Postmaster (The)

You walked into the outer office and I saw you instantly for what
you are; a nondescript man over-dressed in a pompous attitude. Your
post-office issue uniform was as starched as your demeanour, no doubt
painstakingly upkept by a hen-pecked and oppressed little wifey. Only a
short man, yet you obviously see yourself as someone to be reckoned
with. "No Shit Shortie." That's what I'll call you because no one will
give you any crap will they mate eh?

Stubborn to the end your only concession to the stifling heat is the
fact that you have undone your jacket. Dark blue staining is visible to
your pale blue shirt as sweat leaks by the bucket load from under your
armpits. The creases on your trousers are too pressed, the shine on
your shoes too thorough, the beads of perspiration caused by stress too
unnecessary. In a word my friend, and on thirty seconds observation, I
feel justified in thinking of you as a dick.

I almost checked the soles of my shoes for smeared dog turds as your
gaze fell upon me with all the brevity of a gavel. Okay so my skirt
probably had the odd piece of lint on it and my work shoes are slightly
scuffed with wear, but does that instantly make me so much less than
you?

You are the master of all you purvey. The sole employee of the small
sorting office on King's road. That makes you the Postmaster General in
your eyes. Ruler of your mighty empire, king of your pristine
castle.

"Can I help you. Madam?" you asked, adding the matrimonial title in the
form of a loaded insult.

"Yes please, I believe you have a parcel here for me. My
name's&;#8230;."

You cut me off rudely mid sentence

"Card" your hand extended over the counter in expectation of the
proffered card. "Please" you add as an after thought.

"I'm sorry I'm afraid I don't have one, you see I have just
moved&;#8230;"

"Oh well if you don't have your card there's nothing I can do to help
you." This is without a doubt your favourite sentence of the day. You
must lie in wait in your Mr. Sheen lair waiting for some unsuspecting
innocent to utter the phrase "I don't have a card" Only so that you can
leap on them with relish and batter them into the ground for such a
heinous indiscretion. You sneer, visibly. That made your day you little
prick didn't it? You remind me a little of Captain Mainwaring off Dad's
Army though without the humour. You begin to move the papers on your
overly tidy desk from one side to the other, eyes cast downward. I have
been dismissed.

I drop the appology from my voice and adopt maybe just one cube of ice.
I enunciate each word with all the patience you would use with a
recalcitrant three-year-old. "A parcel was delivered to my old address
yesterday. I don't have the card because I no longer live there and
there was no answer when I knocked earlier. It is an important parcel
and if you would just look for me please I have All the I.D you need
and I would be most grateful" The last phrase was I shamefully admit,
laden with sarcasm.

"If you don't have a card then how do you know it was delivered?"

"Because it was sent."

You open your mouth to retort in this tit for tat game of verbal
tennis, but realise that if you fail to acknowledge delivery of the
parcel then you are admitting fault with your beloved post office and
the institution there of.

You glare at me balefully. The stare would send a lesser woman rushing
off to try and locate the errant card. I stand my ground and meet the
stare dagger to acrimonious dagger.

"All the returned mail is logged in the work ledger, I suppose I could
look in there for you." You concede grudgingly.

I smile a thin smile of something just less than gratitude. So kind of
you to put yourself out to such lengths.

You heft up your version of the Doomsday Book from a shelf underneath
the desk. The effort involved is visibly immense, and you huff and puff
in exaggerated throes of physical exertion in order to show the lengths
you will go to, that are above and beyond the call of duty to serve
your ungrateful public.

"Name?" No 'please' grudging or otherwise this time. My name doesn't
impress you and is rewarded by a loud sniff of disapproval. I refrain
from apologising for the lack of barrels and hyphens that may have
favoured your approval.

Still sighing audibly you retrieve the current page of entries and
scour them using a finger to mark your progress down the list.

"There is nothing listed in that name for Friday the fourth of
May."

"Then please try Thursday."

"You said it was yesterday."

"I assumed that it would be delivered yesterday, it may in fact have
been Thursday."

Giving me a look akin to sheer hatred, you laboriously skim to the
previous page. A glimmer of genuine pleasure lights up your eyes when
you don't find the entry.

"Nothing" you announce with Glee.

"Then there must have been a mistake in your filing, perhaps you could
go and have a look wherever the parcels are kept please"

You looked at me with scorn. "Lady; there are a hundred pigeon holes
out there, your parcel, if its there at all, could be in any one of
them. Now if you can find your card with the corresponding serial
number of the parcel on it, maybe we can find it for you." And here
came your pise-de-resistance. "That's why the postmen put cards through
your door when a parcel can't be delivered. They don't just do it for
the excersise."

