A postal worker sits on a bench, under a lamp, by a ghost of a highway. Blackened asphalt bones and potholes bleeding oil-slick rainwater. No good to drive on. The postal worker knows this, which is why she has been walking. She has been walking for a very long time. It has worn down the soles of her boots to smooth paper-thin rubber. So she is sitting, to give her feet a break.
Her suitcase of letters sits next to its postal worker, and sitting on this suitcase is Death. Death is also taking a break. It does not need to walk like the postal worker does, but there have been so much work to do lately. So many things to carry. The postal worker understands this, what it means to carry such heavy things, or rather the postal worker thinks she understands and Death indulges her.
The postal worker eats, while she is resting. A bag of shrimp crackers salvaged from a burnt-out gas station, sea-salted and sea-flavored. Instant ramen, eaten uncooked, seasoning dusted over dried noodles. Marshmallows melted in the heat into a gooey, sugary amalgamation. She does not offer Death a portion, and Death does not ask. They both know who needs it more. When she finishes her food, she wipes the grease off on her legs, licks it off her lips. Folds her hands on her lap. Looks out over the broken highway, the never-ending distance the two of them are crossing. And they will cross. They have to. They are just waiting until that have-to.
"I have just come from the city named Parole," the postal worker says. It is good to talk. Her voice crackles, like a rusted instrument forced into music; she clears her throats, reasserts her statement. "It is a city of concrete walls and iron beams and barred windows, where the people are little more than shadows spitting bullets. Neighbors disappear every day, homes emptied, records erased, and their families pretend they never existed.
"Deep beneath the cold floors is the penitentiary. The guards, who are as shadow as the citizens, wear armor and carry guns, because the metal holds the strength they need. Prisoners are kept in glass boxes; their cells are arranged in a circle, rows upon rows upon rows, all always under watch of the tower in the center.
"This is the Panopticon.
"The people here are born scared. They only ever remember being scared. It's hard not to be, when your bodies are more air and silence than solid matter, blown apart with just a breath. Indeed, they are so scared, that when the night guard comes to take away their loved ones, they believe it must be for the best, for those prisoners are surely dangerous, would have killed them all if left unchecked. This is what every citizen thinks, right up until the night guard knocks on their door, and they beg.
"Once, I overheard such an arrest. 'Please,' the poor man was weeping, 'I won't hurt anyone, I swear, I won't,' and he threw himself on the ground, thrashing and shrieking and throwing the most awful fit, the kind that would make the news anywhere else, but here, not a single person stuttered in their steps. They all kept moving forward through their own ordinary, untouched lives. And when the guards seized hold of their prisoner, his clothes crumpled like paper, and he wailed again, with pain this time, an unceasing sound continuing even as the guards dragged him down his own doorsteps. The ground was left darkened by the shadows that had pooled out of his torn clothes. I stared at it for a long time, trying to memorize the shape. I don't know why I did that. I just . . . felt guilty, for not doing anything. Maybe I just wanted to feel less guilty.
"I've been in that Panopticon a few times. I don't think I'll ever forget it. It's cold, bitingly cold, frostbite-on-your-fingertips cold, and the way it bites bone-deep makes you wonder whether it's worth fighting back. There must have been a dozen checkpoints I had to go through, several of which required me to strip down to my underwear and hold still while strangers waved metal detectors over my shivering skin. They were very suspicious of my letters. One of them even suggested shredding the envelopes, to make sure there weren't secret codes, but I fought back against that much. My clients deserved privacy. I think if I'd been as shadowed as them, they would've killed me for it. They could have. Just because their flesh is as hollow as dust doesn't mean their bullets are hollow too. But they must have been afraid of solid hands, or maybe too arrogant to care about paper letters. They let me keep them."
And here the postal worker pauses, because her voice has given out, and she takes a careful drink from her water bottle. Not too much; this isn't a good season for rain, and she's long since learned not to trust any water that comes from the ground. It tastes like plastic, leaves her thirstier when she was before. But it's not for herself. It's for her voice.
"There were three letters," she continues, "addressed to three different prisoners. My clients deserve privacy—I will not share what they said or who they were given to, but I will tell the story of where they came from."
