The Letter Carrier

        Ellen Peronds was a letter carrier. She was the Letter Carrier, and she did her job without remorse.
         Whether it was bills, political paraphernalia, birthday cards, notices of execution, advertisements for laundry detergent, or handwritten letters detailing every mundane aspect of Windfall life, Ellen delivered it to wherever it was supposed to go with a happy face. Even the notices of execution. Especially the notices of execution.
         This morning, she had picked up her mailbag as usual. It was small and red. It was small because there was never very much mail in Windfall, and it was red because Ellen just happened to like that particular color. She picked up her coffee and left for her blue and white truck, holding an umbrella to keep herself out of the rain.
         The denizens of Windfall did not generally communicate with people outside of the town, inbred as they were, although there were occasional exceptions such as what Ellen found on top of the stack.
         “What is this… a letter for Genipher Glenn? Who the heck is Genipher Glenn?” Ellen wondered aloud, thinking hard. Then she remembered that she was the new barber, the one with the purple hair and weird tattoo. Ellen disliked the barber, because the she had decided to take a few “creative liberties” with her haircut. Ellen always had the same haircut, and didn’t appreciate others trying to change her ways. She clicked her long scarlet fingernails together in an irritating fashion. “Well, it looks like she got a letter from back home in Michigan.”
         Ellen opened the letter and read it. It was boring, as it was just from Genipher’s sister-in-law Bethannie. She had never met Bethannie, but if Genipher was any indication of the rest of her family, Bethannie was probably one of those green-haired “artist-type” good-for-nothing losers. Ellen resealed the envelope, put it off to the side, and started to flip through the rest of the mail.
         First was a coupon for fifty percent off at Clothes by Carmen. Ellen liked Clothes by Carmen, and there was a new bag she wanted there (it had an embroidery of a heart on it), so she decided to pocket the coupon. Then there was a letter to Mr. Grimsky informing him that he could win a small fortune if he signed up for a certain credit card. When Ellen read the letter, however, it seemed to involve some shady business with a middleman in what used to be Lithuania. If she had learned anything from reading mail, she could tell what was genuine and what was facetious. Next, there were 4 copies of the same leaflet from the police department. Ellen perused the leaflet. The first page said that the crime rate was as low as ever. The next page had a chart-based comparison of Windfall, Lake City, and Brentville in terms of annual murder rate. Next, there was a letter from Dr. Napcrase to Ms. Baxter. Ellen opened it, but it said that her tumor was completely gone and thus was in permanent remission. Ellen didn’t understand why the doctor hadn’t simply told Ms. Baxter in person, as they were engaged. Or were they? Ellen pondered this exciting possibility for a few seconds, but quickly got bored. After that correspondence, there was an advertisement for a 13-speed blender that could be ordered in 53 different colors (even mauve!) and came with a complementary smoothie recipe guide.
         “Borr-rring!” Ellen yawned. Every now and then there was a letter full of juicy secrets, but today everything was trash. The slowly declining population of Windfall robbed her of interesting reading. She couldn’t understand why they kept going away to Lake City and Brentville, where murder rates were high and life expectancy was low.
         Ellen’s dismal day was aided by the fact that the rain seemed to be getting progressively heavier. It was making large puddles, which occasionally splashed up into the large window of the truck. Ellen began to shuffle the mail out of irritation. To her surprise, a plain white envelope she had missed fell out onto the mail-truck’s grayish interior. She quickly grabbed it, as the corner landed in a damp spot, and also because she was interested in seeing what it was.
         “’To: Ellen Peronds, From: Polly Morton, URGENT!’ OH MY GOD!!” Ellen squealed, tearing open the envelope without noticing the small “I’m so sorry Ellen…” written at the bottom.
         Inside was a yellowing sheet of parchment, which was partially ripped by the frantic force Ellen had applied to it. On it, in some sort of red ink, there was a symbol that Ellen couldn’t understand. It didn’t seem possible, somehow. There was something archaic and obscene about it, the way it almost seemed to writhe. As Ellen stared at it, mesmerized, it actually did begin to writhe, as though fighting its way out of the paper. The symbol was morphing, and the twisted form soon became three-dimensional, extended out of the paper and causing the paper to shudder as though it could no longer contain its unnatural force. The symbol began to thicken and widen, and other indescribable colors seethed inside it.
         Ellen was quite confused at this point, but regaining some sense flung the symbol and its piece of parchment out her window. She saw the symbol glow red as it absorbed the paper around it, crumpling in on itself. The mail-truck gave a sudden jolt and began to slide back toward it. Ellen put the pedal to the floor in an attempt to escape, but the pull was strong now. Someone’s mailbox came out of the ground and dove into the symbol, which seemed to feed off it. There was a harsh grinding sound, and the mailbox was gone.
         The symbol grew brighter and suddenly expanded into a ferocious vortex of color and sound. An ugly plastic lawn-chair spun through the air and spiraled into the chaos, along with a translucent-orange plastic tumbler. The raindrops and puddles were sucked in, and the road began to give ominous cracking sounds.