That was yesterday. I left the office fuming over what a jumped-up,
pompous, officious, egotistical jobs-worth of a smarmy little bastard
you are.

But you're not so grand now are you Mr. No Shit Shortie? Not so grand
at all.

Henry Burton followed his usual end-of-day routine. He re- checked the
front door that he had already locked before cashing up the till and
made sure that it was secure and that both dead bolts were fastened.
That's when he noticed the woman leaning on the bus-stop over the road.
He recognised her instantly from the previous day. She had been a
stroppy madam that one, but he had dealt with her in his usual
efficient manner. In the end, not many of them argue with officialdom
and Henry prided himself on playing everything exactly according to the
book.

She was staring in at him now, her direct glare flustered him a bit and
he broke the eye contact between them first. He hastily pulled down the
door blind. Next he checked the door to the night safe and went round
turning off the lights. It was his custom to let himself out of the
back door after setting the alarm.

His briefcase was in his left hand and he was about to set the alarm
when the door to the rear alley burst open. Henry wheeled round to be
confronted by a figure in front of him. The sun shone behind the person
blinding him momentarily. He opened his mouth to speak, but before any
sound came out something hit him hard in the face and he fell to the
floor with a soft thump.

Instinctively Henry knew that he didn't want to wake up. Please God
just let the blackness remain, but wake up he did, despite his prayers.
However what he had control over was whether or not he chose to open
his eyes. Why the hell then did he opt to open the bloody things? Why
not just remain in blissful ignorance of what was going on around
him?

He did open his eyes. And it did hurt. God-sodding-almighty it hurt and
that's swearing, something that Henry Burton never ever did. Today was
his first exception to that rule, 'Fucking hell to twating bastards'
was the first phrase that rose unbidden to his brain. Not bad for a
complete novice.

Henry Noble Burton had led a sheltered life and never in his fifty-four
and a half years, had he ever experienced pain to equal the pain that
drove like a jack hammer through his nervous system now. Whether due to
the beating he had taken around and about his head, or simply due to
the complete alienation of his circumstances, he couldn't at first work
out why he was unable to move. He soon came to understand though that
he was choking on a mouth full of lose teeth that he couldn't spit out
because of the tight gag that was rubbing cruelly on his broken
mouth.

As he looked down inviting the legions of hell's agony to burst
torturing sunrays behind his eyes, the reason for his plight was
plainly visible. He was tied at ankle and wrist to his normally
comfortable office chair. Because the seat was on casters and didn't
have legs, his ankles had been tied together behind the central post of
the chair. His wrists had been similarly tied behind him. He tested his
bonds and winced as a new, fresher pain bolted like the legions of the
apocalypse through his trapped veins to the sites where the blood flow
was restricted. In one rapid lesson he learned that it wasn't prudent
to do that.

He smelt her before he saw her. Henry recognised her perfume from the
day before. Cloying, sickly, cheap. The woman had no class; he'd known
it the moment he laid eyes on her. But this! Well this just proved it
didn't it?

She came towards him and he felt his body stiffen in the chair as he
tried desperately to keep as much space between himself and the crazy
woman as possible.

"So Mr. No Shit Shortie. Are you going to be more helpful today?"

His eyes blinked in indignation at the jibe by which she addressed
him. Henry Noble Burton was not a man accustomed to being ridiculed and
even in his present, somewhat restricted predicament he felt that he
deserved a modicum of respect.

"Oh? You don't like being called that? So what should we call you then?
Mr. Congeniality? Mr. Always attentive and helpful to his customers. No
I've got it. How about; Mr. Sunny disposition who makes the world a
better place just by being in it? I don't think so. Do you? She had
been stalking round the chair as she ranted and on the last phrase she
put her face inches from his jabbing at him with her words, making him
flinch as her venom rained down on him like steel knuckled blows. Henry
whimpered and the gag cut further into his ruined flesh.

He could see now what she was holding, it was the large stapler that he
used for any parcels that came undone. All part of the service that he
prided himself on. She brandished the yellow plastic stapler in front
of her as she moved towards him. What had always seemed so innocent,
something like all the other tools of his trade that he took for
granted as simple workaday implements, suddenly seemed like a fearsome
switchblade in the mad hag's hands. Again he shrank away from her in
fear.

