One new hope, and the empire strikes back

"Hi, Renshu. I hope I didn't scare you."
"What are you doing here?" I pinched my arm under my sleeve to make sure she was actually real. "How did you--" I broke off. What I had been about to ask was "How did you find me?," which, I realized, was stupid. I was in exactly the same place as before.

"Well," Nova started, "After college, I went to med school, and since then I've been on-and-off searching for jobs. I'm a doctor now, but I have nowhere to be."
"This is the post office." I wasn't even sure myself whether I was bitter or confused.
"After my last small job, and because of some other circumstances, I thought I'd come back and see if I couldn't find work in my old hometown."
I stared at her. "You're a doctor." Wow, I was just full of intelligence. I'd lost all my charm to fifteen years of time.
"Yeah," she said, "but I was also curious. I wanted to see what had happened to you."
She motioned towards the door. I locked up the post office and we started walking.
How embarrassing that I was doing the exact same thing as when she'd left? Raising a daughter and working at the post office? I had to justify this somehow.
"Well, I'm the postmaster now," I said. "After fifteen years of service as a regular old mailman."
She grinned. "I was half expecting that you wouldn't even be here, and that you'd have gone off to college after all and become a writer like you wanted to be."
Had I wanted to be a writer? Ah, youth. Ugh, memory.
Here I was, thirty-three and single, in almost the exact same situation that Nova had left me in.
Suddenly I felt self-conscious about my appearance for the first time in forever. Did I still have feelings for her? I tried to search myself and figure that out, but I couldn't tell. She was as beautiful as ever, despite the faint lines on her face that hadn't been there in her teenage years, but I seemed to have lost my feelings-for-people muscles gradually over more than a decade. I didn't love her. I wasn't sure whether that was relieving or saddening.

Nova used to be scrawny in high school. She had filled out a bit, although not to the point of being plump. And she hadn't gotten that extra inch of height after all. We were still eye-to-eye.

We were gradually walking towards Castle Apartments. I wanted to ask her more about her life, but her brief doctor story seemed to be all that she was interested in telling me. Awkwardly, I ventured, "Do you need a place to stay until you can find a job? There's a clinic here in town, I can take you there in the morning."
I was worried that she'd read mixed signals in my innocent statement, but she smiled. "Thanks, Renshu. That'd be wonderful, but I didn't want to ask. And yeah, I can go to the clinic in the morning."
We didn't say much for the rest of the walk. Or maybe we did, but I just didn't remember. The whole thing was eerie. My arm hurt from pinching myself, and I almost expected her to disappear or take off and fly away.
Betwixt my wandering thoughts, I had absentmindedly reached for her hand. Old habits really do die hard. I brushed her pinky and we both jerked our hands away as if we'd been shocked. Awkward, Renshu...

A few minutes later, I walked into the apartment followed closely by Nova. I walked around the corner and found Xiu Li making pasta in the kitchen. I pretended like this was completely normal. "Dad!" said Xiu Li, and I realized that I hadn't called her about being late.
But I didn't have time to explain anything, because Xiu Li saw Nova first.
"DAD!" she yelled. "Who the hell is in our apartment!?"
God, I didn't know what I had been expecting, but that wasn't it.
"Be nice, Xiu Li!" I retorted.
"Oh, that's great. Bring a girl home. You could've warned me!" She was furious. I was so confused.
"This is Nova. She was my high school girlfriend." I paused. "You've actually met before."
Xiu Li eyed her suspiciously. This was going to be a long evening, I thought.
"I don't believe you," she said, less confidently, and sat down in a chair.
Then, for the first time, she addressed Nova directly.
"Like Supernova?"
I couldn't believe I'd never told Xiu Li about Nova, but she was being obnoxious on purpose and I didn't like it.

Thankfully, Nova seemed not to mind so much.
"That's original," she snapped, but she was smiling.
"If you're going to have sex with my dad, you will have to go somewhere else."
Xiu Li seemed determined to out-bitch my ex-girlfriend. I'd forgotten over the past few days (what with her sulking) just how sharptongued she could be. I worried for a second that Nova would think badly of me, but realized I didn't have to care.
"I'm thirty-three, little miss," said Nova, who was grinning widely. "I'll fornicate wherever I please, thanks."
I tried to interrupt, but it was poorly timed and overly forced. "Nova's a doctor. She's here looking for a job."
"There's a lovely place called Isabella's Cafe down the street," said Xiu Li, without missing a beat, "although you may have trouble getting above minimum wage with those legs of yours."
I instinctively looked down, and then felt embarrassed. Nova was too busy verbally abusing my daughter, though.
"You seem to have quite a bit of knowledge about the establishment," she said coolly.
Then I watched in awe as the two of them struck up a conversation about law enforcement.
They chatted for a long time, and I drained the pasta.
We sat down to eat, and I tried three times before succeeding in rejoining the conversation.

Nova was talking about me. "Well," she said, "I'm not saying I wish I'd kept your father around--" I scoffed, not sure whether or not that was supposed to be an actual insult-- "but my now ex-husband was really a tool."
She'd been married?!
"Do tell," said Xiu Li, sprinkling parmesan cheese over the noodles.
"Well, he and I had different definitions of acceptable married behavior. For instance, he preferred to go elsewhere to satisfy his sexual needs. Specifically, as I discovered, to my former college roommate."
"You say 'well' a lot," noted Xiu Li. "But seriously, dude, that does suck."
"How long has it been?" I asked.
"Three years," she said. "Why do you ask?"
I must have turned a fascinating shade of red. Xiu Li kicked me and said, "Nice going, Dad."

She was starting to piss me off a bit. My high school girlfriend had appeared at the apartment, and I was the odd one out.
Xiu Li had started talking about her own social problems. "My best friend was caught living in electrical tunnels under the city," she piped up. "Then the police took her away and I hired a detective."
I had to interrupt.
"You did what?"
"Hired a detective. Me and Arjun."
Who the hell was Arjun?
"Arjun and me," said Nova.
Xiu Li flipped her off and kept talking. "He said he'd look for her." She shoveled a huge bite of pasta into her mouth and stopped speaking.
"Where do you find detectives these days, anyway?" said Nova.
"Antique shops," said Xiu Li, after finishing chewing.

