ref: a00feb029ddcea6188f4324169e5f2b6a389de4e
dir: /troff/_-0302.ms/
.PP .ps 10 Stan never tampered with the mail. He did his job. It was the same every day. Mostly he kept his head down and avoided fraternizing with the other mail carriers. After some bad experiences early in his career he'd come to realize this was best. .PP .ps 10 On a typical day he would go home after work and hit the Doritos pretty hard. Often he'd just sit there in his La\-Z\-Boy until it was time for bed. Sometimes he'd even find himself still there in the morning. No big deal; most of what he needed when he did wake up was easily within reach. .PP .ps 10 It wasn't strictly necessary to speak to anyone at work. Most days, he didn't. Most of his conversations occurred between himself and the people who lived on his route. These conversations were by necessity short. The mechanical aspects of the business dictated that soon Stan would have to move on to the next house. Still, he remembered most of their names, most of the time. .PP .ps 10 Stan thought that there must have been a lot of people out there living their lives in a similar fashion. Maybe, sometimes, they got lonely. He'd never know, and he didn't particularly need to. .PP .ps 10 And he didn't really feel lonely. It was true that he was unique. Most storks (ibises?) didn't bother to live to his advanced age, never grew to his size, nor for that matter ever acquired human speech. He wasn't sure he'd want to talk to them anyway. He found that he didn't have much in common with other members of his species. It was better to keep to himself, to keep at a remove from the goings on of the greater stork world. .PP .ps 10 That was what he told himself as he drove the mail truck down the street every day.