Dear Patrick

Letters are a lot like humans. Some of them open at the slightest touch and give you every piece of them without much effort on your part. Others take considerable prying and manipulating before they let you see inside. After all these years, he had perfected the art of opening letters in such a way that if he desired, he could reseal them like a surgeon stitching up skin, and there would be no hint of a scar. People, however, that he was still working on. He had an inability to click with other people like everyone else seemed to be able to. It was as though they were all universal keys that could fit in any lock but he was the only one cut differently. 

But he had found his lock. It didn’t matter that he was an odd jagged shape that stuck and jammed whenever he tried to connect with anyone else, he fitted with her. Completely. Seamlessly. Opening her letters had become almost as much of a joy as reading her inky, cursive words. He memorised every little tear as his fingers lovingly unstuck the seal, like lips parting. 

Her words curled like tendrils of hair, the dots on her ‘i’s he imagined as the freckles on her nose. The L’s were eyelashes. All of it was Katie. He traced the smudges on the page, where the pad of her hand had dragged the ink, where he imagined her tears had fallen. 

Dear Patrick, 

I waited for you. I told you in every letter I’ve sent that I would wait, at our spot. But you never show. I know it’s wrong of me to ask, I know that you can’t, that you won’t. But I love you, Patrick, I am waiting for you every day. You’re kind, you’re generous, Patrick I…

“Oi! ‘Orright if the new kid rides with you?” Their conversation was rudely interrupted by his leader.

He put the letter in his pocket; his conversations with Katie were always private- he would talk to her later. 

“Sure,” he said, surveying the new kid in a uniform two sizes too big.

“Don’t stress, I’ll do the drops, you just need to have my back. Reckon you can handle that?”

The kid nodded.

“I’m gonna give you some real good, solid advice.” He lowered his voice dramatically; the kid leaned in, “Don’t drink your hot coffee when there’s bumps on the road.”

The kid stared at him, leaving the joke sizzling in the air like a forgotten sausage left to burn on the barbeque. He felt the letter press reassuringly against his thigh, consoling him for yet another failed attempt at conversation.

He sighed, but nothing could silence the jingle of his insides. Like Christmas carols blaring through an indifferent shopping mall, Katie’s words sang in his head while the rest of the world carried on.  

He smiled at the new kid. 

“Being a postie ain’t that hard. Any questions, just say the word. My name’s Mark.”