The conversation continued for only a couple minutes longer before Xiu Li announced that she was going to bed, got up from the table, and headed into her room.
Nova stared after her, then back at me, and then at the shut door to Xiu Li's bedroom.
"Your daughter," she said, "is amazing."
I couldn't have been more caught off guard. "What?"
"Incredible," echoed Nova.
"That's not exactly the word I would've used. I'm going to have to talk to her later. She took a huge risk, not knowing you and talking to you like that."
"She knew I could handle it," said Nova. She smirked at me.
"She's a lot like you in some ways, Renshu."
I stared at my shoes for a second.
"I guess that'd be an argument for nurture, then." Nova laughed.
"You know," she mused, "I didn't know if you'd still be here. In town, I mean. I figured you would've up and left. And now you're a postmaster, of all things, and Xiu Li is fifteen years old."

For a split second, I remembered my baby's cries on the baby monitor after Nova hung up on me for the last time.

You'll be thirty-six when she goes to college...


"She's going to college in three years," I said, thinking out loud. "So I'm thirty-three."
She clearly didn't remember the phone call as vividly as I did, so I dropped it.
There was a pause for a minute.

"This is really weird," I said. Nova smiled. "Yeah. It is."
"I should go to bed," I decided aloud, breaking the silence.

I helped Nova set up the couch to sleep on, and warned her about the imminent Banging of Pipes in the morning. She clearly didn't know what I meant. I chuckled to myself as I walked back to my room. She'd know soon enough.

As I undressed and lay down on my bed, I thought about the odd events of the day.

November Murphy. Here. Talking to my daughter and sleeping on my couch. Thirty-three, just like me.
I dozed off.

* * *

By the time I woke up, Nova had been awake for a good while, sitting up angrily on the couch. I had, as it seemed, built a mild tolerance to the pipe banging, but she was a novice.
"Can we just get out of here?" she yelled as I entered the room in my pajamas.
I had planned to take a shower, but I threw on an old T-shirt and some sweatpants and descended the stairs with her, leaving Xiu Li asleep in the apartment.

As planned, we headed straight for the clinic. I let Nova do most of the talking, and she quickly located the woman she needed to talk to, whose name was Clara Kate. After they chatted for a bit and I once again felt awkward, Nova reassured me that she was fine and that I could go home.

I went back up to the apartment, took a quick shower, and left for work.

Bill, Curt, and Marjorie all showed up punctually, fifteen minutes after I did. I was hoping that the system would work just as well as it had yesterday. Even better.

Curt and Marjorie loaded up with the day's mail and left in their respective trucks on their respective routes. Bill took a seat at the front desk and took a couple of phone calls. Meanwhile, I searched through the phone book for a plumber, because the post office bathroom was, well, shitty.

Suddenly, I was interrupted from looking at ads by Bill yelling from the next room. I ran in to see what was going on, and he handed me the phone. "I didn't answer it yet," he hissed, "but I have to go to the bathroom."
Before I could tell him to beware of the mens' toilets, he was off, and I put the phone to my ear.
Almost immediately, I realized that the noise I'd just heard was the second half of the word 'hello.'"
"Yes," I said confidently. "This is, uh, the post office. How may I help you?"
I was terrible at this secretary thing.

"Well, uh," said the female voice on the other end, "I don't know how to really say this, but do you perhaps... have an Asian mailman? Working for you? I'm sorry, I'm not being racist or anything, I just don't know how else to describe him..." She babbled on for a good bit, talking almost too fast to be understandable. Apparently she was the girl from Forever 21 who I'd given a ferry ride in my cart. God, that seemed like ages ago.
Just to be sure, I asked her if that's who she was, and thank goodness, she said yes. That could've been much worse.
She kept trying to thank me, but I just wanted to get back to the phone book. What was the point of her call, anyway?
"If that's all you had to say..." I began, but she interrupted me.
"Oh, no!" she said quickly. "I actually also wanted to ask you if I could possibly get a job there, you know, since my work place burned down."
That was actually enormously helpful, much as she was annoying me.
"Hmmm," I said, half-sarcastically. "Let me think about it. Are you good at typing?"
Here I was playing hard to get on a potential employee. Pathetic.
"Yes!"
"What about filing?"
"I'm pretty efficient," she said excitedly.
"What about taking calls?" I didn't want to have to take any more of those, that was for sure.
"Did it all the time at Forever 21," said... was her name Eli?... offhandedly.
"Alright," I said, and I told her I'd call back later.
After talking to a plumber on the phone for a little while, I decided there was no point postponing it, and I did call her back.

I told her she could have the job working the front desk, starting tomorrow. She started to thank me, but I managed to cut her short.
I laughed when I finally hung up. "Talkative?" said Bill.
"You bet," I said, still chuckling.
We started talking idly as I puttered around the office, trying to find things to do.
Not to be sexist, but despite being male, Bill was very much a secretary. He was interesting and easy to communicate with. He also loved to talk, though not quite as much as Miss Rosenthal from Forever 21.

Bill, as he told me, had a wife and twin seven-year-olds. I thought of Xiu Li at seven and laughed uproariously at that. "God, twins!" I exclaimed. "That'd be hell. Mine's enough of a handful."
"Daughter or son?"
"Daughter. She's fifteen."
"More power to you," he said. "I couldn't abide all that teen stuff. And will you look at this! You, so much younger than me, and with a daughter eight years older than mine. How old are you, anyway?"
I ignored the question.
"You think that's crazy," I told him. "My high school girlfriend showed up at the post office last night at closing time and then came home and slept on my freaking couch."
Bill's eyes bugged slightly.
"Whoa, Renshu, that's intense! What's she doing here?"

"I'm not exactly sure," I said. "She came looking for a job-- she's a doctor-- so I connected her with the clinic. I'm not sure if she's coming back to stay with us tonight or not.
"Not to pry," said Bill, "but... you still got feelings for..."
"Nova?" I contributed. "Well, she's still beautiful. But that's stupid, man. I mean, this isn't some stupid fairy tale." I laughed at myself and my hipster phrasing. "She's a doctor, and I'm a..." I stopped myself. "Postmaster."
"That's not what I asked, Renshu. Do you still love the girl?"
I thought about it.
I tried to remember back in high school when I'd wake up on the weekends to her nose brushing mine, where she'd climbed in through the window the night before. The way she looked when the wind blew her hair all over her face and she started laughing through all of it. She was stunning, all the time, and people were jealous of me, all the time.
I thought again.
But I didn't want to marry her. In hindsight, I never would've.
She'd dumped me as soon as she'd had the slightest reason. And it's not like we'd kept in touch after that.

The spark was gone. I didn't even know her anymore.
"No," I said definitively.
Bill looked at me and decided I was telling the truth.
We worked around more on a computer bug that had come up that morning.

