The way technology is going lately, I’d be surprised if we aren’t just beaming objects to each other instead of waiting for postmen to deliver them. Back a few decades, I used to be a big fan of Sun Romp, the daring and ground-breaking tale of a ship heading into the unknown to find new aliens to press into manual labour for the glory of the human race. It was a different time. They had teleporters, if I recall correctly. Imagine the postal service back on planet Earth! If they even had one in that glorious, enlightened time.
Too bad it happened to coincide with me starting a job as an actual postman. I looked at my postage satchel, thought longingly of Sun Romp and felt a little bit inadequate. Why couldn’t I have been born 200 years or so in the future, when people didn’t have to lug heavy courier bags around and deliver mail? Nothing about it seemed fair at all. I was half-tempted to look up the whole situation on the internet to see if anyone was close to inventing teleport technology, except that internet wouldn’t be around for a good few years after that, so basically…it was a matter of reading newspapers, magazines and maybe giving some scientists a ring to see if they had anything to say on the matter. All I could find were crackpots and sensationalist pieces, so I just had to shoulder my heavy satchel bag and go about my rounds for the next few decades. Fortunately, I didn’t know how things would still be in 2016, with postmen still lugging around the post even now, when I’m retired. My seventeen-year-old self eventually grew out of childish fantasies, but even now, I’m still waiting. Not that I won’t be keeping my trusty courier satchel bags. Once people start teleporting their post, these things will be collectors items!
-Alvin