Short Story - The Postman

By Robin Rues


Barry groaned as a new bag was brought in. Hundreds... heck, who was he kidding? Thousands more envelopes. He looked down at the sorting table and sighed. That many letters and more were already scattered across the surface, waiting to be sorted.

His eyes red-rimmed, he took a swig of cold coffee and went back to work. Each envelope was exactly the same: a crisp white rectangle with bold black calligraphy on the front. Every envelope had a name, and a few words below it. For the thousandth time, he prayed for a little diversity. Even the slightest varitation in size or coloration would be bliss. As usual, he caught the prayer before it was finished and snuffed it. No use making things that much worse...

He had talked to Elvis about it last decade, and he'd recieved assurances that it would be looked in to. Yeah right. He shook his head and lit a cigarette. Beaurocracy. What could you do? Not a damn thing, that's what.

His mind on autopilot, he scanned the envelopes and placed them, one at a time, in large bins behind the sorting table. This one in Finances, that one in Illness, the next in Family... on and on and on...

Would they never quit whining?

Barry shrugged, and some ashes from his cig fell to the table. He paused a moment to brush them away.

At least here they came to him already sorted by religion. He shuddered as he thought about the old days when he was in Faith Sorting. What a fiasco that had been. He could never get the different religions straight. Was it Muslim or Hindi that prayed to Shiva? Which one couldn't eat fish... or was it pork? How anyone could keep track was beyond him.

After that mixup in Poland, he'd been sent over to Topic Sorting, where he did much better. He cringed a little thinking about that last snafu. Due to his misfiling, a young Jewish boy had been visited by an image of a six-armed, blue-skinned, elephant-headed East Indian tribal diety. Barry massaged his temples. He still got a sinking feeling remembering that one. The poor boy had ended up shaving his head and joining the Hari-Krishnas. Even after years of therapy, he had frequent relapses. He would disappear, later to be found at a zoo, talking to the elephants. As far as Barry knew, the elephants never reciprocated.

Barry shook his head. The Big Guy had sure been pissed. He took a long drag. Was it his fault people down there insisted on putting different faces on the same being? For the millionth time, Barry thought about how easy things would be if there were only one world faith. Elvis had tried to explain it to Barry one time on break, but it had all gone over his head. Something about cultural differences and free will. Whatever. More work is what it amounted to.

But the mail all went to the same place. That's what Barry didn't get. Why sort it if it was headed to the same Guy? He shook his head. It was kind of like moving piles of sand around.

He tossed the next one into a bin marked "Unclear" for later sorting. The words below the name were jumbled and nonsensical. He'd come back to it later. Barry usually spent the first part of his day sorting, then the second part going through that misfit bin. If it were up to him, he'd just toss the whole lot. After all, if you can't ask coherently, why should you expect an answer?

He mashed out his cigarette and read the next envelope.

Jim Baskin
Personal wealth and power

Barry sighed and threw it in the trash, absentmindedly flipping an ash after it. These were the Christians, the ones who followed the Master. Barry rolled his eyes. How many times had Jesus talked about selflessness and service to others? Yet they continued to think only of themselves. He reflected gloomily that this could be a heartbreaking job. Especially now that he knew The Truth - it was hard watching all those people floundering around. Sometimes he wanted to scream, "Idiots! Its all so simple!" Sometimes he actually did. For all the good...

Why did they insist on wasting all their time thinking of themselves? The Truth was right there, yet they were blind, mesmerized by their own damn selves...

Not that Christians had the corner on the selfish market. Last decade at the Postal picnic, he had shared a few flat, warm beers with some guys from the other Faith Sort departments: Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and so forth. Man - they'd had a few laughs, sharing stories about the requests they sorted. It seemed every faith had its fair share of self centered doofuses. Jules over in Miscleaneous had won the prize with a story about a sheep herder in Central Asia. Barry blushed a little remembering that one...

He started chuckling under his breath. Soon it built to a full scale laugh-attack. He just kept picturing that crazy shepherd and his flock of nervous sheep. If sheep could pray, he suspected there would be quite a few white envelopes littering the table from them... After a while, his chuckles died, and he got back to work sorting.

He didn't notice in his hillarity that he had brushed an envelope off the table. It fluttered to the ground and swished under the sorting table, out of sight. In Hell, every bit of joy makes little ripples of misfortune. Barry went on sorting, humming an ABBA tune, which in itself was very unfortunate.

After a while, the noon chimes struck and Barry got up and walked to the break room. Elvis was there, eating a sweet potato pie. Again. Barry slowed, wishing he could just turn around and go outside to eat, but Elvis had already spotted him and was calling his name.

"Barry! Hey little buddy!" Barry hated it when he called him that. "Listen amigo, I've got some overtime work for you. Can you cover it?"

Barry rolled his eyes. What a joker. When you live outside time, its all overtime. Elvis was just being a jerk.

"Jimmy in cube 732,625 got moved up a level," he continued, "and we need you to cover his work load until I can talk to Saint Peter."

Barry's shoulders slumped. "And when might that be?"

"Well, a decade or two, I'm sure. So, can I count on you?"

