[Guest article from Serra Sewitch-Posey. There is more to life that meets your eye.]
On Wednesday after work I stopped by the post office to mail some packages. I was luckily able to visit my favorite post office, which is near my work, tucked away on a side street behind MLK and Broadway. It’s small and cute and the workers there are friendly and relaxed. The one closer to my house has a neglected feel to it, and often has a window or two boarded up due to vandalism; there is a general air of impatience and hostility. This cute one had a long line of people but I didn’t mind at all, and I was fully ready to ride it out for as long as necessary.
I watch my favorite postal worker weigh packages for a customer, admiring his cheerful demeanor. This is maybe my third visit to this post office, and every time he’s been here, laughing and smiling and chatting with people. I’m not even exaggerating- he laughs, squinting his eyes and showing all his teeth. He’s a tall Black man, maybe in his 50’s though it’s hard to tell. I think it’s his uniform that makes him look older. He wears the full getup: collared button down shirt, navy blue tie, navy blue vest, navy blue cardigan. His silver name tag says James. In regular clothes he might look closer to being in his 40’s.
I look around at the other people in the post office. It’s a nice mix of ages and races, everyone waiting patiently with their envelopes and boxes. An older man at the counter decides on three sheets of Forever stamps. Someone else enters and joins the lengthening line. Another person comes in and goes to their P.O. box. There’s something so orderly and wholesome about the whole scene that my mind immediately flips it and goes into a thought experiment: what if the end of the world happened right now and affected everywhere except for this post office somehow, and this group of people is it, the last of the human race?
Do you ever do this? You’re on a bus, or a plane, or a crowded elevator, and you glance around at all the strangers around you and they mean nothing to you as individuals but you try to see them through a kind of survivalist filter and imagine that they become the most important people in your world? I think it was the TV show Lost that got me thinking this way. Those people on the plane were just a random mix of folks, but after crashing on a deserted island they became something else entirely. And roles emerge- one will become the leader, one will become the outcast. One will be good at building shelters, one will be the hunter. One will have secrets.
James will definitely be the leader, I think. He’s competent and compassionate and will be good at keeping spirits up. What about the woman in front of me in line? Tall, slender, long cardigan and highlighted hair in a low ponytail. I could see her being a good hunter- I can picture her crouched behind a boulder, bow and arrow poised. The guy in front of her looks like he would be more comfortable with a firearm of some sort- he looks like he’d be good at hunting as well, or maybe defense if there’s zombies or something. There’s a woman at the counter with a couple dozen small packages and James is patiently processing them one by one. She wears a colorful sweater, looks like a vintage 80’s or 90’s sweater, and has a short ponytail of fine, curly, light brown hair. I immediately see her next to a bonfire wrapped in a blanket, looking scared. She’s the delicate one, I think. She’s not adapting well to post-apocalypse life and she’s going to need some comforting. I imagine myself holding her while she cries, trying to be the family that she lost. That’s unfair, I think. So she looks soft- she might be surprisingly brave and tough. I shouldn’t stereotype her. But I just can’t imagine her bushwhacking through a jungle or breaking into an abandoned building for supplies. She’s tender.
Who will betray us? I wonder. There’s always someone who’s not a team player- who has some selfish scheme brewing, who’s not splitting the rations equally. I size up the other woman at the counter- she has a strong profile, square jaw. Late 40’s maybe. Her hair is long, curly and wiry, black mixed with silver. Maybe her, I think. She’s got ulterior motives. Maybe under other circumstances she can be kind and generous, but not when resources are scarce. She has a bigger purpose, something she has to stay alive for. Her loyalty is to her roots, to her past- not this group of people that fate has thrown her to.
But what about me? Who am I in this scenario? We still need a forager, I could be that. I could become an expert in plant identification, find edible mushrooms and cultivate crops. I could throw together stews from almost nothing, and maybe learn to be a kind of healer as well. Tonics, salves, massages. Well, and haircuts of course. People still need their hair cut in a post-apocalyptic world.
The Betrayer is done at the counter and the next person goes up. I noticed her earlier because she has a very unusual nose- it’s thin but pointed and sloping upward just like an elf’s nose. With some fake pointy ears she would make a very convincing elf or fairy. She looks youngish, maybe late 20’s. Long wild hair and dark clothes. I think that she, too, may have trouble getting along with the group. I could see her disappearing, going off on solo expeditions for unknown reasons, then reappearing suddenly with no explanation. She would have a certain distrust of structure and any new hierarchies forming. My eyes go to the small box in front of her on the counter and my breath catches- each side is covered with a large red and white sticker: “CREMATED REMAINS.”
I glance again to her face, looking for traces of grief. Her expression betrays no emotion. Who is in there? Who is she mailing it to? The existence of the box snaps me out of my fantasy, back to what’s actually happening. I don’t need to conjure tragedy in a made up scenario, it’s already here in this mundane moment. I want to know her story, I want to know if this is a significant moment for her, if she’s in the thick of something heavy and real and devastating, or if she has no personal connection with the box and its contents, if this is just one thing on a long To Do list.
As I’m thinking about this, Hunter Woman finishes her transaction with James and turns on a booted heel to stride briskly out the door. I make eye contact with him and am about to step up to the counter when he holds up his palms and says, “I need to take my break. I’m already late for my hot date!” He snatches up the water bottle next to him and disappears into the back, humming cheerfully. Of course James deserves a break and I’m glad he still has some time left for his hot date. But I can’t help it, I feel abandoned. James was our leader! What do we do without him?
In a few minutes I have my turn with the other postal worker, a petite Asian woman with bangs and long hair. Before she weighs my packages she takes a minute to organize her area, handing a stack of letters to a man she summoned from the back, emptying a crate of boxes into a larger crate; tossing the box of cremated remains into a canvas bag, then slapping the bag with another red and white sticker and shoving it through the fringe of a window behind her. She tosses some trash, replaces a pen to a cup, then takes a breath, reaching for my first box.
“How are you all holding up in here?” I ask.
She glances up at me briefly, then types an address into her computer. “We’re surviving,” she sighs.