This morning was as shiny as a copper penny heads-up in the parking lot.  Encouraged by the premature summer sun, I went for a run.  Winter was melting, and rivulets of water flowed by me.  I stopped for a minute to watch liquefying lake-bound snow charge through piles of roadside sand.  The water was weak but determined, and, spurred on by gravity, I had no doubt that it could accomplish any task involving demolition.
      I met Tony at the coffee shop.  We brought our books and sat reading, enjoying the presence of each other.  His smell, like eucalyptus bark and lemon, infused the air with a balmy quality that always left me feeling drowsy and occassionally hypnotized.  I was probably falling asleep when Henry, my sociology professor, addressed me.
    "Ali?"
    "Henry?  Hi, Mr. Cunnington, how have you been?  How are classes this semester?"
    He replied politely, smoothing down his beard while he talked.  I hadn't forgotten that habit of his.  In turn, he asked me how I was and what I was up to.  Then he asked me what I was doing back in Wisconsin.  It was this last question that triggered some kind of spasm in my mental mechanism responsible for appropriate responses, and before I knew it, I was lying. I told him that during the process of scheduling dates for several interviews at New York publishing houses I suddenly realized I wanted to go into education and ditched the opportunities last minute, whereby I returned home and began applying to graduate programs with the hope of becoming an English teacher.
    "Why did you say that?" Tony asked, when Henry had sat down at a small table, out of earshot.
    I shook my head to indicate that I had no clue.  "I thought he wanted to hear it, maybe."
Tony furrowed his eyebrows and leaned forward as if he hadn't heard me correctly.  "But he wanted to hear the truth."
    I shrugged.  "Maybe it was the truth."

    On my way home I met the mailwoman at our mailbox.  She was trying to closed it, and her process of slamming it shut only to have it pop free from its latch and loll open reminded me of watching an exhausted adult fight with a manipulative child.  "I'll take it," I said, walking toward her after I parked the car in the driveway.  She retrieved the stack from inside the mailbox and handed it over.  Immediately, I recognized, tucked between advertisements, a follow-up bill--a reminder of the reminder that the bank had sent me two weeks ago. 
    "I heard that the Postal Service was going to quit offering service on Saturdays.  Do you think you could take these back and bring them to me on Monday, when I might have a job interview lined up?"  I held out the mail.  She scratched behind her ear and, after hesitating a moment, hopped back into her car.  I knew she knew what I was talking about.  She delivered bills everyday and she received them too.  "You're lucky to be in the public sector," I said.  "You know that?"
    She smiled.  "You could apply.  I didn't even have a degree when I signed up over twenty years ago."
    I nodded.  "Twenty years ago.  You would need a degree now to re-apply.  In fact I bet you wouldn't even qualify for your job.  You better hold on tightly to your position."
    She laughed and shifted uncomfortably in her seat, as if she did indeed feel perched precariously.  She lifted the car from its parking brake, and the vehicle started moving forward.  "You can't have my job," she called out the window.
    "I'll arm wrestle you for it.  We're probably equally eligible, if you consider merit-based requirements."
    She was gone, and I was left standing in mechanical flatulence.