Chapter 34, all previous chapters can be found below. As per usual.
Bob wondered, why the hell did they
still make him go out on days like this? Most people had their mail delivered
electronically and the important packages delivered by one of the "premium
carriers". Still, it was in the creed. With the storm of the century barreling
down on his home town... he still had mail to deliver.
Little old ladies got their social
security direct deposited these days, but still depended on the coupons in the
mail to feed their gaggle of cats... and themselves from the same cans.
The wind kicked more, approaching a hundred
miles an hour. One of these errant breaths of Zeus struck an old maple at just
the wrong angle. The limb, torn asunder, whipped through the air to smash into
the grill of the postal vehicle under Bob's care. The force of the collision
crushed the front end until the engine rode shotgun. It continued its brutal
and unwarranted assault by grabbing the vehicle and flipping it, wheels over
tea kettle, to drop it on its roof.
Having thus had its fun, the branch
danced merrily down the street to wreak vengeance on some other innocent. The
engine continued to purr and sputter, unphased by such rough treatment.
Bob was not so lucky.
When the truck crashed to a rest, so did
he. His head thumped brutally against the roof, causing him to gray out for a
few minutes. Bob assumed the encounter was the strangest thing he would see
that day.
If only he had been right.
When he regained himself, Bob took rapid
inventory of his body. Finding only a goose egg sized lump on his head he
considered himself fortunate. His first muddled thought was, are the circulars
okay? A quick glance back confirmed they were, other than being upside down.
His second thought was to wonder why the
engine would not shut up. It chose that moment to die, leaving him in, not
silence but, that sound one only knows when experiencing a storm from inside a
steel drum.
His third thought was to wonder... when
had it started raining toads?
The critters plopped to the ground and
onto the truck. Peering through the ichor covered windows, Bob saw stranger
things still.
He witnessed a man straight out of a
pulp detective magazine leading a young boy down the street. They hurried as if
escaping something.
He saw ethereal fire consuming the
buildings and the few unfortunates caught in this biblical plague.
A blood red moon rose at noon to blot
out the blackened eye of the sun.
Angels soared through the sky, doing bloody
battle, not with demons or humans but with each other. Was heaven as divided by
politics as humans were? He stopped that thought though. If he continued he
would rage to himself about possible funding cuts.
Bob saw many strange and wondrous things
that afternoon. Impossible things.
The strangest of all was the sad,
beautiful woman walking through it all with a young girl holding her right hand
and an infant clutched to her breast with the left. She walked through the
chaos like she owned it.
Then the infant turned its head and
pointed at Bob. The child spake in the voice of judgment.
"Mommy, that man sees too
much."
Bob passed out from fear, and maybe a
little from the head trauma. He woke in the hospital to find the world back to
normal. Realizing nobody else spoke of strange events he, wisely, decided to
keep his mouth shut.
Even a week later, when they fired him
and took away his pension for operating a government vehicle under the
influence of drugs.
#shortstory #novel #author #writer #writing
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