"Rain or shine, Mrs. St. Sauvier. Rain or shine!"
- The old woman accepted both envelopes with a smile. Seth Gisherman returned the gesture and tightened down the pull cord on the hood of his bulky parka. Carefully descending the slippery stairs, he returned into the last storm of the season. The weather certainly hadn't been kind this particular winter, but he forged on without complaint. When he accepted a carrier's position with the U.S. Postal Service years before, he understood there would be certain prices to be paid along the way. He kept his chin squared to the angry wind, shouldered his heavy sack and gladly paid the price.
- Shelley called from the bedroom, "You coming to bed sometime tonight?"
- Seth opened his eyes to the pulsating glow of television static. Blindly searching for the remote control, he finally clicked the annoyance off and rubbed his itchy eyes. Another nightly ritual of sitcoms and commercial breaks had come to an end. He contemplated the incredible monotony associated with such a truth, placed both hands behind his head and closed his eyes again. Within seconds, he was back to his dreams. Boring or not, reality would prove a kinder place.
- It was dark and cold and he could feel his legs moving without ever asking them. Immediately, a vague understanding covered him like a wet blanket. He was only dreaming. At first, the vividness alone scared him. Without much thought, however, he surrendered to his curiosity and decided not to fight it. Any new life experience, real or not, was welcome.
- As if he were looking through a window at his own actions, his subconscious arrived at one of the normal stops on his mail route. It was Peaceful Meadows; an elderly housing complex that boasted of independent living and friendly faces. He couldn't believe his eyes. One of his hands banged away on the door of Mrs. Kershenbaum, while the other held a large empty mail sack. He was even more surprised when the door slowly opened. In one brief but sick moment of humor, he decided that Mrs. Kershenbaum was never going to hold the poster child position at Peaceful Meadows. She wasn't smiling.
- Before the tiny widow could reveal her bare gums, in one swift motion, he lunged through the threshold and had his free hand completely covering her mouth. There was little struggle from the frail woman, but internally, a war was waged. He fought furiously to awaken.
- It was no use. The will of his subconscious took over and Seth watched as his alter-ego wrapped a telephone cord around the old lady's wrinkled neck. He squeezed hard until her blue eyes looked as if they would literally explode. The sight made the cruel part of him laugh. The rest of him wanted to vomit. He continued the fight to get out. It was a futile attempt.
- Filled with an unknown excitement, Seth's mirrored image finished her off. It didn't take long. When her body finally stopped bucking and convulsing, he paused to admire his work. Sweet Mrs. Kershembaum was gone; her body, limp and lifeless. The good part of him wanted to scream, but nothing would come out. If at all possible, more terror struck his heart. The good part of him wasn't in charge anymore.
- As if he'd performed the act a hundred times before, he meticulously cleaned up after himself by removing all evidence of his presence. He placed the light corpse into the mailbag, zipped it and returned to the night. The rest seemed no more than the fuzz of a 3 a.m. T.V. screen.
- Shelley called out again, "Hon, you're not going to stay on the couch all night, are you?"
- Seth's eyes flew open. He was trembling and not only from the chill of the dark living room. He sat up and took notice of the cold sweat that covered his body. Reluctantly, he pondered the hideous nightmare, but quickly put it out of his mind. He couldn't remember having a more frightening dream. It seemed so real and he still felt weak from it. Staggering toward the fridge, he took a long swig from a gallon of milk, shut off the kitchen light and headed for bed. He could only think of hugging Shelley and getting warm. His feet were freezing.
- The morning came quickly and he awoke exhausted. He recalled the mental battle he'd lost the night before and piled on layers of clothes. From the frost that caked the windows, it was clear that winter wasn't through victimizing those who worked in it.
- The day began as all others and continued as such until arriving at Pleasant Meadows. Fumbling for the stack of letters in his bag, Seth fought off the sick feeling that churned in his guts. "It was only a bad dream," he reminded himself, but shuttered when arriving at the Kershenbaum box. He stuffed three pieces of junk mail into the narrow slot, slammed the cover shut and hurried off. In his fifteen years of service, he couldn't remember a more disturbing day. He rushed down Oliver Street to finish the route.
