(Ch1)

A Chapter by Spoon

The cancellation of the postal service hits none harder than Donald and his uncles, who lose their only means of support. Now the are at the mercy of the CPC, the sole controllers of food and work.

“What’s the point, eh?”

George sucked at his back teeth absently, eyes on the sky. Above, an aircraft was silently banking towards them.

“Hey, George, what’s the point?”

“The point?” George sighed. “Money, Don. It’s always money.”

“It’s always money. Hey Mathers, George says it’s always money.”

“Money?” Mathers said, glancing up from his upturned trolley. “No, it ain’t money.”

“It ain’t money. Hey George, Mathers says it ain’t money.”

George leaned forward and peered around his shoulder at Mathers, slapping a folded newspaper against his thigh.

“Well what is it then, Mathers?”

“Oh, you know. Same thing as always.” He clamped a wrench onto the bent wheel of his trolley and made a futile attempt to straighten it. “It’s about control,” he said. “It’s about power. It’s always about power.”

“Power, eh?” Don mused. “You know, money and power, they ain’t so different.”

“Sure they are,” George said, turning back to the glider.

“How so?” Don asked, “If you have money, you have power. Ipso facto, they’re the same.”

“But having power doesn't mean you have money,” Mathers added. “Therein lies the difference.”

“Therein lies the difference,” Don repeated softly, nodding his head. “You know, you just might have something there.”

“Of course he does,” George said, getting to his feet. “But he ain’t got money. Or power.”

“No, no,” Don nodded. “It ain’t money or power. But it is something.”

“It’s a point, Don,” Mathers said, having another tug on his trolley wheel. “That’s what you asked for, isn’t it? A point?”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ve got a point, I see that. I see that.”

George rose and paced out from underneath the awning, stopping to stand on the faded yellow line at the edge of the platform. The glider was almost above them, and as he watched a large square package tumbled out of it.

“Here it comes,” George said anxiously, watching the package as it tumbled through the air. The glider banked away around the factory smoke towards the next station, though none of them were watching it. All their eyes were focused on the package and the long sheet flailing behind it.

“Open, you b*****d,” Mathers breathed, pocketing his wrench and joining the other two. “Come on.”

The three of them shuffled right to the edge of the platform, their teeth clenched in grim anticipation. The package continued to gain speed as it fell, and just as the parachute began to fill with air it tore free from the box, drifting slowly away on the currents of the wind.

“God d****t!” George shouted, tearing the cap from his head and, pivoting away, hurled it to the ground in one swift movement. He raised his fist towards the glider as it meandered innocently behind the orange haze, and shouted “You bloody arseholes! You f*****g cowards!”

Mathers hung his head and covered his face. He righted his trolley roughly and grasped the handle for a moment before thrusting it angrily over the edge of the platform.

"That's twice this month!" he shouted, pacing. "Bloody hell!"

Don remained silent, observing his two uncles. Unlike them he was not enraged by the parachute's failure, and he didn't understand their outbursts. Instead he rubbed his chin and turned his gaze back to the mail crate, which was fast approaching the ground.

"Relax," Don said. "We'll still get our mail."

George and Mathers simultaneously turned their exasperated faces towards Don, but before either could speak the crate struck the center of the railyard, exploding into shards and splinters. Dust and envelopes sprayed outwards from the point of impact and the mangled crate as it bounced once, rolling over a couple of times before coming to an awkward rest upon the rails. The three men dropped from the platform and lifted the trolley clear of the rusted tracks, approaching the wreckage together.

"You haven't been around as long as we have, Donald," Mathers began, raising his free hand towards the splattered crate. "I don't expect you to understand this, but that right there is an insult."

"An insult?" Don laughed. "They didn't do that on purpose. They couldn't know the parachute would break off."

"Twice?" George spat, "In a month? Its a message, that's what it is. A power play. The whole god damn postal service is."

"I remember a time when they use to deliver the mail to every house. By hand! Every single house," Mathers said.

"Well, that's what we do, kinda," Don reasoned.

"No, no it ain't. Not at all," Mathers said, shaking his head.

"They had hundreds of people doing our job," George continued. "Hundreds. And they got payed."

They arrived at the crash site and placed the trolley on the dusty ground. For a moment they surveyed the task before them: a weeks worth of mail for the citizens of West 22. There were hundreds of envelopes in varying shades of white, most of which had been recycled at least four times. Here and there a bright, crispy white envelope with perfect corners stood out among the veterans of the envelope world. Each of these, and many others, bore a logo consisting of a wreath of blue olive branches surrounding a shuttle shooting upwards. This logo had the sharp edges that only a laser printer could provide, and represented the Central Preservative Collective.

"A few from the CPC," Don stated. "Quite a few. Hey George, what do you reckon they're up to?"

