What a Pain in the Neck

Burt walks into the empty lobby.  The footfalls of his black oxfords echo off the high ceilings and marble floors as he pulls the brass keychain from his pocket.  The blue collection box stands under rows of built-in post office boxes, each with a little door of burnished brass and a glass window revealing the presence or absence of mail.

He stops and frowns.  There it is again, that pain in his neck. He's been trying to ignore it for months. He reaches back to rub it and as he does, he hears a crack and his head topples forward, separating from his body. His left foot reacts as if he just dropped a jar of pickles, and boots his head across the floor. It bounces off a leg of the collection box and ricochets into a corner like a cue ball on a billiards table. It comes off with a lot of English, and spins to a stop on its ear, its eyes facing its body, which is still standing but has staggered against the wall.  Blood bubbles out the neck, then stops, casting the blue shirt in a pinkish hue.

Billy Winkler, a scrawny ten-year-old, walks in a few seconds later. Halloween is just a week away, so Billy thinks, "Sick!  How did they do that?"

Billy's mom Mandy is an enormous woman, a discus thrower and shot putter back in college.  She's on her way to stand in line when Billy cries,  "Look, Mom!  It's the headless horseman, but he's a mailman instead. They made it look like somebody cut his head off. Look at the bloody skid marks.  It's awesome."

Mandy is not amused.  "That's disgusting."  She stalks into the adjacent room, where customers in line shift their weight in postures of annoyance. She yells, "Hey!  I don't know whose idea this was, but it's very inappropriate for children and not funny at all."

The window clerk says, "Ma'am, you'll have to wait your turn."
"I will not. Not until you get somebody out here to remove that spectacle from the lobby."

"Ma'am. I'm helping this gentleman at the moment. I'll have to ask you to stand in line like everyone else. We'll help you with your problem as soon as we can."

The other customers glare at her.

"My problem? Didn't you people see what's out there?" They continue to glare.

She storms out. "Zombies!"

In the meantime, Burt's head and body have been telepathically communicating. The head says, "What just happened!?"

"I believe we're dying," the body replies.

"What!? Don't be ridiculous."

"I've been warning you about this pain for years."

"Liar. You never said a word about this."

"I have so. Hundreds of times. You never listen to me."

A man in a suit and tie hurries into the lobby. The head distracts him for half a second and he jams Burt in the gut with his box key. "What the hell is this?" he says, glancing from the body to the head and back again. "Damn kids!" He stalks out, muttering, "Probably all junk mail anyway."

The body says, "That really hurt. I think he may have broken the skin."

"Who cares?" the head says. "I'm trying to talk to you. Hello."

"Oh. You want to talk. Now. When it's too late."

The head looks more closely at the body and thinks, "Boy.  You really did let yourself go."

"I  heard that."

"Wait a second.  This is a nightmare, right?  This can't be happening."

"No.  It's happening.  We're finished.  Kaput."

When Mandy returns to the lobby, Billy is entranced, staring at the head.  Unbeknownst to her, he can hear the conversation between Burt's body parts.  He raises a hand, demanding silence.
The head says, "You didn't see this coming any more than I did."

"Maybe not, but I knew it was bad.  I tried and tried to tell you."

"Well, you didn't try hard enough."

"Can we please not fight?  We have precious little time left."

"What?  Speak up.  I can hardly hear you."

"You're fading, too.  I'll miss you."

"Miss me? You can't miss me. In oblivion we won't miss anything. And if there's an afterlife, we'll be reunited as if nothing happened and live on through eternity. Miss me—you're whacko."

"That is so funny. You were always funny. Childish, but funny.  I miss you already. Good bye."

"Yeah. Whatever."

The entire conversation is fixed in Billy's mind for all time.

A woman walks in from the street, does a double take and hurries over to join them. Burt's body collapses. Mandy gasps. The other woman screams, turning to mother and son. "That's Burt!" Pointing at the head, she cries, "That's my mailman!" Mandy goes white, and starts to fall.  Billy, the skinny little dear, tries to catch her. He spends the next four months in a body cast. After his recovery, he never tells a soul what he heard that day, not even his mother. Later in life he becomes a respected psychotherapist specializing in mind/body awareness and marriage counseling.