The Postman

We watch the pot, waiting for it to a boil.

As I pour the hot water into the French press, the bitter aroma of fresh coffee stimulates our senses. We move to the kitchen window. Dark, heavy clouds had pull up, casing the sky in a bubbly grey. It was raining ferociously.

“Oh no! Look at the poor postman!”

Clad in canary yellow overalls and armed with a canary-coloured, electric scooter, he’d pulled up at the houses opposite. From our cozy kitchen window, we watch as he removed a pile of letters from the carrier, huddling against the downpour.

“Do you think he’d like a cup of coffee?” I ask cautiously; as if the prospect of offering a stranger a warm pick-me-up during a thunderstorm were something to be feared.

She looks at me puzzled.

“Umm. Sure. Why not?”

I open the window.

“Hey, Mr. Postman!” I wave at him from the window. “Do you want a cup of coffee?”

Shielding his eyes, he looks up. Even through the rain we can see the surprise on his face; the sudden realisation that we’ve been silently spying on him from our second-floor apartment. But after a moment of processing the reality and validity of our offer he cheerily yells back:

“Yes please!”

I point him to the entrance below, fill two steaming mugs with the hot, black liquid, and go downstairs.

“How you doing?” I hand him the beverage. I’d taken care to fill both cups only about halfway to make sure our random encounter didn’t last too long.

“Not too bad. Thanks for the coffee.” He smiles.

“So... What’s it like being a postman?” I ask. “Do you like it?”

He pauses for a moment.

“Sure. It’s not too bad. Harder on days like this but pretty good overall. What about you?”

“Oh. Umm. Well. You know. I work in IT. Home office.” I passively gesture to my laptop in our flat on the second floor, as if the Postman, with his laser eyes, could see through the walls into the room we’d turned into a home office over the past year. “It’s been driving me mad.”

“Yeah, I heard it was tough,” he said empathetically, “I’m glad I get to go out, you know, drive around a bit.”

“Yeah.” I said. “Yeah, it doesn’t sound too bad.” And for a minute we just stand there while I think of myself on that canary yellow scooter.

We slurp our coffee in silence, listening to the sound of the rain falling outside, each drop making its own fleeting way through life.

THE END