A small mailman's truck drives out of a city. It is winter, snowing. The truck drives down a freeway, it passes through suburbs. It drives down a long and windy, snow-covered road.

The truck reaches the end of the country road. The mailman exits. Draping a small mailbag over his shoulder, he takes off walking through a field.

Through another field.

Up and over a mountain.

A small cabin can be seen in the distance, its chimney smoking.

The mailman reaches the door. He knocks. A little old woman answers. She must be pushing 100 years, at least. She moves incredibly slow.

"Why hello there," she says.

"Hello, Mrs. Breckenridge," replies the mailman, unenthused and out of breath.

The mailman hands her a postcard from Miami, Florida. She reads it. She tells the mailman to hold on one second.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," the mailman snaps back, impatiently.

The little old woman takes the postcard over to a small table, where a chess board is set up. She double checks the card. It reads, "rook takes pawn D7."

The little old woman moves the rook accordingly, expresses a brief moment of frustration ("Dammit, I should've seen that!"), and then contemplates her next move. On the wall behind her are over two dozen Miami postcards.

After some time, "Ah!" says the little old woman, having found her move, and she slides her Queen one square backwards. She then writes down her move on the back of an Alaskan postcard, and slowly walks it over to the mailman.

"Check mate, right?" says the mailman with faux hope. "On the back of this card it says, 'check mate'?!"

"Oh, that would be nice now, wouldn't it?" says the little old woman, handing the mailman the postcard. He doesn't even bother looking at it. He just shoves it in his bag and turns.

The door is closed. The mailman begins the long walk back to his truck, angry and cold.

"I hate everything," the mailman says.

© 2005 Thomas Edward Bayne