"My name is Susan," she said to him, moving ever forwards as his eyes
widened in terror. "Do you like my name?"

He nodded yes and the first tear of the evening rolled down his
wrinkled cheek. Gripping his uniform tie between her finger and thumb
as if to test the quality of the material, she doubled it back upon
itself and firmly stapled it together. He actually managed to bluster
in affront, and in a moment of sheer bravado he thought that if he
hadn't been so tightly gagged he would tell her that it was a criminal
offence to deface Post Office property. Or perhaps he wouldn't say
anything at all. He was crying freely now as much through his lack of
courage whilst in uniform as from any physical discomfort.

Click, click, click.

Click, click, click. She stapled several times down each lapel of his
work jacket.

"Now what can I staple?" she asked apparently looking about his person
for something suitable. She was amazed afterwards that he remained
conscious the whole time that it took her to staple his eye lids in a
permanently open position. "There now." She cajoled. "That will teach
you to pay attention when I'm talking to you. It's very bad manners to
close your eyes when someone is speaking." Blood dripped from his
lashes giving him the appearance of a bastardised Aunt Sally.

Ranting, ranting, ranting, for several more minutes she continued
pointing out the error of his ways. Every so often she would look over
into the corner of the room. It made him nervous. Strange that even at
the core of his sheer, mind numbing terror and agony, he could define,
pinpoint and separate a small emotive of nervousness from the general
chaos of his senses.

The mad hag, as he now thought of her, finally moved over to the source
of her attention. He knew her. The horrible fact was, that Henry knew
this woman enough to realise that he was about to find out what she was
up to. He also knew her enough to know that he wasn't going to like
it.

Something rattled in the furthest corner of the room. He strained his
stapled eyes to be able to see what was happening and for the first
time became aware of the heat. It was very, very hot. His senses had
been so overwhelmed with sensation and pain that he hadn't until now
noticed that the fire had been on full. That ominous rattle again, and
then it stopped the hag was on her way back.

He took in her latest game in a matter of seconds. She was holding the
largest metal date stamp, the one with the five-inch rubber. Only the
rubber had been removed from the date wheel and the whole stamp had
been heating in the calor gas fire until it burned searing red in the
late afternoon sunshine.

She was disappointed that he didn't remain conscious this time. The
flipping wimp. She wasn't accustomed to foul language either. And she
wasn't entirely sure whether he started to pee before she branded the
previous day's date on his forehead, or during. She only became aware
of his misdemeanour when she moved her foot and heard a sloshing noise
as it made contact with his pooled urine. His flesh hissed loudly as
the date stamp bore into his skin. If she had chosen to brand him on a
fattier part of his body she was sure that the stamp would have left a
deep indentation in his sizzling meat. But the forehead is very quickly
bone and although it blistered huge and satisfyingly, she could see the
creamy white plate of his cranium clearly through the opaque blister.
She studied it for awhile as he slept, she was fascinated with her
handiwork. He was starting to look like some bizarre patchwork miss-fit
doll.

He wasn't out for long and groaned loudly after the first couple of
moments of blissful awakening confusion. Eyes unable to blink and
moisten themselves very quickly become dry and chaffed. Despite all his
areas of torture, the worst of which was undoubtedly the screaming
agony of his forehead, he was still able to identify the pricking sting
of his arid eyes. He watched in morbid fascination as she took from the
stocked shelves some paper clips and three green treasury tags. She
fastened the paperclips together to make two chains of about six
clips.

"What do you think of punk rockers No Shit? I bet you don't think very
highly of them do you? Imagine what it would be like to be in their
alternative shoes, to be shunned and ostracised by society. Do you
think you'd like that? Huh Shortie?"

She picked up a compass that she had ready on the desk and Henry had an
inkling of what was coming next. She pierced his ears first. It wasn't
so bad. Hah he must be almost as mad as she was. Here was a crazy hag
the likes of which his worse nightmares couldn't drum up, sticking
compass points through his flesh and he was telling himself it didn't
hurt much. The truth was that with all his other pain he barely felt
the thick compass passing through the tender lobes of his ears, and he
watched in an almost detached manner as the blood turned his pale blue
shirt into a magenta colour. She passed the paperclip chains into each
ear lobe and smiled, pleased with the result.

