The Mail Carrier

A Story by Judith Blum

A short story about motives behind the things we do. I hope you find this thought provoking.

Willow Drive was a nice little street in the quieter parts of Kentucky where all the neighbors were friendly and everyone had everything they needed. The weather was pleasant and the children played without causing too much trouble, and mail came to the houses every single business day. Letters, news, and invitations were brought to them by the Mail Carrier for as long as any resident was able to recall. Everybody liked the Mail Carrier, and the neighbors' consensus was that Willow Drive was lucky to have the Mail Carrier as their mail carrier. He never mixed up any two addresses or forgot anyone's name, and he always brought something else with him. He wore a smile every day; every day except for Sunday, when no mail came. He wore a smile as regularly as he wore blue and delivered mail.

   The children of Willow Drive especially loved the Mail Carrier. They would cluster around his little post cart when he came around each day and he would let them have all the rubber bands that were no longer in need of use for holding bundles of mail together. One specific child gifted the Mail Carrier with a rubber ball composed of the bands he had accumulated over months. All the men of the street would shake hands when they met him and the housewives would wave from their kitchen windows in greeting. Nobody ever forgot to say "thank you" to him and whether they willed it or not, when they saw the Mail Carrier's smile they smiled, too.

   From time to time, a resident of Willow Drive would ask him for his name. But he never gave it, so they never knew. Eventually the neighbors decided that their mail carrier would always be the Mail Carrier, and it was fitting. That was why when the Mail Carrier did not show up one Monday morning, foreheads of the street began to crinkle. Some people thought that maybe no mail did come for Willow Drive that day, but when Tuesday arrived and a woman in a blue post uniform was discovered to be forcing envelopes through slots, they began to wonder. She did not smile and inquire how each neighbor was doing, or give rubber bands to the kids or even get the right addresses. That was when they realized that the Mail Carrier was so much more than a mail carrier, and they had taken him for granted all those years. But time went on, and soon the Mail Carrier was faded into a memory of old, and they got used to the new way...

   Nobody would have known that there was a reason to why the Mail Carrier had been a mail carrier for a living. No one would have thought that he had never gotten a letter of his own. Not one single letter in his entire life. But he was waiting for a letter for thirty years, ever since his son's eighteenth birthday. He knew it would come one day, but he did not know what it would say. He thought about his son every day, and delivering mail on Willow Drive would bring out the younger, happier memories instead of the worries that came out during the cruelties of night. The laughing children reminded him of his son when he was a boy, when they had each other and laughed together too. The busy men would remind him of his ancient self, when he had a real little family to hold up. The women working inside with aprons on reminded him of his wife, whose only response these days was the creak, creak of her rocking chair on the porch.

   It was one Sunday when the first letter for the Mail Carrier arrived, the day when there should not be mail. The Mail Carrier wiped beads of sweat from his brow after mowing the lawn, as the sun focused its rays on him ever stronger. He sat down next to his wife in her rocking chair on the porch, and picked up the rubber ball as he listened to the steady creak, creak. It was a day just like that fateful day thirty years back, the day of the big fight.

   He had been so proud of his little boy, who was turned a man, and saddened a little as he realized that he had earned his independence. The Mail Carrier had given his son the big "congratulations" for his eighteenth birthday; a manly hug and thump on the back, when the boy stiffened. He revealed that he signed up to fight as an American soldier in World War II, and would be leaving that afternoon, as he was now of age. "You're still a boy!" the devastated father pleaded, but the boy proceeded to lift his duffel over a shoulder. His wife stood supported by the doorpost, too weak from sobbing to say a word. With a cold air of self-importance, the child turned to his father. "I'm eighteen, Dad. I'm no longer your little boy. I'm a man grown now, and I don't need you."

   But I need you. The words stuck in his throat, never to emerge as his eyes never left the receding back of his defiant son. His wife continued to sob until her mind gave up and left. It went far, far away and forgot to return. The Mail Carrier, however, never shed a tear. Not even when he sat on his chair, feeling over the bumps in the rubber ball as if memories were etched on them, listening to the creak, creak of his wife's chair, thirty years later. Not even when a special kind of van pulled up to his house and four men in special uniforms came out, carrying a long, narrow box and placed it at his feet.

   Even then he did not cry. He had known the truth all along. In his heart. He opened the coffin and found pieces of limbs spoiled and decayed, arranged in somewhat of a human form. He did not cry even then, when the men explained to him that it had taken them all this time to identify the body and trace it back to the right family. But then he saw something else. Tucked into the side under the American flag was the first letter that the Mail Carrier was ever to have received. With trembling hands he broke the seal and read it aloud, with a creak, creak for background music.

       Dear Dad,

       I'm sorry I left you. Please tell Mom that I'm sorry and I miss her. It looks like I might be home sooner than expected...I feel it, I know it, it's all around us. But I'm not afraid, nor do I regret being here. At least you will be safe. It's what is right. I'm only sorry I never said goodbye, that the last thing I will think is that I said I don't need you. Never had I been this wrong. I need you more than ever, and you've given me all the love and time you could have packed into eighteen years. There is nothing more I can ask from you. Thank you. I'm sorry.

       With love,

       Your little boy

   That was when the first tear left the eyes of the Mail Carrier. One lone, single tear. It was large and heavy, congealed with all the emotions of the past decades, and it rolled down his cheek like a boulder down a stone cliff. It landed on the paper that was written thirty years ago, marring the apologies just like the features of the face that was blurred on the battle field...

   Creak, creak.