Three people came in to mail packages, which I realized hadn't happened in DuBolaire's time. Apparently people had been going to the next town over rather than deal with this office. I swelled with pride over the reputation we were getting.

After lunch, Marjorie and Curt arrived back at the office within five minutes of each other, and I called a quick meeting.
"We're going to have a girl named..." I paused, searching my memory again. "Eli Rosenthal, I think. She's going to be our front desk girl." They all nodded at me. "After that, we just need one more person to work for the front desk and maybe one more mail route, and I think we should be able to cover the town effectively, at least for now. We're doing great."
They were all smiling. Marjorie gave Curt a high five, and I took a double take before going on.
"But we're still really in debt here, and it's hard to recover from that in the electronic age, where no one sends letters except grandmothers and liberal arts colleges."
"Amen," joked Bill.
"We need more people wanting to send packages and letters," I finished, and made a decision on the spot. I felt proud that I could do that now with my manager position. "This afternoon, I'll head over to the neighboring town and ask about mailing packages. Maybe they'd be willing to negotiate a deal on distributing customers and maybe delivery routes."

With that, the three of them left fairly promptly, leaving me Googling how to get to the next closest post office. It turned out to be only a block from one of the bus stops, which was incredibly convenient with my lack of car. I walked over to the bus stop and waited for a bit.

After the bus arrived and I got on, I realized how long it'd been since I'd actually broken out of my routine. It was really kind of sad. I vowed that I would leave town more often. Maybe I'd take Xiu Li to the beach or something. But my bus had already reached the stop.

It didn't take me long to find the neighboring post office. It was much bigger than ours, and as I walked in, I could tell immediately that they had tons more employees than we'd ever had. I walked up to one woman at random. "Can I help you?" she said, with the tone of one who hopes your answer is no.
"I'd like to speak to the manager," I said. She gave me quite a look.
"You have a complaint or something?"
I wanted to reply that yeah, that's why I was wearing a mail jacket, but I refrained. Finally, after a minute of polite dispute, she finally let me go without helping me. I walked up to another employee, determined to succeed in my quest.
"Hey," I said, half-hoping he'd think I was another employee. "Can you go get the postmaster?"
I hadn't fooled the guy.
"Are you positive you want to talk to him? He's new. No one really likes him."
"I'm very sure," I said.
"Fine," said the guy indifferently. He showed me to a small area with chairs, next to the door of the postmaster's office.
And I sat down.
And I sat.
And I sat.
Half an hour passed very quickly, to my surprise. It had been almost 38 minutes when I heard the manager walk out of the office over my shoulder.
I stood up, pretending like I hadn't been sitting long, and turned around to shake his hand
"Hi," I started. "My name is Renshu Zheng, and I'm the postmaster from the next town east..."
I trailed off.

Dammit.

Mr. DuBolaire smirked at me.
"That was a lovely introduction, but maybe you should just cut straight to the chase."
My blood boiled.
"You look like a squinting ape with your mouth hanging open like that, Renshu," he said calmly.
"You're a crook," I hissed, with that clever wit I've always had.
"How about we chat in my office?" he demanded, and much to my great anger, steered me over the threshold into the room.
Once he'd shut the door, his phony smile vanished completely.
"What are you doing here, Renshu?"
I decided that I was here on business and business was business.
"I was trying to see if we could negotiate an agreement between the two offices as to where our routes stop and start, and maybe alert some people to the existence of my location."
I knew it was futile before I even finished talking.
"Well," said the gel-haired embodiment of Satan, "I think maybe you should take your business somewhere else." He stood up and began to pace around his desk.

"Does the USPS know how far in debt you are? Careful. They may just decide to close your office and make mine the cover for your town as well." I stood up, glaring. He continued hurriedly.
"If you want to keep your job, maybe you should leave before someone calls and complains about your complete lack of finances," he said.
I was fuming. I'd thought this man was out of my life, and now he was blackmailing me with the problem he created. How had this happened? What was Mr. DuBolaire even trying to do?
"Did you privatize this office, too?" I asked coldly.
"Oh no, there's no need to. I don't intend to ruin this one. I intend to move up the ladder. And I have my ways of getting control."
He opened the door. "Thank you for your offer, Mr. Zheng, but I think our office is fine in its current state of things. Have a nice day."

I walked as rudely as I could out of his office, hoping that wouldn't be enough to trigger a certain kind of phone call. I stalked off down the block, only to discover I'd missed my bus. I called Xiu Li to warn her, but I ended up having to wait until after dark.

I had a lot to think about when I got home.

An unexpected November in March

For some reason, I woke up in an astonishingly good mood this morning, at least given the circumstances. Sure, I had no money, no employees, and a moody daughter, not to mention the ritual ruckus coming from upstairs, but I had a cheesy smile plastered on my face from the moment I woke up.

"Shh, shh, shh," I said softly, and rocked her back and forth. She stopped making noise, but a couple of extra tears leaked out of her eyes. I felt like mirroring her.

Why did I do this? What was I trying to prove to myself?

So I bounced out of bed, grabbed my clothes, and took a shower, singing over the banging. Then I toweled off and waltzed into the main room. Xiu Li was lying on the couch, half asleep. Even through my strange and unexplainable cheer, I was a bit worried about her. Everything felt a little backwards. Usually I’m the one who’s dragging my feet through a sludge of nonexistent intrinsic motivation, and she bounces. But she'd been so out of it the day before. I didn't really know what to say to her. I was never really an athlete myself, so her sorrow at getting kicked off the swim team was sorely lost on me. I vowed that if she was still in a bad mood come morning, I would make my best effort to be comforting.

I sat there and listened to the dial tone. I tried to call her back once, but on the first ring I heard Xiu Li crying on the baby monitor.

It's over, Renshu, I told myself, and held my breath before hanging up.

Before I went to go get Xiu Li, I deleted her number from the contact menu.

I was on my own hours now, so technically, I didn’t really have to get to work so early. But I wanted to make sure that I was there when any prospective employees dropped by. I grabbed my jacket and swung the door open. I took the stairs by twos, which usually I wouldn’t do on the way down (especially with a recent hospital visit looming over me), but I felt invincible. I walked out of the apartment buildings making a conscious effort not to start skipping. 

"Will I ever see you again?"

"Do you want me to answer that question?"

I didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry, Renshu," she said.

