<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Appointed Rounds</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">At first, he refused to deliver junk mail because it was stupid, all those deodorant ads, money-making ideas and contests. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Then he began to doubt the importance of the other mail he carried. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">He began to randomly select first class mail for non-delivery. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">After he had finished his mail route each day he would return home with his handful of letters and put them in attic. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">He didn’t open them and never even looked at them again. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">It was as if he were an agent of Fate, capricious and blind. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">In the several years before he was caught, friends vanished, marriages failed, business deals fell through. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Toward the end he became more and more bold, deleting houses, then whole blocks from his route. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">He began to feel he’d been born in the wrong era. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">If only he could have been a Pony Express rider galloping into some prairie town with an empty bag, </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">or the runner from Marathon collapsing in the streets of Athens, gasping, “No news.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Louis Jenkins </span></p></div></body></html>