Tin Heart

Each morning, between 4:30 and 5:00, an old sedan of some sort pauses at the blue box stationed across the road from our home. The driver takes five seconds—tops—to slide our newspaper into the box’s pocket. I’ve never glimpsed his face or heard his voice, but I’d recognize the tinny rattle within the car’s exhaust system in any lineup.

The carrier is a name scrawled onto a greeting card every Christmas, tucked between the newspaper's pages like a surprise gift. He’s a ghost on the periphery of my morning—there, then not there, a glowing afterimage behind my eye.   

I wonder whether he takes note of the lamplight shining in our kitchen and the darkness in the house next door. Who is awake? Who is brewing coffee? Pouring milk into a child’s cereal bowl before school? What is the hound dog’s name that bays at his approach and then settles back into rabbit-y dreams? Does the carrier listen to the radio, or does he listen to the silence?

Miles unspool beneath his wheels, heading west. What entertains his thoughts in the glow of the dashboard? What melody beats within his heart? Only he knows.