Not very many people were outside at this time of morning, but I gave sunny hellos to everyone who was. Most just grunted at me, and one guy flipped me off. I couldn’t’ve cared less. I noticed that my posters were still up as I walked down the block. I fantasized for a bit about happy, wonderful employees who would have to take orders from me, of all people. I unlocked the door to the post office and walked in joyously, humming to myself. No sooner had I walked in than the phone rang.

"I have a life. What do you mean, I don't have a life? Just because suddenly I can't go to college--"

"You don't. That's the thing. You really don't have a life anymore. You're an adult. I'm a college student. I feel so backwards, Renshu, I really do. But I have a life. You have a baby."

"Don't worry," I said sarcastically. "It's not yours." But I wished I hadn't. I didn't want to be mad at her. I just wanted her to stop talking, or tell me she was kidding. But April Fools' Day is in April. This was mid-August. And she was dead serious about all of this.

"You know what I'm getting at, don't you?"

She was going to make me say it. That was almost worse, in a way. But I couldn't hear her say it. So I did.

"It's over."

"Bingo," she said, a little too lightly. "I didn't lie to you, you know. I did love you. I still kind of do. But I'm outgrowing you, even though I'm trying not to. That's why I had to call today, before it got too impersonal."

I didn't say anything. I didn't cry. I just didn't say anything.

It was going to be a great day.

I had just gotten Xiu Li down for a nap when the phone rang. I picked it up on the first ring, hoping the baby wouldn't be disturbed. "Hello?"

"Hi, Renshu," said the voice on the other end.

"Nova!" Suddenly, the week caught up to me and I missed her painfully. "How is it? How's your roommate? How are you?" I was so overwhelmed. "I--"

"Renshu, stop."

There are four words that no guy wants to hear. They sound hilariously cliche out of context, but it's not so funny when you hear them yourself. Nova paused. And I could tell immediately what was about to happen. I almost wished later that I'd hung up.

"We need to talk."

I picked up the phone. "Hello, this is the post office."

"Yeah, hi. You have a job opening?" The voice was female. I didn't realize that I had assumed most applicants would be male until I heard her speak. But I tried not to let on.

"Yes," I said, trying to use a professional voice only to discover I didn't possess one. "Are you interested in applying?"

"Yes," she said back. "What time should I drop by?"

"Anytime is fine," I said. "We're... undergoing some shifts; we just switched management."

"I'll be there in an hour," she said.

The week after Nova left, I was incredibly busy. I was almost ashamed at how little I thought about her. Not because I didn't care. I did. I slept on the right side of the bed only, religiously so, and occasionally thought I saw her when I was out. But there are a lot of brunettes out there. I busied myself with Xiu Li, trying to figure out how to be a parent while I still remembered mine. 

I hung up the phone feeling remarkably successful about myself. I wasn't sure what to do for the coming hour, so I started puttering around a bit, organizing things and just generally improving the aesthetic appeal of the post office. Not that it needed to be feng shui or anything, but it was a little bit messy. 

Goodbye, I told the hallway full of people. 

While I cleaned, though, the phone rang again. I jumped. It had been so quiet around the place with just me that the noise sounded three times as loud. Then I laughed at myself, nursed my injured shin that I'd just bumped on the table, and answered the call. 

"Hello, this is the post office."
"Hey, I'm looking to get a job." Energetic bass voice.

"Well," I said, "we could use a secretary." I hadn't dared give the job to the woman, for fear she might have thought I was being sexist.
I was half-waiting for the guy to laugh at me or demand one of the mail routes. He defied my expectations by going "Sure."

"Can you come by after lunch today so we can negotiate a plan?"

There was a silence. I wondered if he had nodded. Then, finally, he said, "Oh, sorry. Yes."

The intercom came too soon, as I expected it would, but I hadn't expected how unreal the whole thing would be. Just like another date, but with more people around, and less restaurant. I politely asked her mom to hold the sling for me, and I hugged her. I held her as tightly as I could, until my arms hurt, and she held me back. All the young energy of two seemingly star-crossed 18-year-olds. I didn't want to let go, because as soon as I did, she would get on a plane and go become some remarkable young woman while I became a single mailman dad. So I kept holding on. I half expected Nova's mom to stop me, but she didn't. I don't know how long we stood there, but eventually she stepped back, and I looked at her. She was breaking out a little from stress, and had a couple of bags under her eyes, and I took it all in, because she was beautiful. I expected her to be crying, but she wasn't. I looked at her for a minute until she looked like she didn't know why I was doing that. "I love you, Nova," I told her, and kissed her. She kissed me back for what wasn't long enough, and then took off. 

We exchanged goodbyes and I hung up the phone. This was nice. I already had three employees. I hoped none of them would split due to the financial situation of the post office. 

I went to the airport with her, carrying Xiu Li in a sling. She was with her mom, who had about a bajillion suitcases. I wondered momentarily about the baggage fees. Nova was confusing me; she kept alternating between smiling and laughing, being excited to go, and then catching a glance at me and looking almost piteous, like she didn't know if she was allowed to be happy. 

I sighed and sat down at DuBolaire's old desk. My desk. I wasn't used to this managing business yet, but I was starting to like it.
The door opened in the lobby, and in came a teenage boy with huge glasses. I don't mean ironic hipster glasses. I mean glasses. Like the kind I had in the 80s and 90s.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I'm here about the job offer?"

It was a question. He was so awkward-looking. I felt for the kid. I'd been his Asian look-a-like seventeen years ago.

"Well, I have another woman coming in to talk to me soon, but we have no shortage of job openings. I can probably get you in for a mail route. What's your name?"
"Curt. Well, Cuthbert O'Reilly, but really it's just Curt."
I tried not to snort at the name Cuthbert. "Curt it is," I said. We shook hands.

While we talked about his hours and his salary, I observed Curt a little bit. He seemed to be really responsible. I wondered how old he was. His face behind the glasses was young, but he seemed to have done a lot of aging for such a small guy. He really needed the job, he told me, and for some reason I felt like I could trust the kid. 

He was so much older than he looked; one of those kids that wears adult clothes when they're not big enough to fit in them. But they grow, and they fill out the sleeves and the chest and the hips, and the pant legs stop dragging the ground. And then you've got yourself a teenager who took on too much, too soon. Curt was one of these. I wondered if that was what had happened to Xiu Li, too.

She came over a few times after that to help me with the baby, but she was even more clueless than I was. "You have to hold her head up!" I said, frantically. Nova looked up at me, grinning. "I'm sorry, Renshu! God, you're so protective of her." She grabbed my hair and ruffled it a bit. 

