the strange mail room, continuée par Jady

Amazing. And why does it sound like it's gonna be a half thriller half fantasy flick again? LoL. Ok, no discussion, I'll just continue.

So I was there in the grey, troubled downpour, fingering the stack and unsure what to do next when a deep voice suddenly boomed in my ear, 'boy, I believe those are for me, thank you very much.' I jumped and almost dropped the loosened bundle, and turned, shamefaced, only to be confronted by a stern, expressionless face. It was humid, warm day, and the moment I saw him I couldn't help cold goose bumps bobbing on my back—the man was well-built, and well-dressed in a black three-piece suit, which struck me as too thick for the weather and too formal anyway, his face, even and handsome, didn't betray the smallest hint at his age, but what made my nerves frantic with discomfort, was something I couldn't quite name. It was perhaps all the small yet very noticeable oddities about the man. His unblemished skin, for one, was pale and translucent like milky glass veined with faint lilac lines; his seagreen feline eyes, streaked with dark golden rays, held me steadfast and gave me an uncanny feeling that he could read my mind and was reading it there and then; but his gloved hands, though quick and polite when he reached over for the letters, were somewhat neurotically shaky. I held his gaze for only that couple of seconds, and he withdrew into himself like the setting sun calling back all the rays, suddenly inaccessibly distant, and quicky disappeared beyond the heavy oak doors of the old mansion. I don't know for how long I stood there, staring fixed at the crimson, immaculately maintained mansion, until one moment I suddenly shook awake, as if just escaped a nightmare, and rode my bike away as fast as my leaden limbs could manage.

Back to the post office. I put down the empty canvas bag and collapsed at one corner of the mail sorting room, drenched and still breathless from the strange encounter. Fortunately it was quite deserted in the late afternoon, I heard the postmaster answering a phone call in the next room, and no one else was around to witness my pale-faced aftershock. But I wasn't someone that scares easy and shrinks away in defeat from a mystery. My old man believed all along that I'd become a scientist or something, because I have an unusually strong, innate inquisitiveness in me that never let anything pass by unanswered or unexplained for, that I easily stood out from the simple, unquestioning townsfolk. And there I was on the cobblestone floor, calming down and devising plans to revisit the place and find out more, when a familiar voice halted my thoughts—'how ye doing my boy, you don't look too well. Must be the storm? Helluva heavy one eh, haven't had one like this in years..' 'yeah indeed. I think I'd better take off early and change into some dry clothes, sir, before I catch a cold or something.' I hurriedly cut the old postmaster short, before he lapsed into long reminiscence again. The old man worked here since as far as I could trace my memories back, and probably could be traced to years before I was even born. He's like the grandpa for every kid in town, a wise old man with a memory like an elephant's; almost a walking depository of the whole town's stories. He beamed at me and nodded permission. As I passed him, his wrinkles seemed a bit more gathered than his usual, relaxed self, and I wondered what could possibly be on his mind, troubling him. 'Take good care, son!' his last kind words reverberated in the dense downpour, almost like an admonishment; I waved him goodbye and broke into the pummeling rain.