"Uggh... I guess," he slurred, knowing he had no choice whatsoever.

Elvis smiled, his teeth flashing like the sequins on his jumpsuit. "Thank you, thank you very much."

Barry sat down and opened his lunch bag. Egg salad sandwich. Again. He really hated this place. He looked over at Elvis, chewing heartily and cutting another piece of pie. What a jerk. King of Rock and Roll my ass. More like Thief of Rock and Roll. He remembered when Chuck Berry had died. He'd come looking for Elvis, but the "king" had hid out until he left. Now Chuck was on a different level and Elvis was back to his cocky, fat, Las Vegas self. What an a-hole.

Barry took the last bite of sandwich, finished his plain rice cake, and crumpled his bag. He stood and threw the bag at the trash can and missed. Again. He still had a few minutes of break, but around here what difference did it make? He shuffled out of the room, lighting a cigarette.

"Those things'll kill you!" shouted Elvis from behind.

Barry rolled his eyes. Cretin.

When Barry got back to his cubicle, he took a moment to look around. Grey walls, a brushed metal table, a dozen plasti-cardboard mail bins. Only two things hung on the drab walls of his cubicle. One, near the doorway, was a stained metal plaque with "Topic Sort Cubicle 732,624" stamped on it. The other was just across from the sorting table. It was a 8x10 glossy, framed, autographed photo of Elvis. In full, sweaty, Vegas splendor. It was signed, "To my little buddy." Barry had removed it several times, only to find it back in place the next day. After a while he gave up. What's the use?

On a whim, he wandered over to Jimmy's cubicle next door. It was exactly the same as his, but instead of a photo on the wall, there was a plaque which simply read, "THIMK!" Jimmy had once confided to Barry that he hated that brainless little saying more than anything in the world. He had nightmares about how stupid it was.

Barry looked around dreamily. So old Jimmy got promoted, did he? There were only a few ways to advance around here. A supervisor could recommend advancement (which never happened), an angel or saint could intervene (again, never happened), God himself could promote someone (happened like clockwork; one level every thousand years), or someone on Earth could pray. Barry thought the last option the most likely. He really couldn't imagine old Elvis saying one good thing about anyone, and most of the saints and angels were busy playing harps and going to keg parties and whatnot up above.

He shook his head again. Good old Jimmy. He wondered who had prayed for him. A family member? A friend? An associate? He also wondered how high he had been promoted. The stronger the prayer, the bigger the promotion. That's the rule. He remembered talking to a guy a while back who had been promoted from the lower levels. Someone had been researching their geneology and had discovered him in their family tree. After learning a little about his life, the kind soul had offered a prayer for him. It was almost an afterthought, but that intercession had rescued him from his old job of cleaning Hell's toilets.

Learning that there were toilets in Hell was just one of the big surprises that Barry got after his massive heart attack. Hell was nothing like they said.

Barry took one last look around Jimmy's cubicle and left. He was chuckling a little at the plaque on the wall. It said, "THIMK!" - hillarious! It's supposed to say "THINK!" but someone wasn't following their own advice. Or something like that. He chuckled some more. Good stuff. Goooood stuff.

He remembered being a little surprised that laughter was permitted here. After all, he'd been taught that this was a place of eternal torture. Elvis had been happy to explain, with a swivel of his hips, that those little moments of joy were an important contrast to the boredom and misery of day-to-day life here. It gave texture and definition to the suffering. Apparently, without a touch of happiness, misery can eventually become bearable.

Barry wandered back to his cubicle and sat down in front of the "Unclear" bin. It was time to sort the prayers that had not been clearly addressed or were in some other way incomprehensible. He looked up and saw glossy Elvis sweating. An elevatorized version of "Stairway to Heaven" began to play over the loudspeakers.

He thought: "Ok, well. Now I know I'm in Hell."

Again.

He began opening the envelopes and pulling out the white cards, quickly scanning them for info. Many were clear and easy to understand, and simply had not been designated properly. One thing Barry wished he could tell the living: At the beginning of each prayer, say who you're praying to, and give a general gist of the prayer. An outline would be nice. Or maybe a synopsis.

But that would make my job easier, and we can't have that, can we?

Naturally, a lot of the "Unclears" came from slackers up in Labeling. Just because they were on a higher level, they thought they could pass the buck to the schmucks in Sorting. Many of the "Unclears" he read were pretty obvious if the Label idiots would just dig a little. But no. They just skimmed, and if the topic didn't jump off the page at them, they scribbled some nonsense below the name and went on to the next.

Over the next few hours, he went through the bin and sorted the stray prayers. Some went into the sorting bins, others went into the trash, and quite a few went into the interdepartmental bin. Those would be sent back to the Faith Sorters for reprocessing. Some of the "Unclears" turned out to be non-Christian in origin. From time to time Barry would mis-sort just for chuckles. In Hell, everyone's a jerk.