As we settled on a deal for his hours and his salary, I noticed that a woman, presumably the one I'd talked to, had come into the post office. I gave Curt my phone number and told him to call me with any questions or trouble, and I'd see him after lunch. He stood there for a minute. "Uh. Won't I need keys for that?"

I blinked. "Yes." I went over to the cabinet where all the truck keys were kept and handed him a keyring. "You do have your license, right?"

He nodded.

"Then go ahead. Remember what I told you, pull as far over as you can when you make the stops."

He nodded again, and carried himself out the door on his lanky legs.

"You adopted a baby?"

I couldn't read her tone at all. Disbelief was definitely in there, though.

"The orphanage didn't have any room."

"What is this, a freaking fairy tale?"

"Maybe I just want company for when you leave in August," I joked.

"Renshu, shut up. This is serious. That's a baby."

"Her name is Xiu Li," I said, proudly.

"She's white." "She's Asian," I said, grinning. "I'm her dad, and I'm Asian. It'll be hilarious when she gets older. Every substitute's gonna think she's screwing with them."

Nova sighed.

"It is a nice name."

I squeezed her shoulder.

"You're going to raise her. Like, completely." I nodded.

"You're insane. You're going to be thirty-six when she goes to college, you know that?"

I didn't care. I could tell she was being serious, but I had no idea why I'd done it, either. But,

"She's my daughter now," I said. "And I love her. I love you, too. But I love Xiu Li. And I will be the best father I can to her."

"You're a cheeseball. An idiotic cheeseball."

We sat there in silence for a few minutes, and then her ride pulled up.

I wondered if it would've been too much to ask him about his college plans. I thought back. I don't think I would've wanted somebody to ask me about that. So I promised myself I wouldn't bring it up unless Curt did.

I took the baby back to my apartment, completely in shock about what I'd just done. They don't warn you about these things in high school. Life decisions. Although I'm not sure how many people are accosted with baby adoption at the ripe young age of 18. I think they're usually on the other side of the deal.

"You're just my little ball of irony," I told Xiu Li, and she threw up on my shoulder.

I turned my attention now to the woman in the lobby. She was white, with really tan skin, and was probably in her mid-50s. Her hair was curly and short, and she had on a polo and jeans. Somehow, she still didn't come across as masculine. 

As it turned out, her name was Marjorie. She used to work a mail route in Omaha, and she had just divorced her husband and needed a job.

I gave her the other mail route, and after some quick money talk, she leaves. No instructions needed.

I signed a ton of paperwork, and then they asked me what her name was. "Last name Zheng," I said. "And?" said the guy filling out the forms. I thought a minute. It wasn't a poetic moment. "Xiu Li. X-i-u space l-i." And before I knew it, I was out the door to my mail truck, having doubled the size of my family. 

That being done, I sat back down in my desk and worked some figures, trying to see what we'd have to do to get more money. It was going to be close. I promised myself I'd have a meeting with my two, no, probably three employees that afternoon, for the sake of full disclosure.

I was delivering my afternoon mail route again, finally getting used to the routine. It already felt like an old chore, something I just did, just because. But I was getting paid. I had a package for the orphanage, and I pulled up into the middle of some serious drama. I walked up to the door with the package, and a lady was yelling in the back.

"We have nowhere to put her. This damn town is full of stupid teenagers getting pregnant and trying to pass off their damn offspring on us. DO YOU HEAR ME? NOWHERE TO PUT HER!"

"Uh, excuse me," I said, to the woman at the door. "I have a package for the orphanage."

"Just a minute," she said. "We've had a doorstep delivery, and things are a bit heated at the moment."

"Doorstep delivery?"

The yelling woman came to the door holding a bundle of cloth. The baby was screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Can you sign for your package?" I yelled over the screams.

"What are we supposed to do? No note, nothing. We're the closest place in 50 miles. What are we supposed to do with this girl?"

"PACKAGE," I yelled. I was behind schedule.

"Okay," said the first woman exasperatedly. "I'll sign for your damned package."

"No, you won't," said the second woman. "You're going to go make some arrangements. This is your fault. We didn't have to take her." "Didn't have to? She was on the doorstep!"

"Hold her," said the second woman again, and handed me the yelling bundle of fabric.

I didn't really know how to hold a baby, so I just stood there. She stopped crying and hiccuped. I looked at her. She was shriveled and tiny and fragile and incredibly hideous.

And then I did something ridiculously stupid.

"I'll take her," I said.

Despite the financial situation, I had retained my good mood. I was on top of the world. The top of my tiny little step-stool career ladder. I grinned. It was lunchtime.

I left a note on the door for Curt and Marjorie, and jogged over to Casa D'Waffle. I was starting to notice that I was becoming a regular there by accident. Oh well.

"Can I help you?"

He wasn't very intimidating, thankfully. "Yes," I said, standing tall. I swallowed. Do it for Nova. "I'm interested in applying for a job." "Boy, how old are you?" He laughed.

"Eighteen, sir."

"You graduate high school?"

"Yep. Last month."

"You're hired."

And that was that.

As I buttered my waffle, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I picked up with a mouthful of waffle. "Mmmph?"

"Uh, hi, Mr. Zheng. This is Curt. I'm having a little trouble."
There was shouting in the background.

"What's going on?"

"Well, this woman is expecting a letter from her husband and I don't have it in my truck. I tried telling her that maybe it just isn't here today, but she didn't want to listen to me." He sounded a bit worried.

"Ah, that's not your fault. Give her the phone."
I tried to console the woman for ten minutes. I succeeded only by convincing her that her letter was probably in tomorrow's mail. I hoped I was right. I had no clue who she was.

I didn't know what to do. If it weren't for Nova, I would have been completely alone. Even she didn't really know how to handle it. I felt like a terrible person, but I didn't have anywhere to go. Anything to do. I was just... alone. Graduating in two days, with no one to see me walk. 

Then Curt got back on the phone and thanked me. He said he was almost done with the route, so I finished my waffle and high-tailed it back to the post office. I got there a couple of minutes before he did. I assumed Marjorie would take longer, even with her experience, because she'd left a considerable bit later than Curt had. That, and she had a much longer route. I hoped she hadn't been kidding about being a mailwoman in Omaha.

I called up the university and told them I had to turn down their offer, unfortunately, because of my family scenario. I spared the details for the admissions counselor. She tried to tell me about the 1-year gap, but I think we both knew by then that I wasn't going to college.

I asked Curt to stick around and help me for extra pay, and he looked over financial stuff with me. Thankfully, he didn't seem too alarmed when I explained about the mugging and Mr. DuBolaire and being thrust into the management job.