Henry wasn't so complacent when she passed the compass through the
tender cartilage of his nose. He squirmed in his chair and screamed
against the gag, but not much in the way of noise was released. The hag
put a treasury tag though his nose, the green string was prevented from
slipping right through by the little metal tips on each end. Finally
she put two large holes firstly through his upper lip and then his
lower lip on either side of his mouth. After doing the first side she
had to wait for him to regain consciousness once more before starting
in on the right hand side. The treasury tags were just and so long
enough to fasten top lip to bottom lip. After of course, making Henry
promise not to make a noise and removing the gag. It didn't matter if
he did manage to scream there wasn't another soul around to hear him.
It was well-gone six-o clock and all the business premises on the
street were shut up for the night. Their staff abandoning the salaried
husks to scuttle about their nightly activities.

Of course Henry's wife would soon be back from her sisters house where
she went for her evening meal every Saturday. As soon as she found her
punctual and fastidious husband missing she would raise the alarm. The
hag had done her homework well. Mavis Burton usually left her sister
Eunice's at about seven thirty. She would not return home much before
about eight fifteen.

Henry was finally able to open his mouth, though only the few
centimetres that the green tags binding his mouth together would let
him, it was enough to eject the residue of blood, teeth and vomit that
he hadn't swallowed throughout his ordeal. He made no effort to scream
realising as much as the hag did the futility of such an act. He knew
that he may need every ounce of his weakened physical and mental
reserves before one way or another this terrible night was over. He
seriously doubted whether he would leave the back office alive and he
was beyond caring, he just wanted the end to come NOW.

"Now then Henry I need a little bit of information from you my love.
What is your address?"

She was playing with him; it was all part of the game plan. She already
knew fine well where he lived. In fact just that afternoon she had
called on Mrs. Burton with a copy of 'The Watchtower.' that she'd had
thrust in her hand by eager Jehovahs canvassers the week before. Nice
lady, Mrs. Burton. No interest in being converted to the cause of
course but polite. Mr. Burton's torturer liked that, manners cost
nothing afterall.

Henry flung back his head in an act of defiance. Never would he lay his
wife open to the torture and abuse of this crazy woman. Not so long as
he had breath in his body. Never.
She moved menacingly towards him with the date stamp, at some point she
had placed it back between the bars of the calor gas fire to
heat.

Now our Henry is no hero. He opened his mouth those few precious
centimeters and sung like a raucous crow through his chipped, broken
and missing teeth. His words bubbled around the blood and gore. She
branded him on his thigh anyway. It was nice to watch the nylon mix
material of his work pants melt. The stamp did indeed indent some way
into his flabby leg.

She was addressing an envelope to Henry's wife. This seemed to Henry as
un-sportsmanly and obscene. After all she had him at her crazy mercy,
what did she have to go and bother Mavis for.

"We'll send her a little note eh?" She muttered aloud to herself as she
wrote on one of Henry's finest notelets retailing at ?4:99 for six with
scented envelopes.

"My dearest Mavis. I haven't seen you for awhile my love so let me rest
my eye on your loveliness now" She signed the note with a flourish and
murmurings of everlasting love. Seeing as Henry was in no current
position to write to her himself.

Henry was surprised to discover that there comes a point of burnout
where the body can take no more stimuli and the nerve endings all go
pleasantly to sleep. He neither lost consciousness nor made a sound
when she gouged his left eye out with a ball point pen. Henry had
already stepped over the cliff towards lunacy.

He giggled when The Mad Hag dropped his eye into the scented envelope
and sealed it. The optic tendon had caused quite a problem for her and
she had to cut the eye lose with a pair of scissors as it flopped
loosely on his cheek. She kindly offered to drop the letter in to Mavis
on her way home.

"I'm going to leave you to think about your behaviour for awhile now
Henry. I do hope you have learned a little lesson tonight, it was for
your own good you know. All people want is a little courtesy and
respect. Not too much to ask now. Is it?" She smiled down on him with
the shining eyes of a benevolent and loving nun.

"Oh just one last thing Henry love before I go."

She went over to the rack of pigeon holes. Henry followed her with his
one intact but still stapled eye. It took her less than a minute to
locate her missing parcel.

"Don't mind if I take this do you love? It's a Birthday present to me
from my friend." Henry shook his head and mumbled through his wreckage
that he didn't mind at all. Henry had flopped into Wonderland and was
conversing politely with the Mad March Hare.

She kissed him tenderly on his cheek where just minutes earlier his
gouged eyeball had hung. And then she quietly let herself out by the
back door and disappeared into the night.