Barry lit yet another cigarette. He took a deep drag, found no satisfaction whatsoever in it, and picked up the next envelope. The writing on the card was a childish scrawl. Barry perked up. Real prayers from children were hopelessly rare. Most children's prayers were vague and undirected, and usually quite selfish. Occasionally, one would come through with the right combination of focus and selfless love, and, POW! Big stuff happened. Barry had heard talk of entire wars ending as the direct result of a child's selfless prayer.

His hands shook a little as he looked down at the simple writing. He could be holding one of the most powerful forces in the universe right here in his hands! He let the anticipation wash over him as he took another sip of cold, brackish coffee.

Gulping it down with a grimace, he began reading: "Dear Jesus, please give my big brother pimples."

That was it. Pimples. Barry let his head drop into his hands. How depressing. Every time he thought there might be a gleaning of hope for humanity, he was proven wrong.

He thought, "Man, this sucks."

Again.

Elvis was right. Wasn't the disappointment just that much more abusive for the hope he had held for that moment? Bastards!

He shook his head, throwing the card into the trash.

Within a few hours, he was done with the "Unclears" and ready to call it a day. He punched out at 6pm on the dot.

He sulked out of the building and down to the bus stop. It was drizzling and gray outside. Again. The kiosk had no roof, and Barry had no umbrella. Six busses came and left, headed elsewhere. After three hours, his bus arrived and he boarded.

Several hours later, he was home again and sitting in front of the television. Full House reruns. Again. Barry's left eye twitched.

After a few hours of amusing Olsen Twins hyjinx, he went to bed.

The water bed was leaking. There was warm, offensive smelling liquid all over the sheets.

Again.

Barry Jones fell asleep, and began to dream. In his dream he was promoted up to the 538th layer of Hell. He felt so excited and happy. It was a false joy of course, one that would be ripped away from him when he awoke, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.

Back in cubicle 732,624, under the sorting table, a white envelope rested in the shadows. It would not be found until the next cleaning, more than 357 years in the future.

Inside the envelope was a crisp white card. On the card, in the sloppy, carefree writing of a child, a prayer was plainly printed.

It said, "Dear Jesus, please forgive my great -great-grandpa Barry. I know he did bad things, but granddad has been telling me about him, and I think he was good deep inside. I hope and pray with all my heart that you will have mercy on his soul. I will give up Birthday and Christmas presents for ten years if you do. Your friend, Benny Jones."

At the bottom, written very small, was one word.

"Amen."









Post Scripts to Reader:

Don't worry. 357 years in Hell is nothing. Compared to eternity, it only seems like 294 years.

3, 5, and 7 are the first three prime numbers.

The name Barry was chosen because it is the funniest and saddest name in the world. Except for Nanook, which was ruled out because the postal worker is not an Eskimo. But an Eskimo in Hell has comic possibilities... (I feel a sequel coming on)

2, 9, and 4 are trademarked, Robin Rues, 2004. All rights reserved.

Health Care Blues

Look, I keep saying this out loud to people, and it never registers. So maybe if I blog it, someone will hear.

High health care costs are a direct result of the insurance industry.

Think about it. What if some surgeon/hospital/pharmacy tried to charge a certain amount for a procedure/admittance/medicine and no one could afford to pay? What do you think that would do to the cost? This is not rocket science. If no one could pay $25,000 for a procedure, or $325 dollars a week for a prescription, then market forces would drive the price down. Period.

However, insurance artificially inflates the buying power of the consumer, and removes the consumer one place from the actual purchase. This is a presription for rising cost.

Think about it: What would happen to the price of apples if you gave everyone in the nation an 'apple coupon' worth five dollars towards the purchase of apples? Every Economics student knows that price is fixed not only by demand, but by consumer wealth. If everyone in the nation holds an 'apple coupon' worth five dollars, the price of apples will go up. Dramatically. Costs go up until the market self-corrects. As long as every American keeps getting an 'apple coupon' worth five dollars, the price of apples will probably stablize at just over five dollars. It becomes something we could not afford without the coupon. Now let's say we take away the coupon from 10% of the people. They would be unable to afford apples at their inflated cost.

The point? Insurance is that 'apple coupon,' We pay in every month... more and more each year... so that we can afford possible medical expences beyond our normal means. Think about the crippling costs of health care without insurance. Its everyone's nightmare, we know those costs would break us financially. So we shoulder ever increasing health insurance premiums.

We seem to miss the point that if none of us could afford it, then it wouldn't cost that much! Basic Economics. Only the fact that we have insurance makes it possible for them to charge that much.

Its true. Its actually rather simple.

But you have to ask, how can the insurance companies pay inflated costs, yet turn a profit? The math is simple. If you can draw funds from a large group of people, as long as you keep the ratio of healthy to sick as high as possible, you will turn a massive profit. This gives the insurance companies a mathematical imperative to insure more healthy people than sick. You tell me what that does to the sick consumer... But that's a whole different blog. Also remember that high health care costs are good for insurance companies. The more unaffordable costs are, the more necessary they are.

The solution? I really don't know. But at least knowing the problem should help us to think about things. My opinion is that mandating insurance is not the answer. It will only entrench the problem. I have some ideas, but you'll have to wait until the second installment of this series.

Do you have any ideas? I'd love to hear them.