I never thought he could do it. I never thought he would do it. But he did it.

I have been in a hospital bed for almost a month now. The only comfort I’ve felt was when the fat nurse brushed her swollen chest against the outside of my thigh a week ago when she changed my catheter bag. They took me off the painkillers after the first day because I kept insisting I was the Messiah and successfully converted two of the heathen janitors, who left my room stomping and clapping in elation to some syncopated rhythm.

Charles brought me my laptop last Tuesday, but today is the first day that I’ve had the dexterity to use it and give an update. I’ve been too weak even to eat the pizzas I’ve been prank-calling to the desk outside the ICU. Too weak to eat, too weak to drink. Too immobile to run a marathon and stand at the finish line smoking a cigarette, waiting for the Kenyans to catch up.

I guess I should probably tell you what happened now.

It started off as a standard Saturday. I had just placed the pudding on that asshole’s front steps, and I decided that I may as well treat myself to an ice cream cone for once. Charles was busy watching some robot play soccer and fall down stairs, so I went to Ice Cream Shack alone. I continue to kick myself for this decision. I order a small chocolate soft-serve in a wafer cone because I like to crunch obnoxiously in other patrons’ ears. The ice cream was so delicious – reminded me of the pudding, but colder and less vengeful.

Then all of a sudden it hit me. The front end of the mail truck. It came crashing through the wall at a high rate of speed and knocked me back into the counter. A child screamed – I’ll never forget that. I forced myself to my feet through the haze that had formed in my head and shook it off. The door to the truck was kicked open, and out jumped the Postman. He threw his hat to the ground and stormed at me, grabbing the collar of my shirt and wailing on my face. Sputtering blood, I tried to form a proper sentence. As soon as I got the words in my mouth, he broke my jaw three places, effectively silencing me, sans the screams of pain. “You didn’t think I’d find you, huh, you piece of shit? Well here I am, in the flesh!” With that last word, he dug his fist into my xiphoid process, splintering the end off and puncturing my right lung. The blow knocked the wind out of me, and I gasped for air. I was bewildered, panicked, and just plain afraid for my life. He turned on his heel and stormed back to the truck. What did I do to deserve this? I thought, heart racing.

Then I remembered. I had been stealing his mail for close to a year now. First it was just from his mailbox at home. I figured it was ironic in some way. He caught on, so he got a P.O. box, thinking himself the victor. However, I have an in at the post office, so I was able to get a copy of his key and take his mail there. I always returned it a week later, but sometimes he missed bills and stuff, so I could see why he’d be mad about it. One time he got the J.C. Penney catalog. I kept it. Finally I got caught in the act: I was leafing through the mail before I even closed the box, and he jumped out from around the corner. “AHA!” he screamed in my face. Frightened like a teenage girl during a jumpy scene in a scary movie, I tossed the mail in the air and ran all the way home.

He reached into his truck and pulled out a metal baseball bat – a light one for Little League, but it was still a metal fucking bat. He kicked the door to his truck closed as dust and grime still floated in the air from the demolished wall. The rays of sunlight shining through the floating debris lit up my badly bruised and bloodied face. I put my right hand up to say “stop,” but with excellent form he swung through my hand, shattering my wrist and hand bones. I screamed again. The Postman said, “I never forgot your face. It was burned in my mind. You wanna know why? It was you that made me miss my credit card payments – I’m in the hole fifty grand because of you! On top of that, my electricity and water got shut off, and I couldn’t shower for days! I was lucky they let me keep my job! But I smelled so bad that all the women I had prospects of dating won’t have anything to do with me anymore. I’m getting too old to start over now! For weeks I tried tracking you down, and finally I found out your name and address. But no, I wasn’t about to come to your house! Oh no, I would wait until the perfect moment to strike. And now I am giving you what you truly deserve!”

He hit me in the shins over ten times, and I could feel them lose their shape as the pieces of bone got smaller and more disintegrated. I was moaning in the fetal position, trying anything to guard myself. He thrust his boot into my throat, telling me to “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” He crushed my trachea, and shut up I did. He kicked me in the gut again for good measure. I felt something tear, and I later found out it was the lining of my stomach, causing the acid to ooze throughout my system. “And now,” he said, “this is it.” He raised the bat over his head, and I tightened all the muscles that functioned as I prepared for death.

I heard a barrage of bangs and some loud screaming. I blacked out.

I dreamt that I was in the park holding hands with that asshole dog from next door. We were dancing in a circle and having a bliss-filled time doing it. I sang, the dog barked. I gave it a fresh bone that I got from the butcher, and the dog laughed. And I laughed. And laughed.

I woke up with a tube down my throat, my jaw wired shut, and my eyes barely able to open. I was able to open them enough to see a doctor standing there, telling me to keep my eyes closed to get the swelling down. He explained that if the S.W.A.T. team hadn’t shown up at that very moment, I would have been in one of those neat roll-out freezers in the morgue. I kind of wished I were there. Both because being dead would be better than the pain I was enduring, and because I always wanted to play in one of those.

Being pretty much immobilized, I had a lot of time to think. How did Mr. Postman find me? He said he knew my name, my address… What else did he know? He hadn’t been following me, I would have noticed. But he knew exactly where I was…

And then it hit me. It hit me like that fucking mail truck. The Schedule. He had been reading The Schedule. He knew where I was at all times, who I was with, what I was doing. Even better, he knew what I was going to do in advance. HE KNEW BECAUSE I FUCKING TOLD HIM. I TOLD HIM WHERE TO FIND ME AT ANY POINT IN TIME, AND HE FOUND ME. I screamed in anger at myself, at my pain, at anything in that room that would listen. The fuckin’ fatass nurse heard me, but she kept eating her two Hungry Man dinners. I saw her glance over, then look back at the food and stuff her fat fucking face.

So from this point on, there will be no “schedule,” persay. Sure, I will still do things as soon as I heal, but I will not schedule them. At least, I won’t let the whole world see what my plans are – you will hear about things as soon as they happen, don’t worry. It may not be every day, maybe not even every other day, but updates will be fairly regular. Please, everyone, learn from my follies: if you’re going to steal someone’s mail, DON’T GET CAUGHT.

Anyway, Charles’ burns healed up real nicely (see last post) – he took the dead skin that had peeled off and made a stock out of it.