Postal Clerk Slays Self in Shooting Melee
Winston-Salem—The Associated Press
Violence erupted at the main post office in Winston-Salem Tuesday as long-time U.S. Postal Service employee Waddel Fuller pulled a semi-automatic rifle from beneath the customer service counter and fired point-blank at a waiting postal patron. Fuller was killed instantly when the bullet ricocheted off of a chain securing a ballpoint pen to a writing counter and hit him in the temple.
The patron, a devil, was killed but instantly reconstituted. Other patrons, and Postal Service employees, who dived behind sorting racks and postal scales, were unharmed.
Co-workers say that Fuller was distraught at repeated, unreasonable requests from the patron on whom he fired. These apparently included multiple daily hold-mail/start-mail orders and odd stamp requests. Said colleague Mark Snyder, "This time the guy wanted six hundred sixty-six one-cent stamps, and wanted to pay for them with pennies. Wade had just had it."
Postmaster Bob Stern said that Fuller "was a quiet man, and a darn good counter agent. I just can't believe it."
Asked for comment, the devil, who declined to be identified would say only, "This unfortunate incident should not discourage anyone from stamp collecting as only fifteen stamp collectors have been killed by post office employees during the last year."
Following the incident, a bill materialized in the air over Fuller's body. The bill, for $24,371.35, demanded payment for the destruction of the Hellraised body, but was charged, not to Fuller, but to the Postal Service. Postal officials are forwarding the bill to Washington, DC.
"Dear Steve," Rhea typed. "Thanks for letting me look at your paper. It's brilliant as always, but I think you could derive that tensor sequence on page three a bit more cleanly." She pulled down the math editing menu and keyed in a bristly, frightening-looking equation. "That should eliminate steps five through twelve," she continued. "I look forward to reading the finished version! Take care of yourself."
She added her digitized signature, and hit send. The message disappeared from her screen, and Rhea sat back and smiled. It was good to keep her hand in—she didn't get much time nowadays, especially the way things were going.
It had been a long week today. Jan had been on another line every time Rhea had buzzed her, and Rhea strongly suspected she was lining up interviews. It would be easy to check, and she knew Jan would own up to it if asked, but there wouldn't be any point. What was Rhea going to do—ask her people not to look after their own futures? If she couldn't guarantee their jobs, they had every right to look elsewhere, and those who weren't already looking would be soon; she'd seen the black mood during her walk-through this morning. The worst thing was that several people had tried to cheer her up. They were a good bunch, and she was letting them down.
Things had been a lot simpler in Heaven, where money was never an issue and everything worked more or less the way it was supposed to, and a whole lot easier in Hell—there you were supposed to let people down if at all possible.
She was worried about Jack too. Not about his job; he would have people calling him if he ever hinted he was ready to leave, but about his well-being. She knew he wasn't getting enough sleep, and she could almost feel the waves of frustration rolling from his office every time she walked in. She wished she could tell him to work on something else for a while, but the MULE drive was the heart of her program. With it, she would have investors. Without it, she had speculators.
She had her own work to do too to keep the ball rolling. It was time she got back to it. She kept three baskets on her desk. One said in, one said out, and one said too hard. The in basket was empty, so she had no excuse to keep her away from the too hard basket. She sighed, and picked a random sheaf of papers from midway down in the stack. After the first couple of pages, she was seriously considering establishing a too boring basket, but she made herself read through the memo to the end, then drafted a short e-mail note to Jan for action.
Outside the sky was black with low-hanging clouds, and in the distance Rhea could see flashes of lightning. It wasn't raining yet, but the stage was set for a lollapalooza of a spring thunderstorm, and she had a front row seat. Maybe the too hard basket would take a direct hit, but Rhea doubted it. He wasn't going to do her any favors.
She pulled another sheaf. This one was a government form with thirteen attachments, all written in Old High Federalese. She started parsing the first paragraph, got sucked down into a dependent clause and didn't come up for air until half a page later—and she still wasn't sure what it said. Rhea frowned. The words were all clear enough, but they didn't seem to get along well together. She pulled a pencil from her desk drawer and diagrammed the sentence. It fell neatly into place, and confirmed her original impression; the second clause completely nullified the first clause for a net meaning of zero. Your tax dollars at work, she thought and took a guess at what the government probably meant for it to mean. She filled out the rest of the form, then tagged it with a Post-It for Jan to mail.
She was debating the merits of trying another too hard versus going skunk wrestling when the phone rang. It was her private line, the one that didn't go through Jan's switchboard. She let it ring three times, then picked it up. "Hello," she said, "Rhea Samuels."
"Ms. Samuels," the voice on the other end said, "this is Al Roberts, TRITEL. Figured you might still be there. Have you eaten?"
"No," Rhea said cautiously, "I haven't."
"Well, can you meet me at the Angus Barn at eight? You can bring the contracts we discussed—I don't think you'll be disappointed."
Rhea looked at her too hard box and laughed. "I'm filling out government forms. A disappointment would be a step up right now. Something good would be beyond belief. So I'll see you at eight."
"Great."
Rhea hung up, smiling. Outside, fat, heavy drops of rain were starting to fall. But maybe, just maybe, she could see a rainbow.