The low rumble of the mail sorting machine filled the room. A steady stream of envelopes and packages poured from its mouth and into a large plastic hamper. The dull, white container would hold all of Ponyville's mail in the next fifteen minutes. Until then, however, it was just a pile of names without faces, and addresses without homes, a series of meaningless letters and numbers. Meaningless, that is, until I got them. I gave them purpose, gave them meaning, gave them homes.

I stared blankly at the machine as it droned on and on, churning out a constant stream of thoughts and emotions, hopes and dreams, congratulations and condolences. Every piece of mail, every letter, every package, every envelope, held a piece of someone's life in it—a little part of their soul—and I was the messenger. I ferried these souls back and forth, perpetuating the endless cycle of happiness and longing, grief and regret. But I didn't begrudge it—the mailmare's job—not even a little. I loved it. I lived for it.

My line of sight broke as a pony passed in front of me. It was Courier. I followed him as he crossed the room and sat down at his desk. Courier was the only earth pony working at the post office. He was fast. I like Courier, he was always nice to me. When I first started working here he was the only one who talked to me. He didn't say much, “Good morning”, but it was enough.

I waved at him. He didn't see me. It's okay, I still like him.

Besides Courier, I was still the newest employee. Even then, I've still been here over four years. The post office doesn't hire new employees very often, mostly because they didn't need to. They didn't need to hire me, but they did. That's how government appointed jobs work.

I looked up at the clock. It was eight thirty-seven. That meant it was only another twenty minutes until the mail went out for delivery. I decided to kill time by watching the mail sorting machine.

Twenty minutes later my boss—Wax Seal—came up to me.

“I'm giving you ten mailbags to do today, hnkay?” he said.

I nodded. That was twice as many bags as I normally did, but I didn't want to complain.

“Great.” He clapped his hooves together. “You've got,” he looked down at list he was holding in front of him with his magic, “Cumulus Place, Evermore Street, Filia Street, Buckingham Street, Crystal Avenue, Sugarcube Lane, and Sweet Apple Acres.” He looked up from his list. “Hnkay?”

I nodded.

“That's great,” he said, barely hiding his contempt. “Here,” he said, handing me the list. “Take this with you, just to make sure you don't get lost.”

I took the paper from him. He smiled at me, then walked away. I looked at the paper. There weren't any names or addresses on it, just a crude drawing of a wall-eyed pegasus. I crumpled the paper up and tossed it into the trash.

Author's Notes:

I started writing this nearly a year ago as a sort of challenge to myself to see if I could write a story about a character being schizophrenic. I did all kinds of research on the subject, and spent a lot of time reading things from schizophrenics who talked about what it was like. Unfortunately, I came to realize that I simply didn't have the skill necessary to write such a fic, and likely still don't. Writing about something like schizophrenia is difficult, and even the best writers can really mess it up. I still maintain that Derpy fics are largely a waste of time, but if anyone ever wrote one about her being legitimately schizophrenic, I would totally read it.