Postie

Steve trudged through the fluorescent-lit hallway of Westbridge Community College, his sneakers squeaking faintly on the polished linoleum. At twenty-two, he was the epitome of unremarkable—a five-foot-nine frame carrying a bit of a paunch, offset by sturdy legs that hinted at a latent strength he never bothered to hone. His brown hair was perpetually tousled, and his blue eyes, sharp with a quiet intelligence, often glazed over with the laziness that came from knowing he could coast through life without much effort. In his mind, though, Steve was a conqueror, a mastermind spinning dark, fantastical dreams of bending the world to his will. A world that, so far, had shown him little more than lecture halls, half-hearted study sessions, and the monotony of suburban existence.

The hallway was a blur of faded posters and chattering students, the air thick with the scent of cheap coffee and worn textbooks. Steve’s thoughts wandered, as they often did, to grand visions of power—presiding over nations, commanding loyalty with a flick of his wrist. A smirk tugged at his lips, only to fade as he caught sight of something odd: a single yellow Post-it note stuck to the cinderblock wall, starkly out of place amid the sea of club flyers and exam reminders.

He slowed, squinting at the note. In neat, black ink, it read: *Steve, anything you write on me will come true.*

“What the…” Steve muttered, glancing around. The hallway was emptying as students funneled into classrooms. No one seemed to notice the note—or him. He reached out, his fingers brushing the smooth, slightly tacky surface, and yanked it free. It was just a Post-it, unremarkable in every way—standard size, standard yellow, no different from the ones littering his desk at home. He turned it over, half-expecting a punchline or a doodle, but the back was blank.

“Some idiot’s idea of a prank,” he scoffed, crumpling the note into a tight ball. He tossed it into the next trash can he passed, its metal rim clanging faintly as the wad disappeared among crumpled wrappers and coffee cups. Shaking his head, he continued to his sociology class, already dreading the lecture on social constructs.

Settling into a creaky chair at the back of the classroom, Steve flipped open his textbook, its pages dog-eared and faintly stained from late-night pizza binges. As he rifled through to the assigned chapter, something caught his eye—a flash of yellow tucked between the pages. His stomach lurched. There, nestled against a diagram of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, was the Post-it note, uncrumpled and pristine, its message unchanged: *Steve, anything you write on me will come true.*

His breath hitched. He glanced around, half-expecting to see a classmate snickering or a hidden camera winking from the corner. But the room was filled only with the drone of the professor’s voice and the soft scratching of pens. Steve picked up the note, his fingers trembling slightly. “This is some kind of joke?” he murmured, his voice barely audible over the lecture.

As if in response, the ink on the note shimmered, the words shifting before his eyes like ripples in a pond. The message morphed, now reading: *Steve, this is not a joke!*

His heart slammed against his ribcage, a cold sweat prickling at the base of his neck. He blinked hard, rubbing his eyes, but the words remained. Was the note laced with something? He’d heard stories of campus pranksters slipping micro-doses of LSD into water bottles or vending machine snacks, but this felt different. His body didn’t hum with the jittery buzz of a high—no blurred vision, no tingling limbs. This was something else, something that tugged at a deeper part of him, a place where his wildest fantasies lived. It felt… spiritual, as if the note was speaking directly to his soul.

Steve shook his head, trying to dismiss the absurdity. “Get a grip,” he whispered, shoving the note back into the textbook. But as he did, the words shifted again, the ink curling into a new message: *Try me.*

The letters lingered for a moment before dissolving, leaving the Post-it blank except for his name. Steve’s pulse quickened. He fished a mechanical pencil from his backpack, its lead worn to a stub from doodling in the margins of his notes. He clicked it once, twice, the familiar tick grounding him as he stared at the empty yellow square.

“Fuck it,” he thought, his curiosity outweighing his skepticism. He pressed the pencil to the note, hesitating. What could he write? Something small, testable—nothing too wild, not yet. His mind raced through possibilities: a passing grade on his next exam, a free coffee at the campus café, or maybe something bolder, something that would prove this wasn’t just his imagination running wild.

The professor’s voice faded into a distant hum as Steve’s world narrowed to the Post-it in his hand. His dreams of power, of control, flickered at the edges of his thoughts, tempting him to write something grand, something that could reshape his mundane life. But what? The pencil hovered, its tip grazing the paper, as Steve wrestled with the question that could change everything.