USPS

I. Monday

Her day off is Monday.
Her truck is never pulled this far up the street.
The fat man with the rock music blasting covers her shift.
He is as unkempt as his work is sloppy.
He throws my spurs haphazard-like into the aluminum slot like angry delinquents slop food onto lunch trays at the homeless shelter for their community service hours.
I hate the fat man.

Rosa never crumples my packages.
She places my larger, heavier deliveries in the shared-space of the apartment building lobby. Neatly, Rosa rubber bands my medium-sized parcels together. She walks them up right up to my door.
I love the medium packages best.
Sometimes I stand before the door, and I can smell her rose-scented perfume.

II. Tuesday

“Spurs are what we call the smaller packages that can fit into a mailbox comfortably.” I heard her say this once to the groundskeeper, just outside my kitchen window.
Her voice lifts daisies and catches with her slight accent. Sounds Peruvian.

I wanted to hear more, but her voice trailed off as she walked further from my apartment.

Once, I left her cookies and a vitamin-infused beverage, for her hard work. I didn’t leave a note, but she waved to me that day through the window. I have not stopped thinking about that day, or the look of her amber skin.

My Rosa is beautiful. Her hips are wide and fill out the standard-issued navy blue uniform graciously. I know her chestnut-hazel hair is straight and knotted into a bun at the base of her neck, just low enough for her to snug- fit the cap uniform over her hair. I know she makes two runs from her mail truck. Once for larger boxes, next for spurs and regular-sized mail. On her departure, she picks up the outgoing mail, if there is any.

Today, there is.

Today, I coiled a sweaty palm around my left kneecap and pulled. It came off with the consistency of tacky glue. I wrapped the bone in a floral-print napkin and cushioned it with tissue paper before placing it into a small shipping box.

I wait for Rosa by the front door, listening for her light footing padding around the lobby. Today, she brought me June’s issue of Computer Science Monthly and a bill from my general practitioner.
As she leaves, she notices me through the front window and waves, my patella-package under her alternate arm.
I hear the sliding door of her truck slam shut, pleased.

III. Wednesday

Wednesday I give her the tarsals and metatarsals of my feet.
This time I decorate the outside of the package with a thin, burgundy ribbon.
It’s harder to walk to the lobby now, but I manage.

IV. Thursday

Femur, Tibia & Fibula. My sacrifice of each leg.
Humerus, Radius & Ulna. My offering of each arm.
I collect the twelve long bones into a poster mailer, and seal the top with masking tape. They rattle as I drag them to the mailroom by my teeth.

V. Friday

This is it.

I can hardly contain my excitement as I draw the sides of my hips across the floor, and throw myself into the XXL Flat Rate Mailer. I wait to seal the package until I make it to the mailroom. Tongue and teeth pull the self-adhesive edges closed. I barely get it done, but it’s worth it.

I hear the bell on the mailroom door tinkle, and she’s right on time. 1:30. I can’t help it, I smile so broadly beneath this thin, corrugated cardboard.

She’s touching me.
Rosa grabs the package rather sharply, and tries to heave it over her shoulder, to no avail. She’s trying different ways to pick me up the right way, without breaking the package.
I expected her to use her hand cart for such a large package, but I am by no means complaining.
Her hands are on my chest, my hips, my ribs and my stomach. I can feel her hands as she squeezes the box in between her hands to get a better grip.
I am in ecstasy.
All I have wanted was to share this space with her, breathe the same air, feel her touch.

But the air isn’t her rose-scented perfume. I smell something else. Sweat and trench mouth. Her hands are digging into my body, crushing the edges of the box, and she doesn’t seem to care.

Once again, she heaves me over her shoulder, successfully this time. It is only then I hear a gruff, stoutly, exasperated grunt escape her mouth.
My blood freezes.
Today isn’t Monday, the weekend hasn’t even started.
I freeze in disbelief, lost in the beginning of what has to be a nightmare.
I am thrown carelessly into the back of the mail truck. Hard.
My head hits the floor of the truck with a thud.
I remain silent and listen further. I am overwhelmed with the sound of heavy rock music blaring from the front of his truck.
His truck.

I shift and writhe and scream.
I scream and scream, but all he can hear- all anyone can hear- is that damn rock music blaring from the truck.
The fat man speeds down the road to his next stop. And the next and the next. And the next, and the next.