She was cremated, and I waited outside. I wondered vaguely what Dad would have thought of all of this. Nova looked at me and squeezed my hand. She had no idea what she was supposed to tell me. That was becoming a theme these days.

As he pored over the computer and helped me get some of the files in order, a big guy walked into the office. "Hello," I said. "Are you the man I spoke to earlier?"

He grinned. "That'd be me. Are you the manager?"

"That's Mr. Zheng to you," I laughed. We shook hands. 

Bill was a congenial guy who used to own a bike shop. He mostly just wanted a job, and he was fine with being a secretary. I thanked my lucky stars. Things were looking up.

"Mom?"

The afternoon sun was coming in through the window.

There wasn't any answer. I walked into the living room dubiously. "Mom! I'm home!"

The silence was really eerie. I walked into her bedroom. The clock was ticking nonchalantly, and the phone was off the hook. I pulled the door to and walked out. I rounded the corner of the hallway.

The afternoon sun was coming in through the window.

Dad's pool of blood had been spattered. Like he'd been filled with jelly and someone had stepped on him.

Mom's, I noted, was artistic, like she was. The entire scene looked surreal. The linoleum pattern disrupted by a sprawled figure and a crimson puddle.

The afternoon sun was coming in through the window.

I dropped my backpack, and then dropped to my knees. I would have panicked, but she was no longer my mother. Just a corpse, I told myself.

The afternoon sun was coming in through the window. It glinted off the knife.

I walked as calmly as I could back into the bedroom, dialed the phone, and fainted.

My last, terrible thought was that if I'd taken Forensics with Nova, I'd have known when Mom killed herself.

I gave Bill a desk in the lobby and explained where all the records and things were. He also got put in charge of answering the phone. After a brief discussion, we decided that he would also be the temporary treasurer, until things were under more control.

Mom didn't do much of anything after the accident. She drove me to school. She drove me from school, sometimes. But mostly she just cooked things, gave them to her friends, drew this, painted that, told me off for something or another. She was dead. Completely gone. Smiling at her was like throwing light at a black hole now, rather than a mirror. 

Marjorie came back from her mail route, and we all had a short meeting. The time had gone by fairly quickly, and it was already almost dinner time. 

Mom drove me home from the hospital in complete silence. I remember wondering if she'd wished it'd been me instead of him. 

I thanked Curt, Marjorie, and Bill for their help. I thought we could probably pull off the operation pretty well if we got someone to work the desk and maybe another mail route, so I told them to ask around and see who they could get. They promised, and then they were out the door into the still-bright evening.

I woke up in a really pale white room, and a nurse came in. She looked like she was thinking twice about being there at all. But she sat down on my bed awkwardly. I didn't want to drag it out.

"He's gone, isn't he?" I asked.

She didn't say anything. Just looked at me.

"Where's Mom?"

Even though I knew Xiu Li was probably long since home, I stayed a little while longer, doing not much in particular. I searched through DuBolaire's computer files. I'll spare you the details.

We drove home on the highway that night, just Dad and me. We were blasting hilarious songs on the radio, and I kept trying to tune it to the Mexican channels. He kept teasing me and saying I was Chinese and not Latino, and that I was getting too American. Maybe we should've stayed in China.

"We're going to be late," I told him. "Drive faster. Mom's going to be mad at us." "No, she won't," he said. "We're both sober, and she'd rather I didn't speed."

He signaled.

I laughed.

The sedan shifted over slightly, into the left lane.

That truck was a little too close for my liking.

It was already getting dark when I stopped tinkering around in the post office. I just liked being there. It was mine now, and that made it look so different from before. I stood on chairs. I moved the furniture around. I went behind the empty delivery desk. Just because I could. But I realized it was really getting ridiculous, and Xiu Li was probably waiting on me.

The last months or so of high school were amazing. I was finished with most of my major projects, and it was early May, and I was coasting. Nova made fun of me for slipping into what she affectionately called the "C-zone." I brushed it off. They weren't going to revoke my acceptance. I had a pretty decent scholarship, too.

So I looked for my mail bag and jacket. 8:46 pm. I wasn't sure why I'd brought them, really.

I asked her out in September.

Everything was going so well, I thought to myself. Great employees. Much better than that guy who used to swear and spit on things. 

My thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. 

I looked up.

"The post office is closed..."

She walked into first period on the first day of school. She sat down next to me.

"Your name is?" she said.

"Renshu Zheng," I said, caught off guard.

Hers was November. And she was beautiful.

I startled. "Nova!?"

And now, here she was in the post office.

Zheng, not Chen

I woke up in the clinic, and I guessed I wasn't dead after all. I felt terrible, but better than I had the day before. The taste of blood had almost disappeared from my mouth, but it was replaced by a god-awful combination of phlegm and morning taste.

Ugh. I rolled over, surprised at how much stronger I felt already. I looked up at the little clock on the wall, sat there for a minute trying to read analog time while half-asleep, and realized it was only 5:20. Once again, I cursed in my mind about the blasted Banging of the Pipes that had somehow managed to alter my natural waking schedule. But already the blurs were clearing from my eyes. I was awake now, and that was that.

So I sat up. A nurse walked in. "Someone's up early!" she said, with the air of someone who is paid to be chipper but was born without that particular talent. "Yeah," I said. I couldn't think of much else to say. "Well, Mr..."-- she checked her clipboard-- "Zheng, according to our reports you should be okay. Try and stay out of the cold and rain." She tried to wink. She was possibly the least nurse-y nurse I had ever seen. It was the equivalent of looking at a pastor who had mistaken gas pains for a call to ministry. Whilst I zoned out a bit, I must have missed something, because she removed the IV from my arm carefully and gave me a bottle of pills. "The instructions are right on here," she said, and forced a smile. I gave her my best sarcastic look, but she had already turned around.

So I stood up and walked out of the room, which felt a little bit odd. If you've ever been hospitalized, you know how strange it feels to just waltz out of your clean white jail cell room and out into the world. Personally, I've spent the night in medical facilities four times: once when I was born, once when I got some nasty flu at age five, once after the accident that killed my father, and once when I came down with a random coughing-blood ailment at age 33. But I digress. Xiu Li was asleep in the waiting room, taking up a ton of chairs for a girl of her size. She was drooling a bit, too. I poked her in the side. She jolted awake.

