Microstory 249: Perspective Twenty-Four

This is an experimental Perspectives microstory. The introduction can be found in Microstory 225. More to follow.

I love dogs, and dogs love me. That whole stereotype about dogs hating mail deliverers has more to do with someone encroaching in on their territory. It’s not the fact itself that we deliver the post. It’s just that the dogs have never gotten a chance to get to know us and make sure we check out. But there’s something different about me. I never consulted an expert or anything, but I did read some things on the internet. Some people were just born lucky, and give off the right pheromones to make animals feel at ease. Dogs just know that I’m not a threat, and I don’t even have to introduce myself to them. Though, sometimes I do, because I like making new friends. Most people would probably think my job is extremely boring, but its tedium is exactly what drew me to it. I get a ton of exercise, and I listen to music all day. As I’m walking by the houses, I like to come up with little stories about them; what kind of people they are, and what problems they’ve been dealing with. One resident hunts vampires at night. He’s cut ties with everyone he knows so that he can focus on his calling without worrying about people asking questions. The couple next door secretly knows what he does, but they’ve never spoken with him about it. A woman who lives on the next block drowned in her bathtub, but somehow figured out how to recorporalize her ghost body. So she’s just kept going with her life as if nothing happened, and never told anyone. Things get awkward when people ask her out to dinner, because she can’t eat food anymore. These stories have been going on for weeks, and I often go over them again when I’m not on shift. It’s like watching TV, but without all the worry about my brain rotting away. But there’s this one woman. I don’t have to make up a story for her. I think she peeks through her blinds and tries to find some contrived reason to be outside when I come round. She’s the town gossip, always trying to tell me all the current juicy goings-on. What’s worse is that she thinks, as a mailman, I have great gossip to tell her. At first I pushed her away, but now I’ve started relating to her my fictional daydreams. Obviously I stick to the more believable ones, leaving out the supernatural, and she certainly eats them up. I feel a little bit bad about misleading her, especially if it could end up doing harm to her innocent neighbors. But it’s just so fun. What should I tell her next?