehead. “By turning off all of my thoughts and focusing all of my attention on my stamps, I am able to energize matter into a higher state of frequency, allowing it to change the way I see it happening in my mind.”
Mark didn’t understand any of this, even when Laura told him that the process was not very different from astral projection— where one could, while in a deep trance, transport his or her being anywhere in the world.
“If I wanted to,” she said, “I suppose I could even project myself into a stamp.” She laughed at the idea, but Mark’s face remained serious.
“Why not, Laura?”
“Mark, you’re crazy! Why would I want to transport myself into a stamp? That’s ridiculous!”
“No it isn’t. I can think of nothing more exciting in the world. Look at all the possibilities for travel and adventure that stamps can offer you.” He held up two commemoratives before her. “Why, you could be in a beautiful forest like this one on this Austrian stamp. Or you could be on the moon with an American astronaut in this stamp from Bhutan.”
He extended his arms as wide as he could. “Honey, you’d see things that absolutely no one else can see.”
Laura blinked playfully at him. “I still think you’re crazy, Mark.”
“Would you also think I was crazy if I asked you to marry me?”
She pressed herself closer to him and nuzzled her head on his shoulder. “Mark, what would a handsome young man want with an old lady like me?”
“Well, you warned me once before that you were an older, more experienced lady. I just wanted to marry you to see if you were also easy.”
Two weeks later they were married in a simple ceremony in a small Virginia town. By then she had enough money to a Mercedes that Mark wanted.
But Mark wouldn’t hear of it. In fact, they had frequent arguments over money because he felt it was necessary that he support her and not vice versa. So, when the government rehired him as a stamp designer, he was thrilled. It was not a great salary, but at least he would be the wage earner.
In his position, however, he realized that it would be awkward for Laura to continue performing her telekinetic powers in stamps and selling them to dealers. The risk of getting caught was too great.
When he forbade her to continue, she was furious. “You wanted to be a designer—fine. You like the way you want to and I’ll live the way I want to.”
Mark stormed out of the house that evening. Laura was on the sofa, sobbing. When she got up she noticed that it was eleven. She must have dozed off, she thought. She noticed her stamp album on the chair and she turned the pages randomly, hoping to forget what had happened that evening. Her eye caught a New Zealand stamp depicting young girls playing a game of field hockey. The bright green color of the grass and the warm colors of the summer day fascinated her.
Oh, to be with them, she thought. To forget all about herself and play with them. Maybe those girls could teach her how to play that game. Maybe she could join them for just a little while. . .
Suddenly, Laura felt as if she were thrown into a sea of color. Bright blues, greens, reds, yellows whirled about like a vortex, and she was being swallowed into it. Her body seemed to shrink rapidly. Soon, she heard the happy sound of girls playing, and she looked about to see a young girl of 10 or so in a blue jumper and white blouse approaching her. “Miss,” the girl asked politely, “would you like to play with us? Please say you will.”
Laura found the game easy once the rules were explained to her. The girls were so friendly and the game was even more enjoyable than Laura had imagined. She felt young again. Why hadn’t she done this before? As she continued to run about the field with a hockey stick in her hand, she thought she heard her name. There it was again! It sounded like Mark.
She ran toward an opening she saw in the distance. As she came closer to it, the opening started to shrink and Laura barely managed to get through it. It frightened her to think that she might not have been able to leave the stamp. Maybe next time she wouldn’t be so fortunate.
Once through the opening, Laura found herself moving through a multicolored vortex. She became dizzy and then lost consciousness. When she awoke, she found herself in the living room, sitting near her stamp album.
“There you are,” Mark said as he entered. “1 thought I searched every room in the house,” He lifted her up and held her in his arms. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted. Maybe 1 can make it up to you by having you join me for lunch to-morrow. There’s a nice restaurant just three blocks from the office where I can give you the full treatment — wine, food and song.”
Mark went to work the next morning without waking Laura. She was glad, because she felt tired this morning. She didn’t have to meet Mark until noon, so she would spend the morning being nauseously lazy.
It was about 11 o’clock when Laura came across several stamps that she had changed telekinetically a number of months ago.
As she looked at one of them, her eyes widened and she began to feel the blood drain from her face. The faint impression of a cancellation mark was appearing on a stamp that she had changed to mint condition. Something had gone wrong. The stamps she had changed were reverting to their former condition!
* * *
“Must be new to the world of stamps — the guy with the watermark detector.’
She knew she had to tell Mark before it was too late. She rushed to his office. Unable to wait while the lobby receptionist was on the phone, Laura headed straight for Mark’s office.
He wasn’t there, but she noticed that his suit jacket was still on a hook on the door. She would just sit here in his chair and wait for him to return.
She saw an official-looking letter on his desk. Next to it was apparently one of Mark’s latest stamp designs. It showed a courtyard and the words “Justice For All” near the bottom, along with “USA — 20c.” Mark was so creative, Laura thought. He really should be working as a commercial artist and make the money he deserved.
Money. Somehow that word directed her attention to that official letter on his desk. It was from the attorney general’s office. It said that Mark would undergo an investigation concerning an accusation by a stamp dealer who claimed that Laura and Mark had sold him a fraudulent stamp — an 1840 two-pence blue Queen Victorian. The dealer claimed that the gummed backing disappeared and a cancellation mark was visible over the right half of the stamp.
Mark must have received this letter this morning. What would she do? Where would she run? She had no where to go except. . .
She studied the stamp design on his desk. It was such an enchanting place. The courtyard was so serene and mysterious. The sky above was dotted with tiny clouds. She could imagine that the air smelled like a rose garden. Perhaps it was spring in the courtyard. The courtyard. Yes, she would be safe there.
Mark returned to his office 10 minutes later. With him was George Flegal, his attorney. “Well, 1 still haven’t had a straight answer from you,” George said. “Did you do it? Did you intentionally sell the dealer a fraudulent stamp?”
“No. Actually, my wife told me that the stamp was an inheritance from her great grandfather. That’s the truth.”
“I think we had better have a talk with your wife. You and she both received payment for that stamp.”
“Tell you what. She’ll be here any minute. She was going to meet me for lunch. I’ll tell her that you want to talk with her.”
“Good,” George scrutinized the de-sign on Mark’s desk. “Say, this is interesting. Some sort of courtyard.”
“Yes,” said Mark. “A courtyard to a famous woman’s prison. The authorities claim it is virtually escape-proof.”
Please visit my website: TomMach.com
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