"Dad!" she yelped. "Are you feeling better?" I nodded. "Let's go home," I said. Carrying the pill bottle, Xiu Li and I walked out of the clinic into the fresh morning air and across the streets graced only by the occasional pre-6 o'clock commuter. We went up the stairs together and into the apartment. Xiu Li went through the door first, only to be greeted by two very hungry cats. Apparently Persephone and Fuzzballe were getting along well, though that may easily have been attributed to their shared desire for nutrients. Xiu Li fed the cats and I lay down on the couch.

She walked back into the room, put her hands on her hips, and said definitively, "So."
"So," I said back.
There was a pause.
She sat down at my feet. "What do we do now?"
I didn't say anything for a minute. "Well," I said reluctantly, "I hate to say it, but..." I trailed off.
Xiu Li got the gist, though. "I'm going back to school." She shifted so that she was sitting up straighter and nodded stoically. "I expected that. But what are you going to do?"
I hadn't gotten that far yet. I checked the time. "Going to work," I told her. "I have some money to give to my boss." She grinned proudly at me. Wow. She was so happy to have helped me get my truck back. She had no idea what it meant to me. My own daughter, faced with criminal charges and constant danger, got a job and gave me almost all the money. I'd raised a philanthropist. Or maybe she just didn't want me fired. Either way, it was a nice touch.

I returned Xiu Li's smile and swung my feet off the couch to sit up next to her. She still hadn't showered, I noticed. It was either that or she was considerably less of a blonde than when she originally left. Was I even allowed to call it left, now that I knew what was going on? I didn't even know. "Well," I said. "You go get a shower and get ready for school."
She smiled. "I can take a hint, Dad," she informed me, and stood up. Then her face darkened. "You don't think the police will be worried?"

I had completely forgotten about the police. "Then you should shower fast," I said, "and we'll run down there and have a few words with them before you go to school." Xiu Li's eyes bugged slightly. "What if they send me to jail?"
I gave her a derisive look that was much more confident than I felt on that particular topic, and motioned for her to go take her shower. "Shoo," I said, and smiled.
She shrugged worriedly and left the room. While the water started running, I went into my room to change. I really needed to do some laundry, I noted, and yanked my last clean T-shirt over my head. Actually, I probably should've showered, too, but I wasn't the one who had been living in the quasi-sewer. I changed the cats' litter box and kicked back on the couch.

A few minutes later, Xiu Li emerged from the shower a couple shades paler and several shades less odorous. "Shall we?" I asked, and grabbed my mail jacket. She ran a comb through her hair and we set off down the stairs, eating toast as we went.
Xiu Li was visibly nervous as we headed down the block to the police station. She found a quarter in the stairwell and gave it away to the bum that I'd talked to a while ago, and fidgeted with the fuzz on her sweater. We didn't say much. I patted my pockets, happy with the thick wad of cash that was soon to bring my freedom.

I went first into the police station, with Xiu Li trailing me like an awkward shadow. Bruce sat at the desk, as usual. "Hello," he said. I smiled and returned the greeting before saying, "Can I talk to Officer Richard?" Bruce nodded, and got up from the desk. I found myself wondering what had happened to yelling "Ricky," and chuckled a little to myself. Xiu Li stood next to me, a shivering ball of nerves, and bit her lip. Officer Richard came out of the back room. He looked at Xiu Li. "We found your daughter," he said goodnaturedly. "She's standing next to you." I smiled. "Oh, thanks! Clumsy me."
"What can I do for you, then?"
"See," I said, "there's been a bit of a mixup."
Even while I spoke I could see the uneasy way he was looking at her. I guessed there may have been some sort of photographic device on the scene, and spoke faster.
"Xiu Li and I had a little trouble finding each other," I told him, "and she went to go ask my boss to see where I was. Unfortunately, my boss and I are hardly... compatible, and there was a little incident involving the police."
Officer Richard was now looking at Xiu Li dubiously. "You're the girl who caused the commotion in the post office!"
She looked really embarrassed. I didn't think I'd seen her that red before. "Yeah, I guess that was me," she said. But he wasn't finished. "You got out of the police car," he said.
"Um... yes."
Officer Richard laughed outright. "And you think that coming in and giving us an apology is going to fix everything?"
Xiu Li didn't say anything. She just stared angrily at the ground.
But his face softened. "Don't worry," he said. "We have better things to do than look out for teenage girls causing ruckuses in the post office. I'm just sorry we didn't put two and two together and get you back to your dad. I know the postmaster, and my best guess is he provoked you anyway."
I didn't know what I'd been hoping for, but here was a miracle.
"Go to school," he said, and slapped her on the shoulder congenially. "No more fighting."

We left the post office. "I didn't ask about Annalisa," muttered Xiu Li.
"You barely got off clean as is," I told her. "Do you really want to be on that report, too?"
She didn't respond, yet again.
"Officer Richard had a point," I said. "Go to school." I gave her a hug. "And come home straight afterwards, or call me. We aren't doing this runaway business anymore."
She smiled at me and walked off towards the school.

I had my own business to settle, though, and walked into the post office just in time for work. Mr. DuBolaire looked up at me. "Morning, Mr. Chen," he said. I clenched my teeth. "Morning, Mr. DuBolaire," I said brightly. "Lose the smile," he told me. "It's distinctly unprofessional, and we'll get sued if our postmen seem to be flirting with their delivery recipients."
"Don't flatter yourself," I told him. "I most certainly was not flirting. Anyway, here's the truck money." I pulled the wad of cash from my pocket and handed it over.

He counted it twice and checked it for counterfeit. "Are you sure this is enough, Mr. Chen?" he asked me cruelly. "I did mention the interest?"

I lost it. "You didn't." I walked up to him and got right in his face. I could smell the hairgel.
"You also," I fumed, "didn't mention that you pinned my daughter to the floor when she came looking for me."
"Your daughter," said Mr. DuBolaire, "is an insolent little bitch. And since when do your benefits include the knowledge of my interactions with every person who wanders into this--"
"No," I interrupted. "My daughter is neither insolent nor a bitch. You, however, sir, are both. And you treat your employees like shit--"
"I treat them how they ask to be--"
"Oh, do you?" I said. I was really getting worked up, and I could feel adrenaline rushing through my body. "Usually if every person in the office quits, you don't blame the employees for incompetence. Unless, of course, you happen to be an unjust, unlawful, abusive pile of scum who smears slugs into his hair every morning. Oh, wait. You know, Mr. DuBolaire, I could sue you. I could sue you and I could win. You're just lucky that I've spent every penny I have on your damn trucks and not a lawyer."
I stopped. He was laughing at me.

