(no subject)
i watch every morning as the postman comes, sometimes cramming the letters in the mailbox, other times leaving them on the doorstep, the ink rain-streaked and illegible. he never looks at me, only past me, surveying the trees and electric wires, picking and rejecting each object as though they played a nameless but crucial part in the grand scheme of life. i always wondered why he never wore a watch yet always arrived on time, why his hair was never parted in the right way, why the skin around his wrist was still red even though his black cross tattoo had been there ever since he became an intangible part of our neighbourhood.
there were times i noticed how sad his eyes were, how he pressed his thin lips together as if they were dying to spill his secrets, to tell his stories, to reveal a history. at these times, i saw more than the face of a postman. i saw a man in his late thirties wanting desperately to shout out to the world that there was more to him than meets the eye, that beneath the judgment of occupation and physical erosion, he had experienced the grandeur of love and loss, loneliness and hope, happiness and disappointment in the same way as that of a celebrated musician, an influential world leader, an adored celebrity, a boy working at McDonalds, a housewife, a girl opening letters on a simple day in april.
i wanted to tell him, even when we are dying inside, those feelings, those moments never dim in signifiance. i wanted to tell him, there are regrets and there are mistakes but we are still every moment we have ever lived, and every moment we have ever lost.