Out For Delivery

by Gregory L. Norris

About the Author: Gregory L. Norris writes for national magazines, short story anthologies, novels, and the occasional episode for TV and Film. "Out for Delivery' came to him one summer afternoon while watching the mailman make his way down the road to deliver the day's mail.

Excerpt

A letter carrier learns the intimate details of his customers’ lives. He knows when it’s their birthdays because of the cards, when the electric company threatens to switch off their juice thanks to that added yellow strip on the outside of the envelope, and when they haven’t paid their house taxes for the previous year—that one owing to the deluge of certified letters thrust upon mailmen by the town every March.

In short order, Keith learned the private details of his new route’s customers. He discovered that Celeste in the red Cape Cod house at 17 Maple Street was battling some form of medical ailment by the plethora of correspondence from various health care providers, which she received daily; that Taylor David Nyquist at 21 Maple Street was into music according to the tunes Keith often heard upon approach to his mailbox and the musical catalogs; and that the attractive blonde who might or might not have been Chris Wolcotte at 27 Maple was in danger.

It was one of those perfect early June mornings in New Hampshire—dry, no humidity, the sky a cloudless wash of blue the color of comfortable denim. Even so, Keith knew he’d be a sweaty mess by the time he finished his new route.

Keith drove the mail truck to the base of the hill, parked it in its usual spot along the curb where Maple Street began, and grabbed the mailbag. The shoulder strap exerted more pull on this morning because of a couple of packages that he was sure were books—for the writer who lived in the craftsman bungalow at Number 31.

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