To, From

It is eight o'clock in Amington Square. The world is glassy, gleaming. Magnus quickens his legs and flicks the melting snow from his cap as he walks, imagining the whole evening sky to be the curved dome of a snowglobe shaken curiously by the hands of a toddler too excited to sleep on the night before their birthday.

Perhaps one of those crude three-dollar souvenirs one could buy at the 24-hour store near Williamstone Fountain, in each gaudy bauble a poorly sculpted scene of Sentville's winter cheer.

A divan of scarlet present boxes, paint peeling off of the bows. A rowdy choir with dark-blue song books and mouths twisted into painful opera acrobatics. Five middle-aged women raising a toast in a bar, at their feet the glitter words Sentville Drinks 'Em Up!

Manon has fourteen of these cheap snowglobes at home; she likes to call them her novelty documentary of how the mayor went insane. Given that the city now has more tourist jingles than high schools, Magnus thinks that this is accurate.

Or perhaps - this is possible too - he and the whole world he knows are really being held by some wealthy preschool heiress, with rosy hands and salty fingers, playing with his life while she waited for her father to return from his latest conference in France or Switzerland or the deck of a towering cruise ship pushing through the Douro river.

Maybe she thought him stupid for being a postman, for only being a postman, too small to be worthwhile. Maybe she would soon grow tired of watching his life, his choices with her Yale-blue eyes. He imagines her throwing his globed world to a plush cream rug without even thinking, then again at the wall for good measure, and squeal for another toy, never knowing how cruel and beautiful the stars looked from the town square, how lonely it was to watch the lights in apartment buildings turn black at night, how wildly every first-grader howled when he brought them orange lollipops from the post office.

Magnus does not care for heiresses.

Were it not so spitefully, gloriously cold, he would be embarrassed by the letters he is delivering now. With each reach inside his bag he feels the cloying shapes of insincere well-wishes and thoughtless dreams; the lines of fresh black syrup running a river of names and ambitions and tell-them-I-said-hello's - all the I know no-one still writes letters now but I will pretend that I love you so much, so much, I'll write them until the world ends.

At a polished brownstone, curtains already drawn shut.

From: Jonna Barrett Shester; To: Sigmund Barrett

Siblings, probably.

Two streets across, into the gleaming slit in front of an ivory white duplex, a postcard from some seaside European town featuring striped parasols standing guard over round cafe tables.

From: Sheila Li; To: Lucy Wurtell

So warm here in Sanbocheda, so wish you were here! Everything is so so GORGEOUS xx heart heart heart

Eight more lines marveling at the fresh blueness of the sea, the myriad impossible fragrances of stone fruit pastries.

And even on the outskirts of Arison Hills, where no Jonna Barrett Shester or Lucy Wurtell would ever think to walk, a small red envelope addressed to Mrs. Tina Donovan from: Susi Smith, plastered in at least thirty stickers of flowers and cartoon characters. The handwriting is tiny and naive: a child, clearly - perhaps a thank-you letter to her teacher.

He is here to return it to sender; Mrs. Donovan's apartment building had recently been sold to a fast-food chain. You like the mustard, we've got ketchup too!

Magnus is not sure why the grand childishness of Susi Smith stings him, but he holds the envelope gently for a few more moments, turns the thin pocket back and forth between his fingers.

Sudsy Alpaca, Sentville's first major corporate sponsor. Other characters: Billy Bonka - a well-loved ripoff. Sir Twuffletoes, the animated badger created to mollify anger at

Oolia Troot, the Cereal Girl.

Magnus slows and readjusts his shoulder strap. He knows this neighbourhood well - he and Manon grew up here.

When the tourism boom hit, Arison Hills had dragged behind, stagnant, watching the rest of the city track tottering pioneer footprints in the snow. Each winter it languished further behind; each spring, when the footprints melted away, it became more and more sullen, rejected, obtuse, the border between it and the future overgrown by every neighbour's own emerald-green potential.

In time, it turned grey and quiet, remembered only just enough to be embarrassed of.

Magnus had left in summertime, moving to an apartment near the new postal office to attend university - Manon left with him.

He notices the primary school now, at the end of the street, shut down for winter break. He knows that even when it opens again only less than half of the students will attend.

How could this child have so much colour in her?

A strand of fairy lights hang from the inside of her front door; green, red, blue, they gleam with the possibility of returning, finding new possibility at home.

Magnus pauses, turns. At the corner of the street there is a For Sale sign, and he smiles.