text: The light was too much to handle, it had a certain heat that made him itch all over, as if he were allergic to heat. He scratched over and over again, hearing his nails scrape against his skin. The man sat on the chair trying with emphatic intent to understand the unworldly things he was hoping to recite back on a piece of paper. The dictionary lay open; a sea of knowledge he could never tap into. Although, that is not what bothered him. He threw the pen at the sink, the water clogged in it splashing with unbearable intensity. The pen against the metal sink made a clang which sounded like a child reading the alphabet. It was strange. He heard himself say A, then B, then C, then D, then T, then P, then CAT, an animal he thought was so misunderstood for just living how it was born. He empathized with it. He tried to say more words, like FAITH and GOD, like PEN and PAPER. All he could do was say and never write. The letters of the English Alphabet always seemed like a nuisance, having never had the time to learn it himself. How ironic was it that his very own job was to deliver letters to people? Letters written in the language he hated. His neighbors, his children, and everywhere else he went, he was always known as **"The Postman."** His title was not a great one, he always thought to himself. It didn't matter until the letters he brought would bring the smiles in people he never knew. The letters he brought would make people thank a person like him, while he stood there frozen with a ghostly smile trying to formulate how you would write those words in paper. It was strange, how he could always tell what words meant but never write them down. What was so different? His frustrations wouldn't allow his mind to think clearly. There was nothing special about being a postman, when the happiness he brought to people was clouded by his own jealousy, his own stupidity and his own worthlessness. How could they love the language so much that it brought smiles to their faces? How could they not see his plight? How dare they love the language he hated, dare smile in front of him, THANK him. That's why the happiness from letters of love and bonds that brought people together was nothing special. In fact, through the years of being a mailman, he had only know pain and slander. It felt like he was entitled to being lower than everyone else. His friends were the ones who always slandered him most mordantly about his illiteracy. His children thought of him as a disappointing father who could not provide amicable finances. His wife, the only person who loved out of pity, tried to keep their family from crumbling. He held 3 paychecks, all from her different part time jobs, and tore them to pieces. He could read numbers, his face felt hot from the lack of them in there. Pain and Sorrow was as integral to his life as breathing; sometimes it felt like they were the same. He coughed as flaky ashes flew away from a nearby ashtray. The mailman hated his job but it also seemed like his job hated him. It haunted him for days on end, ever since he had picked up that ragged uniform that was now torn up on the hanger in a shadowy corner of his home. The uniform was a hand down from the man who had last been "The Postman." He wondered how that man felt about his job, he always had a smile. Well, obviously, he could read. Meanwhile, the current mailman was getting sick of his job. The melancholy of being "just a postman" without sufficient means to feed his family tore him up from the inside. He let out a reluctant sigh as the bulb on top of him went out, leaving the room in darkness that crawled its cold fingers around him. The heat had dissipated, his itching had turned to cold shivers that made him want to claw rather than scratch. It was weird, he could not tell what which was worse, the cold or the heat. Maybe if he'd been able to write just one word, things would feel lukewarm. Bearable. He was always used as an example. Not of great things, but of being a burden, a failure being used to incite fear into young children. When he thought of it like that, something felt so sincerely wrong. Mothers would often scoff at him while walking past with their children, twisting their mouth in distaste and teaching their children the value of "education" so they could never be like him. It wasn't like he wished the same fate as him on the innocent children, but the sadness that came from these remarks still tore him up from the inside and broke his heart. There was something so inherently wrong with teaching children to fear and disgust the poor and miserable. He always taught his sons to grow up and be better, be at a place where they could help the misguided like himself, not tarnish and berate their misery. Maybe that way of thinking was wrong, maybe it wasn't normal and those as unfortunate as him didn't deserve saving, grace or hope. It was their anathema for being so useless. If it wasn't wrong, then his wife and children would never leave him. Behind him, a car sped past, its headlights rearing its heat into his house through the windows for a fraction of a second. **That second was lukewarm.** It had only been two days since his wife had left with the children. He did not recall how he had survived this far. Tears that felt like ice poured down his cheeks as he realized that he was not capable of writing. The letter that sat on the chair was now wet from his tears and blank from his failures. He would not be able to send his last words in a letter to his family. Why had he never learned to read and write? The pen in the sink splashed, taunting him of his failures while repeatedly clanging against the metal sink, singing a chorus of ABC's. Nothing mattered anymore. He wasn't sane it seems because there was no other way to describe the vertigo in his mind. His eyes blurred as he put the rope around his neck and tied it to the ceiling fan. He blinked but no tears poured. He jumped from the chair and struggled against the thread of fiber slowly shredding through the skin at his neck while the weight of his body crushed into itself. Another car sped past his house, its headlights looking into his house like a curious visitor for another fraction of a second. It saw him, body and mind, in absolute silence. This time, it was lukewarm even after one second.