"Stuffing their pockets," George replied. "Probably more cutbacks."

"I'd love to see what kind of crap they've got over the wall," Mathers said.

The three of them turned their gaze to the south west where, beyond the decaying orange factories and darkening smog , the Inner Wall ran the entire length of the Western zones. It was only one of the many city walls, but it was the only one that provided any real security.

"You reckon I could get a post over there? In the City Center?" Don asked optimistically.

Mathers and George exchanged a knowing glance and began to shovel the letters into the trolley by the handful. Neither spoke a word.

"Well, what do you think?"

"Doing what?"

Don thought for a moment, sinking into a daydream. He sore himself wearing the turquoise of the CPC and marching atop the wall with a rifle over his shoulder, waving to his friends and family below as they gazed up at him in wonder. He turned to look down the other side of the wall and there he imagined a beautiful garden, lush with green grass and rivers, water shooting out of fountains around the vast glass laboratories. In the distance he could see one of the shuttles sitting on a launchpad, facing skyward.

"I could be a guard," he said, "On the walls. That way I could still see all of you."

George had a large handful of envelopes in his hand, which he threw to the ground and came to stand very close to Don.

"Now you listen here, Donald, and listen good," he said. "You will never get inside that wall, nor should you want to. They are elitist, bureaucratic pricks in there, the lot of them. No one gets inside the wall. No one. None of our kind, at least."

"You should be happy with what you've got out here," Mathers added. "And prepared to fight for it. There are a lot of bandits out there in the Wastes that would kill for what we have. And some in the City Center, too."

"What are you talking about?" Don condescended. "They keep us safe. If it wasn't for the wall-"

"What? If it wasn't for the walls, what?" George interrupted. "The bandits and the sickness would get us all? What a load of crap. How can you believe that when you've seen that so-called wall with your own eyes? The only one worth a damn is the Inner Wall, and we're on the wrong side of it."

"Yeah, but they patrol the outer walls. And there's the Militia."

"Don't even get me started on the Militia," George said, straightening the collar on his jacket.

"My point is, George, that we're alive. And that's because of them."

Mathers shook his head, and as he did so something on the ground caught his eye. It was a fragment of the crate itself, and stuck to it was a note addressed to the appointed mail distribution volunteers. He stooped to pick it up, and all the colour drained from his face.

"Hey, George," he said, but George was persisting with his lesson.

"I thought you were smarter than that, Don," he said, disappointment evident in his voice. "We're under the thumb, we owe them. How long will we be paying for our lives?"

"George, hey, George," Mathers stammered.

"They don't take anything from us, we give it," Don said, straightening his back. He was slightly taller than George but even though he was trying to assert himself he knew he couldn't match up to the man before him. "They earn our tribute every day they keep the bandits out, and we should be thankful! A little water and oil is a small price to pay for survival."

"It's all the damn oil," George exclaimed, flinging his arms wide in frustration. "There's none left for the rest of us. One hundred percent tax, that's the truth of the matter."

"George!" Mathers shouted, walking towards him with the note outstretched. He thrust it against George's chest and walked right on by, biting his fingernails and pacing.

"What the hell is this?" George asked, peering at the page. "What... no. No!"

"What is it?" Don asked, reaching for the page.

"You want to know where you stand, boy?" George shouted at Don, waving the page in front of his eyes. "Well here's your bloody answer. Nowhere. We're nothing!"

Don snatched the note from Georges enraged fingers and quickly skimmed the first few lines. He paused and glanced at his two uncles, then back at the page in disbelief.

"Terminated?" he asked no one in particular. "But... they can't just... cancel... the mail. Can they?"

"Keep reading," Mathers said.

"One more delivery on Thursday... Restricted... restricted travel between the zones?" Don glanced at the other two, almost pleading for them to tell him it was a joke. "So we'll have no contact with anyone outside West 22?"

"And we, the three of us, will be reassigned," Mathers said, nodding.

"You see? They won't ever stop," George ranted. "First they cut the trucks, then the trains. And now they're cutting the glider as well as our freedom to move around the zones. We're a problem for them. An expense."

"There must be a reason," Don said, glancing again in the direction of the Inner Wall. "Maybe the sickness has gotten into one of the zones. Maybe we're getting quarantined."

"Isolated, more like," Mathers added. "Divided and conquered."

"Ground underfoot."

"What'll we do?" Don asked, his heart beating heavily against his chest.

"There's nothing we can do," George declared. "And that is the point you were looking for."

"Here, here," Mathers agreed.

"No, I mean what'll we do?" Don clarified. "Where'll we work?"

George looked at Mathers who shrugged the question off. Reluctantly Mathers bent to the ground and scraped some loose letters together. The other two followed suit, and they finished their job in silence.

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