text: “So...how did you find out?” “Well, I came home yesterday and there was the cat strangling the mailman.” “Strangling the mailman? The cat??” “Yessir, cat strangling the mailman. You wouldn’t believe the noise and the...hey! Watch yourself now!” Ron and Paul were busy heaving the logs from one pile to another, and Ron very nearly had his head crushed by a pair of logs in the pile. They were relatively boring logs though, heavy as they were. The deep red wood stained the pairs satin overalls with each heave and the molten lead secreting from the bark lent itself to the rotten coconut smell in the air. They were ice cold to the touch. “Stupid logs. They really need to give us better tethers for these things. Somebodies gonna lose their grip on one of these and its gonna float off into the sky. Probably knock a plane out of the sky I bet. I’m telling you Paul this is ridiculous and that’s without this god damn smell!” Ron threw down his end of the log; it bounced harmlessly against the pile as it settled under the straps. “Yeah no kidding. But anyway...suffice to say I no longer have a cat and I’m not sure if they’re going to deliver the mail anymore. How the hell I’m supposed to get my checks I don’t know.” “Well did you tell them about the cat?” “Oh yeah, get this: they didn’t believe me! I dragged the man’s corpse into the lobby and you know what they said?” “What they say?” “They said that could be any offices postman! They told me I needed to prove it was theirs! What the hell??” “Fuckin' bureaucrats man.” “Fuckin' bureaucrats. Its fine though I just left the corpse there. Wasn’t about to drag it back all over town. People’d think I'm nuts or something.” “That'd be great though wouldn’t it? Walk into the butcher with your corpse in tow and you can just be like ‘What? It’s my dog!’” This elicited a hearty round of chuckling from some of the nearby workers. Paul just shook his head in exasperation. It was a very trying few days, and having to deal with a lawyer with blood on his hands was embarrassing enough. What was he going to tell his parents? He couldn’t use the cat strangling excuse again. That only works like, twice. The work bell rang just as they heaved the last log into place and strapped it down; though not very well. Paul wasn't paying too much attention as he had to fill out the rest of the dropship form. This load was off to Louisville to make some very fine bum-fodder. As they walked to punch out, Ron slapped Paul in the back reassuringly, grabbing the back of his neck to pull him close. He could see the worry on his face; it was the least he could do. “Listen, it'll work out. Worst thing that could happen is you lose half your stuff, and that ain’t so bad. Just gotta keep keepin' on you know what I mean?” “I s’pose so.” “That’s the spirit. Come on, I’ll buy you a beer and may be we'll beat up some school children, that sound like a plan?” “Yeah...yeah okay.” If there was one thing that could cheer Paul up after yet another cat-on-mailman strangling, it was assaulting children. The sun began to set behind the Lumber Yard as they trotted down the path back into their quaint little valley town; against the blinding orange light one could just make out a black object floating into the sky as a plane crossed the sun. Nobody heard the collision.