He carries around a bag like a baby in a sling, full of new hopes for some and disappointments for others. Some of these things he’s delivering are gonna be ugly babies that people won’t want – some will be beautiful. He’s not on a bike or a motor bike or anything, just on foot . The sentry on our round. He reaches into his pouch, a dark cave where I presume the mail is layered by address. His hand reaches in and feels the rough texture of envelopes, the lumpiness of packages, the cellophane windows of hopeful bills. Sometimes bonded together with rubber bands.

I imagine him sitting back at the office before his round, organising these deliveries. A wide open bench under naked fluorescent lights the mutlicoloured envelopes being sorted into address order and placed in the bag . Hustling next to each other bobbing up and down as he’s out on his rounds , rain or shine he delivers on time. In the rain he wears an orange jacket and hood. The rain pelts away on the hood making a hollow middle dripping sound that by the end of this round might be reverberating around inside his head. On boiling summer days, his deodorant can’t handle it and his underarms become a stain of sweat. A shirt change is required. Winter gloves keep out the cold. He likes the freshness the aliveness of walking in the brisque air. It all keeps him fit for his weekend bushwalking obsession. Leading groups of less experienced walkers through swampy bogs and straggly confused thickets. Feeling like Indiana Jones with a machete in his hand , working through his weekday frustrations of misplaced envelopes and indecipherable addresses. ‘Whack’, another sappling gets it, the blade sending a judder up his right arm……