Postman
Late May. The twittering of steppeland birds. Buzzing. The dive-bombing flights of impetuous multicoloured wasps: yellow and brown, red and black, bane of chance passers-by. Gadflies, as usual, circle above the steppelands in search of potential victims, but success smiles on them less and less often: everything living is hiding in its lair. The tulips' tender petals have long ago been seared away, their once elegant little stalks are drooping, and only occasionally in the dawn there flash here and there the little glints of rare belated red poppies, but they too will be immediately scorched by the merciless rays of the sun, which is growing fiercer by the day.
Outlandish heat. I am 14 years old. I am the village postman. My bicycle travels the long, winding, deserted streets of
