Filed Too Late
A Maggie B. Casefile
It began with a notebook.
Not Maggie’s—hers was grey, hardcover, and scorched from a toaster incident.
This one was spiral-bound, well-thumbed, biscuit grease in the margins. Left on the bakery bench. The cover read, in tidy black ink:
“The Book of Apologies. Leave one. Read one. No judgment.”
Maggie noticed it on her morning walk, wedged among crumbs and a fading flyer for Pilates for over-60s. She kept walking. Most people did, at first.
By midweek it had moved to the bus shelter, edges curled by rain. Someone had pressed a fallen leaf between two pages.
By Friday there were three—one in the WI kitchen, one in the garden shed, one (inevitably) on the vestry pew.
It was spreading, politely.
The entries were anonymous. Mostly.
Some were performative:
“I rearranged the war memorial poppies. Out of order.”
Some were sharper:
“I told her it didn’t matter. It did.”
Others blurred the line:
“I left the choir not because of the schedule, but because of her laugh.”
Audrey Crenshaw was appalled. She called it “emotional graffiti,” adjusted her pearls, and convened an emergency WI meeting to vote on confiscation “until provenance could be confirmed.”
Netta Flinn muttered that it was probably the young ones.
Reginald, who claimed not to care, checked the bakery bench each morning, then studied the pavement as if he’d only come for air.
Maggie didn’t speak.
But she did notice a new entry in the garden-shed copy—a page torn halfway down, gently folded, left open:
“I never said I was sorry
for leaving
when the garden needed planting.”
No signature. Just a small drawing of a half-grown courgette, sketched lightly.
She read it three times. Didn’t touch the page. That evening, she walked past her own garden without looking.
The beds were still unturned. She usually had them turned by the equinox.
Next morning, the bench notebook was gone. In its place, a new one had appeared—smaller, navy, ink-dark, no inscription.
Maggie sat beside it. She didn’t write. But she did reach into her pocket and unfold the page she kept.
She read it once more, then tucked it inside the new book, near the back.
She left it open to a clean page, balanced a pencil through the coil, and walked away.
Later, she saw Reginald approaching. He didn’t speak at first—just handed her a paper bag, brown, slightly greasy.
“One left. Thought you might like it.”
Inside: a fig bar.
She nodded, folded the bag twice, and slipped it into her coat. Neither mentioned the notebook.
At the corner:
“Some things come too late.”
Reginald didn’t ask what. He just offered his arm—not formal, not awkward—and they walked on.
Back home, Maggie opened her notebook. She flipped past teabag disputes and rogue gnomes, caught a faint scent of damp soil from the unturned beds, and found a new page.
Case #30 – Filed Too Late
Observation: Some pages should never turn. Others turn too late.
Outcome: Carried forward. Quietly.
Additional note: [entry withheld]
She tapped the page once, then closed the book.
Outside, someone was laughing.
Might have been the wind. Or not.
Hard to say what carried it.
These little tales are always fun....