         Ellen’s truck continued to slide backwards, and she screamed. She threw open the door and jumped out, as the truck rolled back into roaring maelstrom, which was now blindingly bright with false light. There was no one around to help her as the powerful pull of the vortex beckoned to her, the wind whipping her head back.
         A neighbor’s dog soared, all the while barking its yappy little head off, straight into the vortex. Ellen felt herself slow, and slipped as a puddle ran in a rivulet across her fashionable shoes. She scrabbled against the wet pavement, her claw-like red nails unable to gain a hold. Her nails ground horribly on the concrete, and she desperately reached for anything that could possibly provide support. She found it, hard and cold, and grabbed it. Ellen was not going to give up.
         Ellen looked up, and realized that she was holding the right boot of a strange man who had certainly not been there before. His black hat, with a jaunty crimson feather, was pulled over his eyes, but Ellen could see his mouth. It was smiling warmly. She had to clench the boot even harder to keep away from the pull of the incomprehensible vortex raging behind her. She felt one of her shoes – which she had bought on clearance at Shoes by Sharon – pull itself free from her foot and leave the plane of reality. Strangely, the tall man (was it natural to be that tall?) was not affected by the pull of the symbol.
         “Please… you’ve got to help me,” Ellen pleaded, looking at the man’s face. She realized that the reason the eyes were covered was because there were no eyes, only vacant pits, as though they had been gouged out.
         The man continued to smile.
         “Why aren’t you saying anything?” Ellen shrieked. “Who the hell are you?”
         His thick black boot was slippery, so Ellen grabbed on tighter. She heard a tree crack and crunch into small bits as it was consumed.
         “Why won’t it stop?!” Ellen cried.
         “It wants you,” the man stated slowly, as though explaining something simple to a remarkably unintelligent child.
         “Can you stop it? Why won’t you help me?”
         “I’m not technically supposed to get involved when Interdimension is causing trouble, but even I can’t help it sometimes.”
         “Please – I just want it to stop!”
         “I could arrange it…” The man paused for a moment, his face contorted into a crude imitation of thoughtfulness. Then he made a mockery of coming to some sort of conclusion. He spoke once more, his voice no longer warm but chilled. Alarm bells went off in Ellen’s head, but there was nothing she could do.
         “You read my mail. That wasn’t very nice.”
         Ellen stared up at him in shock. His left boot descended on her wrist, crushing it against the street.
         “OUCH!” Ellen shrieked, letting go. She was ripped backwards, and flew through the rotating haze of light. She was there and not there at the same time, trapped between dimensions. Interdimension, as the man had called it, was a chaotic blaze of colors, but predominantly purple and red. They were not shades of purple and red Ellen had ever seen before, but she was too busy trying to figure out where she was to give this particular notice. She saw the elm tree, the stupid dog – Sprinkles, its name was Sprinkles – and the extirpated mailbox. She was both in and beside them at the same time, stuck in limbo. She could see Windfall through the hole through which she had come. Its austere gray appearance was comforting as opposed to the purple and red she couldn’t understand.
         Suddenly, the dimensional rip began to collapse just as she was watching. However, the mail truck, which had been teetering close to the edge reality finally began to fall into it, just as the rip contracted. The mail truck gave a sickening crunch but held fast stuck halfway inside Interdimension and halfway in the third dimension. It was the mail truck that was keeping the rift open.
         “I can get out!” Ellen yelled, and tried to swim toward it, her voice morphing and dissolving into the strange light of Interdimension. She ended up gliding toward it – through Sprinkles – and ended up adjacent to the truck. As she grabbed hold of the door-handle, she saw the plastic lawn chair come into contact the light and melt into a pulsating glob of a demented shade of orchid.
         The mail inside the truck was floating around at will, and as she opened the door several letters flew out and melted into ruddy light. Ellen swam through the truck to the door in the back, pushing aside the special deliveries. Without warning, she reentered the third dimension. She fell on her head, which she didn’t understand, as she had did not seem to have been facing that direction.
         The truck gave an ominous lurch, and just as she was about to escape, a letter surfaced in the third dimension.
         It had “NOTICE OF EXECUTION” stamped on the front in large red letters.
         Ellen hung precariously on the edge, but figured that the truck would wait for a few seconds so that she could get the notice.
         As she reentered Interdimension, she didn’t notice Sprinkles paddling through the other way. While the other objects were incapable of thought, Sprinkles paddled to what smelled right.
         Ellen felt the ratty little thing push past her and she tripped.
         “NOOO!” Ellen shouted, as she and the notice of execution were tipped forward into Interdimension. The mail truck gave way and lurched in after her, as Sprinkles escaped out the back end. The symbol melted, and the vortex lost form and closed with an odd gasping noise.
         Ellen opened the notice of execution and read out loud, as she melted into a pool of burgundy unlight:
         “’Ellen, I told you that you shouldn’t read my mail!. With best regards, Death.”