"Oh, Mr. Chen--" he started.
"My name," I said, grabbing his shirt collar, "is Zheng. Not Chen. Zheng. Renshu Zheng, actually, but I'll start with the basics, since you're apparently too stupid to remember even one freaking name."
I was probably over the line with that one, but I was too angry to realize it.
"Renshu!" he yelled. I froze. "What could you possibly want now?" I screamed.
"The post office," he said, "belongs to you."

WHAT?

I stared, more confused now than upset. "See," he told me, "I would have fired you just now. But I realized something very important."
"I'm listening," I said coldly.
"This post office has no money. We've lost all our employees and people simply aren't mailing letters. I guess it must be something to do with our employees using sketchy shopping carts from charred establishments." I could have made a crack at that, but this was useful information.
"I don't need this job, Renshu," he said. "It was a placeholder. A placeholder until I could get a job at an office that wasn't in such a cesspool of a neighborhood. A job without stupid, disrespectful employees and their adopted brats. And I'm leaving. If you love this post office so damn much that you would sue me rather than find a new job, then take it. It's yours. But I'll warn you, you can't save it. It's too far gone, and you're too much of a backward dumbass."

He handed me back the pile of money. "Take it. Keep it. It's all yours now. You may wish to use it to pay back the monumental debt this office holds, though." He laughed sardonically, handed me a key ring, and walked out of the post office. I watched him go, just for the pleasure of knowing I would never have to see him again.

Then I looked back at the keys.

I had finally been promoted. I was a manager. I hadn't been promoted since I'd gotten the mailman job at 18. Fifteen years later, here I was holding the keys to an empty building full of letters.

Where to start?

I dialed the number for USPS and began arranging some things. I de-privatized the office and managed to get it back on the list of official government post offices. But only with a warning. I had to pull the office back out of debt. Which meant I needed workers.

I got on DuBolaire's computer and made a rough poster with a picture of a mailman, the words "USPS, Now Hiring!", and a phone number and address. I printed one off and went back over to the orphanage. It'd worked last time.

Sure enough, the people there were pretty nice and let me use the machine. They even kept a couple of the posters to hang up for their older orphans. I walked down the street looking for lunch and holding a pile of fliers.

I stopped into Casa D'Waffle and grabbed a bite to eat, and then proceeded to walk around town hanging up signs. A very small child with his mother stared at me and then "whispered" to her, "There's the shopping cart man, Mama!" I wasn't sure whether he found that weird or cool, so I refrained from waving.

After I'd managed to hang up all the fliers, I remembered that now I had my daughter back and went home to greet her. Five minutes after I'd settled on the couch petting Fuzzballe and being eyed suspiciously by Persephone, the door banged open and my very rattled daughter barged in. She flung herself down in a chair and shouted at nothing in particular.
"Uh. Hi there, honey, how was your day?"
She shouted again. Then she took a deep breath.
"I've been kicked off the swim team."
I held back my that was all? in favor of an "Oh, Xiu Li, I'm so sorry." I gave her a hug. "Why?"
"Missed too many practices." She kicked the floor.
"Xiu Li," I said, "I know this is upsetting, but... I didn't think you were particularly into swimming."
"I WAS!" she yelled. "All my friends are on the swim team! And Hana McMurray didn't talk to me at all, and Ruby, and-- aah!"
She kicked the floor again, harder.
"And they're all idiots! They complain about their iPad apps, and their hairdos, and their swimsuits being too tight, and it's not fair! It's not fair!"
I wasn't sure entirely what she meant by that, but I didn't have to know. She ran into her room and slammed the door. I told her through the door that I was going back to the post office. She didn't respond.

When I got back to the office, I looked through the records. The financial situation was even worse than I thought, and I spent a couple hours trying to calculate exactly what I planned to do about it.

It was really overwhelming. One minute you've got a crazy boss and the next there's no one at all. It was just me. My post office. Mine. And I had to save it or completely lose my job. I didn't know how to be in charge. I eventually got really frustrated with everything, shoved the money in my pocket, and went to take a walk in the park.

That's where I left off.

So then I was standing alone in the park with no money. None at all. My only hope now was that people wanted a mailman job. Of course, who would, when it looks like you have to push tents covering shopping carts through the pouring rain?

Demoralized and dejected, I set off for home. Xiu Li had come out of her room and was sitting watching some stupid show. She didn't even acknowledge my presence. And so, for the first time in forever, I went to bed early.

A brief excerpt of a not-so-brief day

I'm pressed for time right now, so I'll have to explain the rest of my day at some other time. As a quick spoiler, I didn't actually end up dying of my mysterious coughing disease. But flash forward a bit.

Later that afternoon, I was in the park. I don't really frequent the park, since there tend to be weird little things like Forever 21 employees passed out there, but I went anyway, for reasons I'll (again) have to explain later.

I was walking through the park, as I mentioned, and I was still wearing my hospital bracelet. It was that time of night where the sun is no longer visible, but still hangs on for a bit to say good night to whoever may have lingered outside to watch it go. So my shadow was essentially gone as I walked through the park, mixed up in all of the other shadows cast by the imminent darkness.

I was quite a bit tired from today, so I dragged my feet quite a bit, and I was pretty out of it, daydreaming as I went along and speculating as to where to go from here. Not in the park. In my job, and my life, and such. Once again (sigh), I'll have to explain later. The events of the day that had occurred up to this point hadn't been very complicated-- it's just that there had been a lot of them. So I was thinking about all of these things that shall remain mysterious for now, and letting my feet leave little trails in stray leaves and dirt, when someone decided to interrupt my thought process. Interesting, since I'd thought I'd been alone.

Their method of interruption was even more intriguing. I could almost hear the person's thought process:

Oh, look. There's an Asian man with a hospital bracelet walking through the park.

...

...

I bet he has lots of money. Why don't I mug him? I'm bored anyway.

Of course, that's probably not what happened, but I only had one data point for extrapolation purposes: the gun pointed at the back of my neck and the voice that hissed, "Your money or your life."

Well, damn! Not very original, but I fished out my wallet. That's when I remembered that I had my truck money in my pocket. Not the greatest way to start a business. You'll know later what that means.

I hurriedly handed over the enormous wad of cash. The mugger, although his/her face was covered, looked completely shocked, and snatched it up quickly. It was getting dark, but I'm pretty sure s/he checked it to see if I was a counterfeiter or something. Ha. Nope, I was just supremely unlucky.

They began to edge away from me, then, pointing the gun at me as they slipped into the woods.

My life stinks.