- Jeopardy followed Wheel of Fortune. Shelley's cooking was its usual bland culinary experience. In fact, the entire night went as they all had. Since his frightening tour in Vietnam, that was the goal: No surprises! He felt grateful for the boredom of routine. If getting to sleep could be so easy…
- David Letterman had just finished his top ten list when Seth awoke in the entryway of Pleasant Meadow. "No!" he screamed to himself, but once again, no one was listening. Thrown into a fit of sheer panic, he helplessly watched as he filled Mr. Diethelm's bathtub with luke warm water. The old timer looked on in horror. His blotched hands had been bound. His mouth was gagged.
- Unable to rationalize the extra effort of drawing a bath, Seth shook off his own attempt at reason and lifted the hunched man into the air. He dangled him face down over the pool of death, but again, paused to savor the terror in his victim's eyes. Prodded more by his own tiring arms, he finally lowered the squirming fish into the water. To his own surprise, this time took even less power to kill. The man hardly struggled against his watery fate. When it was over, Seth decided that some of the excitement had been lost. As if disappointed with himself, a frown gradually replaced the grin. He couldn't see the man's eyes upon death. That was the problem.
- As one part of him demanded this would never happen again, the other part agreed, at least not when the victim's eyes were concealed.
- Along with the towels used to clean up, the bloated body was placed into a new mailbag. The rest occurred exactly as the night before. Punching, biting and kicking to emerge from his evil fog, the real Seth was left to wrestle with another demon. His subconscious was following the same path as his waking thought: A routine had been set, a safe and predictable routine.
Seth opened his eyes to the deafening sound of silence. For what seemed like time spent in hell, he lied quietly in the dark. It didn't make sense, any of it. "Why?" he continually asked himself, but there was no answer for the gruesome and disturbing dreams. He found it more difficult to dismiss the details of this late night's adventure and decided to heat up the milk this time. For a moment, he even thought about waking Shelley and telling her, but quickly decided against it. Initially, she would be angry, but worse, when the morning came, her laughter would be more unbearable than the vividness of a stupid nightmare.
- It was nearly 3 in the morning when Shelley found her husband lying at the foot of the bed. He was rolled into the fetal position, his head held tightly in hands that were as wrinkled as sun-dried raisins. Careful not to wake him, she gently slipped off his work pants and went back to sleep. She'd question it in the morning.
The alarm clock couldn't have screamed louder, but Seth wasn't hearing it. It was the first time he was late for work since he'd quit drinking ten years ago. He frantically threw on his worn uniform and ran out of the house, missing the note Shelley left on the kitchen table: I didn't have time to make anything for supper, but there's a T.V. dinner in the freezer. If you have time, please clean up some of the garage. There's boxes and mailbags piled everywhere. Try to stay up. I'll be home from Bingo by 9. Love, Shelley.
- Nothing was worse than being late for a job when there were deadlines involved. Dead tired, Seth ignored his body's complaints and completed his route in record time. The only delay was at Pleasant Meadows, where his legs actually became paralyzed with a childish fear. For whatever reason, he couldn't shake it. His nightmares were starting to haunt him something terrible. For a moment, he'd even thought about breaking routine and knocking on the doors of Mrs. Kershenbaum and Mr. Diethelm just to put his misguided anxieties to rest. But, there was no time. Besides, it was silly. He needed to stop entertaining such bizarre fears.
- Eight hours later, Seth returned home feeling like he hadn't slept in three days. His head banged; his hands, trembled from nerves. Catching Shelley's note on the table, he smiled and threw the T.V. dinner in the oven. To hell with straightening up the garage, he thought, the Brady Bunch is running a rerun marathon. In no time, he found his comfort zone on the couch and embraced the lazy boredom he'd spent his entire life perfecting.
- The apple cobbler was still warm; the Brady's hadn't even sung once when he surrendered to exhaustion and escaped his recent worries. With the first snore, he bid farewell to the real world and drifted off.
- "Oh, it's you Seth. A little late to be delivering the mail, don't you think?" Mrs. St. Sauvier whispered, so as not to wake her neighbors.
- "It is," replied the grinning sleepwalker, "It's just that, well…I was bored."
